A cross to bear

Some young women are giving up a traditional lifestyle for one of chastity, obedience and poverty. Meet four women dedicating their youth­ — and future — to God.

 by Celeste Sepessy
 published on Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Sam Nalven / STATE PRESS MAGAZINE

Christa Parra, 26, is a candidate with the Loreto Sisters in Phoenix. Parra decided to become a nun after six years of discernment.

Sam Nalven / STATE PRESS MAGAZINE

Sisters Maria Christi and Martin Thérèse say more traditional convents are becoming revived, in part because of the presence of the habit.

Sam Nalven / STATE PRESS MAGAZINE

Sarah Cieplinski, 24, entered college knowing she wanted to become a Sister. She is awaiting acceptance from the Sisters of Notre Dame order.

Christa Parra knelt in front of the altar. She was praying for direction.

"You don't want to listen to me because you're afraid of what I might tell you," she heard God say.

He was right. She didn't want to listen. She was 20 years old. She was afraid and alone in Phoenix's Saint Simon and Jude Cathedral.

Just then, Sister Gabby walked into the church to pray for more women to join the sisterhood. She broke the silence.

"Have you ever thought about being a nun?" the voice echoed through the church.
"No way, I want a family," Parra said. "I can't be a nun."

Sister Gabby encouraged Parra to visit the convent when she was ready. Then she left.

Parra now sees that visit as the guidance she was looking for.

"I was at a crossroads in my life," Parra says. "I asked God what He wants, and this is what He presented me."

Six years later, she would become a nun.

Society changed

When Sister Jean Steffes joined the Sisters of Saint Agnes 41 years ago, she devoted her life to Christ with 43 other women.

Now, she says people join in ones and twos.

"There are fewer nuns worldwide and in the United States," she says. "It's been a pretty dramatic change over the years."

In 1965, there were nearly 180,000 sisters in the U.S., according to Georgetown's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. The number has dropped to 63,699 nuns last year.

Of these women, 426 are in Arizona, according to the Official Catholic Directory 2007. There are approximately 50 different orders in Arizona. Steffes says women are joining the more traditional orders, like the Dominicans.

Hospitals, orphanages and schools relied on nuns to provide services 40 years ago, says Steffes, the director of Offices of Religious at the Diocese of Phoenix.

"Society changed," Steffes says. "It meant that Catholic women had options that they didn't have before."

Orders now prefer Sisters to have at least some college education, Steffes says.
This differs from the past, when women often entered while in high school or directly afterward.

While Steffes says more women are joining, she doesn't expect numbers to surge.
"There are more people entering now than there were," she says. "But still not in the numbers that were 30 years ago."

Most likely to become a nun?

"The idea of being a sister terrified me," Parra, 26, says. "I wanted to be a mother; I wanted to be a wife."

Even still, she took advantage of Sister Gabby's offer and met her every week. She says she wanted to strengthen her spirituality.

"I would tell her all of these reasons why I couldn't be a sister," she says. "There was absolutely no way I would be a nun."

Parra says this was when "the seed was planted."

She lives with the Loreto Sisters at her home church, Saint Simon and Jude Parish.

Parra is a candidate and will leave to start her novitiate training, the first step to becoming a sister, in Chicago in September. She moved into the convent Feb. 2.

At first, Parra says she did not welcome the idea, especially at age 20.

"Girls my age don't even think of that as an option," she says.

Over the course of six years, Parra began the discernment process, when one prays to God, asking whether a religious life is the correct choice. In the meantime, she graduated from Grand Canyon University with a degree in communications and started working at Wells Fargo as a teller trainer.

Parra regularly attended mass with her Catholic family throughout her childhood. She says her faith was strong and her parents acted as spiritual inspiration.

"I had a boyfriend, I was a cheerleader, I was active and involved," she says of her high school life.

She was surprised when senior year she read the school newspaper.

"My high school class voted me 'Most likely to become a nun,'" she says. "That was news to me."

Parra is not the stereotypical nun.

She has a tattoo of a flower with seven petals, one for each of her best friends. Her cardigan, pencil skirt and pumps are appropriate for a young professional.

A simple crucifix hangs from her neck. Parra's order does not wear the traditional black clothing, but instead only a bronze crucifix.

Parra says she made her decision two years ago.

"I just gave everything to God," she says. "I was completely, for the first time in my life, 150 percent open to what God wanted me to do."

She attended an eight-day silent retreat. There, she wrote a "grace history," in which she documented every memory she had.

"It occurred to me that He is the one constant that is in my life," she says. "I realized that this was my calling."

She says she still struggled with her decision.

"That year was a struggle between God's will and my will," she says. "It's really giving up everything you've ever wanted, dreamed of, desired and opening up yourself to the will of God."

Since accepting that, Parra says she has not looked back.

"I know I am where God wants me to be," she says.

