Today, there are at least 150 sister-moms living in 32 states and representing 92 religious orders, said Sister Bea Keller, a Sister of Charity in Kentucky who has seven children. She said there may be more; the Catholic Church doesn’t keep statistics on them.For Christian, now 73, her journey took a lifetime.
Raised in a Protestant family in Concord, in the days when a ”mixed marriage” implied a frowned-upon union between a Catholic and a Protestant, she converted to Catholicism in her 20s. She married, then divorced, and raised her two sons while working as a psychiatric nurse at McLean Hospital in Belmont.
When she joined her convent in Lexington, she was her order’s first newcomer in a decade. Today, she’s one of the youngest sisters there.
In her modest, one-bedroom suite on the second floor of the convent where she lives, Christian said she began thinking of religious life as a nurse facing retirement. After working the night shift at McLean’s, she would attend morning Mass in the Lexington convent’s chapel.
There, she learned about the Sisters of Charity, and the order’s focus on health care and ministering to the poor.
”I didn’t want to retire just to go on trips and sit in restaurants. It looked pretty meaningless to me,” she said.
Now, she uses her nursing skills to care for aging religious sisters. Her day-to-day duties include taking other sisters, several of whom are in their 80s and 90s, to their doctor’s appointments, and often sitting in on them. Back at the convent, she’s busy making sure the sisters are taking their medicines and suffering no adverse reactions.
”Here, I really enjoy my life. I’m busier than I’ve ever been,” she said in her book-lined room.
Still, when she was researching her post-retirement options, Christian said she was surprised to learn that older women, and women who have raised children, could join the religious life.
