“You’re too pretty to be a nun!”

A woman entering religious life writes in Huffington Post: 

When I tell people I’m going to be a nun, they are shocked. Their eyebrows shoot up, their jaws drop, their beers spill onto the bar.

“You’re too normal to be a nun,” they say.

“You’re too smart.”

“You’re too pretty!”

This last one took me by the greatest surprise — as if acne or a big nose is a prerequisite to being a nun.

My looks have even been addressed by the religious communities I’ve visited as I seek my spiritual home. Three different orders seized on my name, Angela, and took to calling me Angelina Jolie!

People are baffled that my exterior — a 27-year-old who used to work at Clinique and peruses Pinterest for fashion inspiration — could reflect an interior longing for consecrated life and its seemingly antiquated vows of celibacy, poverty and obedience.

Their questions have forced me to confront my self-image. Who do I see in the mirror? How do I appear in God’s eyes? How does one affect the other?

When I lived with the Poor Clare nuns in Belleville, Ill., I discovered that their monastery has no mirrors. At first, it was a shock for this cosmetics junkie, but it became incredibly liberating. I felt free to be who God designed me to be and more fully attuned to the people around me. I could pour the energy I used to invest in my appearance — fretting over the reflection in the mirror, trying to alter it — into my spiritual life.

Now I am better prepared to respond when, invariably, someone quips that I’m too pretty for the convent. “Thank you!” I say. “But there is no mold. God calls everybody! It doesn’t matter what you look like, where you’re from or who you know.”

I try to be gracious. I take such comments with a grain of salt, knowing it’s more about them than me. And over time, I’ve come to appreciate the conversation starter, a chance to dispel stereotypes about nuns. That’s why I’m grateful for the creation of National Catholic Sisters Week (March 8-14), an official addition to National Women’s History Month. It serves a much-needed purpose, raising awareness and understanding of Catholic sisters.

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Photo via Wikipedia Commons