What do nuns do? The exclusive happy truth.

While I was working as a research scientist, I spent three years visiting convents and almost became a nun. I got to know several different communities so that, before making any important decisions, I would finally know the answer to the question, “What do nuns do?”

A nun’s life is prayer, work and service, fellowship and recreation.

The soul of a nun’s life is prayer–in particular, the Holy Liturgy, which includes the Liturgy of the Eucharist (otherwise known as the Catholic Mass) and the Liturgy of the Hours (otherwise known as the Divine Office). These are the most important aspects of a nun’s life. The second most important would be service to others. However, in addition to all of that, nuns also know how to have fun!

Back in 2015, after years of praying to find my mission and purpose, I made my first trip to a convent. Getting to this point was a long process. I had been in graduate school and one year away from finishing my doctoral degree in physics when, in my free time, I became interested in learning more about religion. I’m an avid reader and love to research any old topic and can be somewhat obsessive at first, so I read everything I came across, almost in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way.

I had not been raised in any faith tradition and had grown up agnostic so it was all new to me. However, I had always felt drawn to Christianity and attended church services whenever I was invited by a friend or relative. After reading about other major religions, I turned back and set my focus on Christianity. As an analytical thinker and having minored in Ancient Greek Language and Literature as an undergraduate, I was drawn to philosopher/theologians like Thomas Aquinas who used the works of Aristotle as a starting point for his theological discourse. Through this reading I came to believe in the theology of the Catholic Church.

It’s important to understand that Catholic theology teaches that every person, created in the image and likeness of God, has a special mission and purpose that only he/she can fulfill. Discovering this purpose allows us to accept our mission wholeheartedly and to experience the greatest sense of fulfillment. Because of this, a man should only become a priest or a monk and a woman should only become a nun if he/she feels divinely called to do so.

After becoming a member of the Catholic Church on Easter Vigil in 2011, one year after finishing my doctoral degree in physics and during my first year working as a research scientist, I began wondering what my mission and purpose might be. I had never asked myself this question before. Now that I was Catholic, a potential answer to that question was to become a nun.

I asked a priest that I knew to be my spiritual director, which meant that we would meet together once a month with him being something of an accountability partner to keep me on track with frequent prayer and to discuss any struggles I might be having. Another part of his role was to help me discern what God might be calling me to do in various situations. Of course, we frequently discussed my feelings regarding my purpose and what my vocation might be. In other words, was I called to stay single, to enter a convent, or to get married.

Prayer, meditation, and contemplation–these felt so good to me. What higher purpose could there be than spending as much time as possible on those activities and becoming ever more deeply connected with God? I knew about the sacrifices that entering a convent would entail. I would not see my family very often and I knew that I would miss them terribly. I worried about how they would get along without me, especially since I grew up in a single-parent home with only one sibling. However, I also trusted that, if God were truly calling me to the convent, then He would take care of my family far better than I could have on my own. I decided to take the first baby steps toward entering a convent. Most communities call this a Come-and-See visit, after John 1:39 where Jesus invites the disciples to come and see where he is staying.

“Women religious” is a term that encompasses both nuns and Sisters. The latter are colloquially referred to as nuns, since most people are unfamiliar with the distinction. However, nuns are technically cloistered women religious, which means that they interact very little with the outside world–much like the nuns in Sister Act. These communities are also referred to as fully contemplative religious communities because most of their ministry is time spent in prayer while separated from the outside world. There are also fully active communities, like the community initially founded by Mother Teresa (before adding a contemplative branch). These Sisters remain as prayerful as possible while spending most of their ministry time completing charitable acts outside of the convent. Finally, there are communities that are a mixture of the two, sometimes referred to as semi-contemplative. I felt strongly that I was called to remain in contact with the world, but I also thrived on silence and prayer, so I focused on these semi-contemplative communities.

At the time, I was already in formation with the Lay Missionaries of Charity, the lay branch of Mother Teresa’s community, so I had a lot of experience with prayer and service within the context of a religious community. The most novel experiences on my trips to the convents were the periods of recreation with the Sisters. These are the source of some of my happiest memories!