Note: The following post is from our friends at Monasteries of the Heart as they launch their new Substack, Heartbeat. Head to their page to subscribe to their new endeavor to receive new posts such as this one!
A few weeks ago, a friend sent me an Instagram link to a meme of a Dominican nun with the caption “Sister, it’s a Nun Girl Summer.” The nun in the picture, Sr. Miriam, is the host of the Dominican Sisters Open Mic podcast. The post, from Cosmopolitan Magazine, goes on to say that data from Spotify shows that the podcast had a 3500% increase in listeners since February 2026. Of the people listening on Spotify, 84% are either millennials or members of Gen Z.
It’s just one example of how nuns have been popping up in the media recently. The Salesian Sisters who were seated courtside decked out in Spurs Jerseys at the NBA finals, for instance. The Brazilian Nuns who went viral after beatboxing on Catholic TV. Or a group of elderly nuns in Italy who got a ton of traffic on Instagram with a series of videos, including one where they took cardboard boxes, labeled them with traits like “laziness,” “anxiety,” and “rancor,” and threw them out the window.
Obviously, a few seconds of viral video is hardly the most accurate portrayal of the depth and wisdom that comes from living a monastic life. Many sisters no longer wear habits, and the camera doesn’t necessarily capture everyday chores of washing dinner dishes, feeding the poor, helping the community’s elderly members and planning fundraising campaigns. All necessary for sustaining spiritual communities that place obedience and good works at the center of their identities.
Still, the popularity of the Dominican Sisters’ podcast has religious and secular people alike questioning why nuns in particular are capturing so much attention. While the idea of a “religious revival” among young people isn’t necessarily reflected in recent data, the online popularity of some of these religious women might indicate a more subtle longing: a need for positivity, to feel uplifted. Maybe even a quiet desire for something spiritual.
Last year, the Benedictine Sisters of Erie started their Peacemaker program, inviting women in their 20s and 30s to spend a year living at the monastery, doing work in the local community and learning about monastic life. The program is meant to equip a younger generation with the skills to live spiritually and deliberately, in a monastic way, outside the traditional convents and monasteries, as the numbers of vowed members within their walls decline and the way monasticism is lived evolves in a new generation.
In June, I moved in as part of their second cohort. I quit my job, left my apartment, tearfully handed the cat over to relatives and drove the six hours out to Erie, PA. I was 30 years old, exhausted and burnt out, looking for a place to heal and to figure out what I really wanted my life to be about. I wanted purpose, joy and a new outlook on life.
I know I’m not the only one looking for these things. If you are, too, then join me and some other awesome 20 and 30-somethings I know, sisters and seekers of all types who are just trying to figure it out. You can follow our posts on this Substack, and also join a larger, intergenerational community of spiritual seekers on Monasteries of the Heart (aka MOTH), where the staff of monastic practitioners and teachers offer eCourses and reflections on brilliant (and sometimes radical) thinkers, and what their teachings can mean for us in the world of today.
Not everybody can move to a monastery for a year. And not everyone wants to. (Let’s face it, morning prayer is at 6:30 a.m.) But you can still be part of a community that is looking for peace, justice, love and beauty - even at a distance.
Don’t Skip a Beat! Check out MOTH’s top picks for the month:
Our Fall Book Club will begin on September 2. The theme: Becoming Holy Listeners. We will be doing an in-depth dive into the Rule of St. Benedict, and how the teachings that governed life in a sixth-century monastery can STILL show us how to live our best lives. Interested? You can sign up here.
Katie Gordon writes about the lessons we can learn from Sixth-century Rome … and Wicked. Then, she tackles how Rosalia’s new album — along with the life of St. Teresa of Avila — can teach us about our desires for something greater than ourselves.
Recent college graduate Sophie Trusty reflects on her summer living at the Benedictine monastery and the importance of rooting oneself in tradition even while preparing to welcome new and unfamiliar challenges.
A 14th-century mystic reminds us of a timeless challenge: to let go of what other people think so that we can become our authentic selves.
Monasteries of the Heart is an online community of people from across the globe who are looking to incorporate monastic practices into their daily lives. Through online courses and weekly reflections, we offer responses to the longings for spirituality that arise in the course of daily life.
There is always a hunger for the spiritual life. It is embedded in your very being. It is wonderful to hear about new ways to connect to ancient wisdom and practice.
I'm so happy to see this! I'm 64 years old and connected to a lay community of contemplatives in the Seattle area. We're mostly all over 50, and what we are finding in this chapter of our lives is a beautiful new authenticity, resilience, grateful being, and joy in ordinary, simple sacred moments. To think there are people in their 30s searching for this -- and finding it in the contemplative path -- makes my old heart sing! Sending my love to you! ❤️