Myth #9 — Nuns Don’t Have a Husband or Children

“But don’t you want to get married and have a family?”

“I hope you’re okay with being an old maid forever …”

“But how could I become a nun? I long to be a wife and mother!”

Many a young woman who is feeling the call to religious life has struggled with the thought of giving up marriage and children. Very often she feels torn between a deep desire to belong to God and an equally deep desire to be a wife and mother. Can the two possibly be reconciled?

In his Theology of the Body, Pope St. John Paul II asserts that the human person is “fundamentally spousal” — that is, designed by God to make a total self-gift as bridegroom or as bride. For most people, this basic truth is expressed in a vocation to marriage. In holy matrimony, husband and wife give themselves completely to each other, and through each other, to God Himself. Since they now “are not two, but one flesh,” the Christian spouses assume responsibility for helping one another — and any children God may entrust to them — to get to Heaven.

However, you may be surprised to learn that this spousal character of the human person is also fulfilled in the vocation to consecrated celibacy. In response to a divine call, a woman who professes the evangelical counsel of chastity willingly renounces the great good of human marriage. But the Lord, Who is never outdone in generosity, will not leave her with an empty, barren heart. Rather, He Himself becomes her Bridegroom in a special and profound way, thus fulfilling the fundamental desire that He has planted in her heart. A nun is not an “old maid” … she is the Bride of the King of Heaven! Just as husband and wife become “one flesh,” so the consecrated woman and the Lord become “one spirit.” Those who have experienced this truth can tell of just how real it is — no husband is more attentive and loving than the Divine Bridegroom! Even when He asks great sacrifices of us, we can accept them with the help of His grace, because we know they come from His infinite love. We can even do so with joy, since such sacrifices give us a chance to prove our love for Him.

While speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994, St. Teresa of Calcutta referred to this profound truth in her typically down-to-earth, even humorous way: “Because I talk so much of giving with a smile, once a professor from the United States asked me: ‘Are you married?’  And I said: ‘Yes, and I find it sometimes very difficult to smile at my spouse, Jesus, because He can be -- He can be very demanding sometimes.’  This is really something true.  And [this] is where love comes in: when it is demanding, and yet we can give it with joy.”

And just as human marriage is meant to bring forth new life, so this spiritual marriage is meant to bear abundant fruit. Spiritual motherhood is more than a “nice idea” meant to console those who have renounced physical childbearing — it is a powerful reality that shapes the daily life and decisions of consecrated women. Countless stories could be told about the way in which this life of prayer, sacrifice, and loving obedience to God’s Will have brought life-giving grace to souls. Spiritual motherhood is open to any woman of any vocation, but it is lived in a particularly intense way by those who are given to God in the religious life. It is a powerful motive to fidelity in daily living; as St. Therese said to a novice who was dragging her feet one day, “We have children to feed!