Bishop Robert W. Finn of the Kansas City - St. Joseph Missouri Diocese isn't talking about a vocations problem. He has just welcomed a new community of Benedictine Nuns - a growing trend from all that I've been seeing in the past year.
Out = Non-habited contemporary orders, especially with new age slants
In = Habited, traditional orders, including cloisters.
Here are a few examples from some newer women's communities. As the Dominican Order of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist tells us on mail I receive from them, "We have a different kind of vocation problem". Upon opening the envelope I read that candidates coming for a discernment weekend had to sleep on the floor because there were so many, there weren't enough beds for them all. The first picture is of the postulants, the second are novices.
There are others I had been following and have lost the links to them. Many of these orders have lots of young faces. And, there seems to be a stream of newer orders which are traditional-community based.
Of course there is the Poor Clare Nuns of Perpetual Adoration - the order of Mother Angelica. From their website, they tell prospective candidates:
We don't have any more rooms available in our cloister for women at this time. However, if you feel called to an enclosed life of adoration of Jesus in a spirit of thanksgiving there is still hope. We have other houses that you can contact. Below you can find some links to their websites.
When a cloister reaches a certain size, a group of nuns from that cloister will set out to begin a new cloister. This has happened with the nuns at the Our Lady of the Angels Monastery on May 1, 2005 when 5 nuns left Hanceville and were received in Phoenix, Arizona by Bishop Olmstead. Their journey can be followed on www.desertnuns.org
On their first anniversary, they added a new member to their family.
NOTE: All photographs were taken from the websites of the respective community.
