OUR VANISHING NUNS

Dear God,

As You and we remember, in days past hundreds
of thousands of nuns taught in Catholic schools, nursed patients in hospitals,
cared for orphans, and performed myriad
other tasks for the Church and its people.

They were uniformly garbed in habits of gray, brown, white or blue, but mostly black.
Many of the habits were designed as long ago as the Middle Ages, and reflected the garb
of that Christian era.

Toward the end of the 20th century,
great changes swept over Your Church,
some reflecting movements of modernism, feminism and social equality
in the modern world.

Most orders of nuns in America have abandoned their historic habits for simple contemporary clothing as their profession has moved many of them out of the cloisters and into
the world.

Simultaneously, and sadly, dear God,
the customary wave of new postulants is no longer forthcoming, and now many orders
are facing severe retrenchment,
and if conditions don't change,
perhaps even extinction.

One American order gathered recently
for a festive anniversary celebration
of their founding. In a photo we see
very few really young women present.
No great cadre of young nuns or postulants
in their 20's are present. The future
of this order and many others does not seem bright.

I pray to You my Lord to give support, sustenance and energy, health and happiness to all of our dear aging dear, and if it be Your will, please send thousands of vocations so that a great wave of new sisters come into Your service.

These women are Your faithful servants. Please do not let the now elderly nuns
be the last of their orders.

I thank You for the sisters past, the sisters present and hopefully, the sisters
of the future.

Amen

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