Ever wanted to be a nun?


It's my opinion that every Catholic girl, at one point or another, wants to become a nun. Anyone agree with me? I know almost the entirety of the year I was eleven years old I wanted to be a nun.

"It's beyond my control."

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I wanted to be a nun right up until the hair cutting scene in The Nun's Story.
I could never see myself giving up my hair which then was my pride and joy.

The Long Walk stops every year, just once.

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The hair-cutting scene terrified me...I was probably too young to see a film like this and for years afterwards I was afraid of everything to do with Catholicism.

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Ha! I couldn't disagree more! I was brought up Catholic, went to a Catholic school where I knew nuns and I couldn't wait to be gone. I never had that desire; I always found the lifestyle a little sad.

To thine own self be true.

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Boom, my answer exactly! From my first day in first grade, I totally "felt" the different personalities and the plausibility of the lifestyle -- after all, there they were, packed into the convent by night and teaching us by day -- but it still seemed somehow alien and, as you say, sad.


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Please put some dashes above your sig line so I won't think it's part of your dumb post.

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As a kid, I thought about becoming a nun because, I love the movie Sound of Music and I thought I could play in the mountains all day and visit the barn animals but now, I could never be a nun. I love the idea of growing old together with someone you love and spending your life with that person is such a beautiful thing.

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I don't think that applies to 'every' Catholic girl. One of my oldest friends was brought up in a strict Catholic family and educated at a Convent. She was expelled for putting ink in the Holy Water! She was ecstatic.
Definitely not true that every Catholic girl wants to be a nun.

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I asked several Catholics I know if they wanted to be a nun. They said "no". So that theory is not true.

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Also, very few male Catholics want to become nuns.

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I flit with it. If I ever get dead broke with no where to go, I'd join a Benedictine convent (if they'd have me)...at least for a while. Not sure if it would be for the rest of my life though.

I think I'm too "worldly" to make it a profession.

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I definitely thought the idea had appeal after poring over "Butler's Lives of the Saint" in my early teens. However, I ended up very happily married..

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When I was a kid, there was a Roman Catholic school in my neighborhood which had an attached nun's residence. I used to see them walking all the time... If you smiled and said "Hi, sister," they would smile back. I loved it! They looked so peaceful. I loved the clothes they wore and wanted to wear them, too. I also had a Catholic friend who went to that school, and who had the most wonderful nun doll - about the size of Barbie, and very elaborate - little tiny glasses, a beautiful habit, complete with a tiny rosary and prayer book. Oh, how I wanted to have a doll like that! And Oh, how I wanted to be a nun, someday! - even tho I am not Catholic myself. I could not understand that my Catholic friend had no such desire.

At some point I grew up, and I realized my thoughts were very romanticized, and had nothing to do with reality. However, I still admire their lives of dedicated faith, and have the utmost respect for them.

Edit:
"It's my opinion that every Catholic girl, at one point or another, wants to become a nun."

I recall a psychology professor saying that (in what ever context). Only he said it not as an opinion; he stated it as absolute fact. Apparently, according to some of these posts, he was as wrong as I felt him to be at the time.

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Well your friend sure doesn't sound very Catholic to begin with, so I don't know that she counts.

Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts.

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I've wanted to be a nun, but there have always been just two little problems. First, I'm not catholic. And second, I'm a male.

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The first time I entered a convent, I really wanted to be a nun. But, Im a male, so that didnt go so well. I think that many Catholic girls think about the convent, but many dont know the life as well. Retreats are very beneficial in this way.
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"He's the one... he can do it."- Ray Charles on Jamie Foxx playing him

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You can still convert and become a brother (male equivalent of a sister (nun)).

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Before the industrial revolution and the modern era that brought with it a plethora of educational and vocational opportunities for unmarried women, there were very few opportunities for girls -- especially if you came from a poor family.

In the times before the 20th Century and even during the Victorian era, a young woman either married early, which brought about social stability and financial security, or she had to rely on extremely wealthy parents to support her until she eventually got married off.

As there was an absence of factory jobs that employed armies of young girls back then, e.g., working in textile mills in the big city, for many young, unattached women of modest means especially in Europe during the pre-modern era, the options for employment were few and far inbetween.

Basically, the only respectable options for a working-class girl of modest means would be to either find a husband of means to marry her, work as a domestic for a wealthy family, or join a convent. For those who couldn't or wouldn't do the aforementioned, of course, there was always prostitution, and for anyone who has ever seen the movie "The French Lieutenant's Woman" will know that the ratio of prostitutes to men in Victorian and Edwardian England was something like 10:1.

So of course, young women nowadays, raised on a steady diet of womens' lib, carpe diem, and "the world is their oyster", would hardly find being a nun a viable option let alone a career, when they can just as easily do anything a man can, e.g, doctor, lawyer, banker, entrepreneur, artist, writer, designer, CEO, president, politician, business owner, professor, teacher, civil servant, soldier, police officer, etc.

That said, I think the question presented in the op should be rephrased: "If you were growing up in 19th Century Europe with the family background that you currently have now (back then, you were either a royal, an aristocrat, or a commoner, or a member of the unemployed or working class), would you consider being a nun, and if not, what would you prefer doing, i.e., get married (to whom?), work as a domestic (a servant, where you'd probably get sexually harrassed, raped -- depending on your looks -- and/or abused), or work as a prostitute/bar wench?

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Very interesting, but some women, then and now, became nuns because they had faith. My cousin, who is 12 years older than I am, is an elementary school teacher and Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet. She felt called to the religious life,simple as that.

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OCOKA
That is a truly excellent essay, thank you!

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Absolutely correct. I wrote an essay in Catholic high school that basically said the same thing that you did, the teacher still didn't like it.

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Well, you certainly don't have to be Catholic to want to be a nun. There are nuns in almost every Christian denomination. I did consider it - briefly. I seem to remember telling my mom I wanted to be a nun and she just went "yeah, okay," knowing full well I'd change my mind, which of course I did.

As I grew up I knew it wasn't for me, but I can understand its appeal. My sister has a friend from childhood who chose to become a nun in the Lutheran Church. I remember the hardest part for all of us was to call her by a new name. She'd been "Katie" for 25 years, and now she's "Sister Isabella." But she seems happy with her choice.

I don't care about money. I just want to be wonderful. - Marilyn Monroe

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[deleted]

Since I'm a man who was raised a Presbyterian (to the best of my knowledge there are no Presbyterian nuns) I never particularly wanted to be a nun but as an actor I wanted to play a nun for many years and finally got my chance in 2004. It was fun but more challenging than I had expected.

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I believe the only two Protestant denominations with nuns are Anglican and Lutheran. Most do not have nuns. Not Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Mennonite, Nazarene, Brethren, Church of Christ, Church of God, etc.

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I can safely say that I have never wanted to be a nun, although I did have several Catholic friends who wanted to be nuns at one point or another. The religious life is something one is called to -- I think that when a person 'wants to be a nun,' it's really more that they desire to live a simple, peaceful life.

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