Three Questions to Consider In the Process for Becoming a Nun

Welcome to our “Ask The Nun” series of informal videos.  Sister Mary McCormick begins by kind of stating the obvious. There are 3 prerequisites that need to be established before you can even begin thinking about it seriously. Sister Mary will put these in a series of questions.

First, are you Catholic? There are nuns in other religions (Buddhism, for example) and in other Christian denominations (the Church of England). But in the western world, the vast majority of nuns are Catholic. This includes nuns who are part of other “rites” of the church, like Byzantine or Maronite and nuns who are part of the Orthodox church.

Second, are you single and free from any other life commitments? The expectation of the Church and religious communities is that, if you enter a particular community, you will live with the group and commit your life in service to God with them. So you need to be single. That being said, people always have a question about those who are divorced. I will come back to that later.

Third, do you have dependent children? Again, the church and the community will expect that you dedicate you entire life to God. If you have children who are dependent on you for parental or financial support, that is your primary task in life right now. Once children are at an age where they no longer need your parental and financial support, if you are single, you might consider religious life again.

Once those questions are answered with 2 “yeses” and a “no” you can begin to move to the next step.

Please submit your questions to [email protected]