18 Young Women Take Vows in Thriving Religious Order

ALTON, Ill. — The 18 young women who took religious vows recently at St. Mary’s Church in Alton were the largest group in anyone’s memory for the local Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George.

The order, which has its convent at Saint Anthony’s Hospital, is thriving in a time when many people have questioned the religious life.

Ordinarily, the ceremonies are held in the chapel that the convent shares with the hospital. But the large number taking vows and the 300 well-wishers forced the move to the larger church.

The 18 young women taking vows, ranging in age from 21 to 38, and in origin from Nigeria to Montana, make up about a fifth of the entire order in the United States. In addition, there are about 35 in Brazil.

Average Age Is 31

The average age of the sisters in this hemisphere is 31, surprising in view of the well-publicized decline in religious vocations and the increasing number of aging nuns in many orders.

In an era in which women have many choices of vocation, those who choose poverty, chastity and obedience can be expected to have given it a great deal of thought.

A nun who made her final profession of vows at the ceremonies was Sister Eva-Maria Ackerman.

A college graduate in her native Texas, she was a working journalist when she began to believe that God was calling her. Through a Roman Catholic publication, she allowed word of her interest to get out.

“I got tons of mail,” she said. “Of all the mail I got, the letter from this convent was the only handwritten one.”

She visited the Alton convent, which is where training for the order in this country takes place.

“I was attracted by their youthfulness. The sisters seemed happy. That’s what attracts others, people happy in their calling.”

Varied Skills

Sisters in the order include nurses, teachers, administrators, social workers, day-care workers, missionaries and geriatric care workers.

“But we say, it’s not so important what we’re doing but who we are,” she said.

“We are to be witness that God does exist in the world. Our order continues to wear a habit,” she said.

Sister Eva-Maria’s duties include recruiting and training the postulants, who are in their first year at the convent. The postulants spend their first year adjusting to convent life and learning how to pray.

A new group of postulants has entered the convent, replacing the five who completed their first year and became “novices” with the recent ceremony.

Those novices will study for two more years until they make their first profession of the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Although “we make the vows in our hearts forever” at first profession, Sister Eva-Maria said the church provides for four to six more years of study as “juniors” before the final profession of vows is made.