A lifelong habit

In the Arizona sun, Sisters Maria Christi and Martin Thérèse are cloaked in black. Unlike Parra's order, they dress in the traditional clothing of nuns — the habit.

These Dominican Sisters belong to the Mary Mother of the Eucharist order based in Michigan and joined at an early age.

Sister Maria Christi, 29, joined while she was a senior in college at 21.

Sister Martin Thérèse also joined eight years ago at age 26. The two teach at Saint Thomas the Apostle Elementary School in Phoenix.

"There's been a renewal of religious life," Sister Martin Thérèse says. "It's truly the springtime of the church."

Recently, more sisters have been joining their order.

The average age of the 77 sisters in the order is 28, Sister Martin Thérèse says. The average age of sisters joining is 21.

The sisters say this is in part because traditional orders that wear the habit are becoming revived. Unlike the Dominican order, some sisters are not required to live in a convent or wear the habit.

"Why would anyone want to be religious if they're living in their own apartment?" Sister Martin Thérèse says.

She says many people don't even know these women are nuns.

"I'd rather go all the way or nothing," Sister Martin Thérèse says.

Sister Maria Christi says seeing nuns in the habit earlier in life may have affected her future vocation.

"I was not inspired to be a sister at all because I had no good example," she says. "I wonder if I would've seen sisters long before my senior year in college, would I have known I had a vocation sooner?"

The two women say they can see their students becoming inspired and interested in religious life.

"These little kids never talked about being sisters until our community got here," Sister Martin Thérèse says. "It's because they're seeing the habit. It's a possibility now."

No schedule conflict

At the dinner table, Parra helps clear dishes from her sisters' Easter-yellow placemats.

Irish accents hang heavy in the dining room as the women discuss upcoming Phoenix Suns' games and the night's choice of desserts — pecan pie, apple pie or fruit salad.

She is one of 12 Loreto sisters at the Phoenix convent, nine of which are Irish.

The next youngest is in her early 50s.

"These sisters are real women," she says. "They have good days and bad days and personality conflicts."

Parra spends her days with 11 Sisters — beginning with Mass at 6:15 every morning. By 7:30 a.m., she is at work in downtown Phoenix.

The Sisters have a strict schedule, Parra says. By the time she usually returns to the convent at six, community prayer and dinner are finished.

"I could sit in the dining room and eat by myself, but there are always a few Sisters waiting for me," she says.

Parra says she often talks to Sister Gabby and her spiritual advisor, Sister Christine, after dinner. Then she has a half hour of meditation and another half hour of journaling and prayer before bed.

Parra says she doesn't have much free time.

"There are sacrifices involved, but what vocation doesn't have sacrifices?" she says.

Sister Gabby says she is thankful Parra is dedicating her youth to God.

"Christa is a beautiful, gracious woman who's going to enrich our order," she says. "She knows what she's giving up."

Closing the generational gap

Sarah Cieplinski, of Mesa, entered Gonzaga University knowing she wanted to become a sister.

The 24-year-old says she began her discernment while preparing for her religious confirmation as a junior in high school.

In July, she will find out whether she was invited to join the Sisters of Notre Dame order, seven years after she began discerning.

The order is more than 200 years old. Its members are active in the community and also wear a simple, bronze crucifix to signify their devotion.

By the end of sophomore year, she says she made up her mind. "I knew I wouldn't be able to live any other way," she says.

But she did. And Cieplinski, who is currently a middle-school special education teacher, eagerly awaits the sisters' decision. If she is accepted, she will move into the convent this summer.

"I'm stuck between the current moment and the future of God's plan," she says.

Every week, Cieplinski attends spiritual advising and visits with the sisters, whose ages range from 50s to mid-90s. Most of the nuns, she says, are in their 80s.

"I don't get to meet very many women who are my age," she says. "Some of the sisters I know are celebrating 25 years in the order."

Cieplinski insists this generational gap is not a problem because she says she relates well to the older women. Regardless, she says the vocation of the nun is one of an older era.

"The order's dying out," she says.

Luckily, many young women are taking vows of sisterhood in South America and Africa, Cieplinski says.

The order is essentially switching older members for new ones, and Cieplinski says the community must adapt for the future.

"The community is going through major changes," she says. "They know they're looking at the future of their livelihood."

A mother of thousands

Parra is often asked, "Don't you want to be a mother and a wife?"

"Of course I do," she says. "But when you're God's servant, He's going to make you a mother of many, of thousands."

In September, Parra will go to Chicago and leave the sisters for three years while she completes her one-year novitiate and two-year postulant training periods. (See "The process of becoming a nun" sidebar.)

She says she could end up anywhere after she completes her training and makes her vows.

"I don't know where I'll be, and I'm fine with that," she says.

These are Parra's last months with a cell phone, a car, a job, a bank account and a 401k.

"People think that's stability," she says. "But God's my retirement plan now."

— celeste.sepessy@asu.edu