N E W S  R E L E A S E

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 2009

Contact: Elsa Hofmeister

952-895-3600

DnEHofmeister@comcast.net

New book profiles 14 Minnesota nuns, demystifies religious life

From Sr. Brigid to Sr. Katherine, intimate portraits illuminate monastic experience

MENDOTA HEIGHTS – The Visitation Monastery has published a groundbreaking book profiling 14 local nuns who have boldly lived out the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Biographies of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and Mother Teresa abound, but no author has chronicled a group of ordinary, low-profile nuns before. Elsa Hofmeister, an alumna and retired administrator of The Convent of the Visitation School, felt compelled to record the sisters’ stories after her mentor, Sr. Mary Regina, died – an absence that made the group of Mendota Heights nuns feel startlingly small. (It had dropped to 12, and today, five years later, is down to 9.) Hofmeister launched a series of in-depth interviews, and the result is an intimate account, Extraordinary Ordinary Lives: Vocation Stories of Minnesota Visitation Sisters.

The book explains why each woman decided to become a nun. It describes the lives they left behind – careers, boyfriends, paychecks, wardrobes – and the ones they inherited, illuminating both the joys and the challenges. The sisters’ stories are arresting. There is shy Kathleen Keefe who, after a rousing round of Kick the Can in her

Minneapolis neighborhood, lies beneath the starry sky and becomes entranced by the

- cont. -

“cosmic ballet.” There is Edna Rose, the bright daughter of a wealthy family who exchanges her sparkling engagement ring for a black habit. And there is Sr. Immaculata, who worries that her cigarette addiction will keep her from the convent and, decades later, grapples with her religious name: “There was nothing immaculate about me – and there still isn’t.”

The book sheds light on a rapidly declining community, women religious. The gradual disappearance of Roman collars is well known, but few realize that the shortage is hitting female communities hardest. From 1965 to 2007, the number of U.S. priests dropped 29 percent, while the number of religious sisters dropped 65 percent – falling from 179,954 to 63,699 – according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. That is, in 1965, the ratio of U.S. sisters to U.S. priests was 3 to 1. Now it is 1 ½ to 1.

Extraordinary Ordinary Lives presents a fascinating history of the Catholic Church in Minnesota. The sisters share their candid responses to Vatican II and the shrinking of their beloved community, once thriving with 45 women, now down to single digits.

The dwindling of religious communities brings an urgent need for historical documentation – an effort that doesn’t happen naturally, initiated by curious children or a desire for publicity. The Visitation sisters practice the virtue of humility; Hofmeister had to convince them their stories would interest others.

In a noisy culture, this book provides a study in discernment and commitment: how to determine your vocation and what it looks like to stick it out. That’s a lesson everyone can benefit from, Hofmeister said. “You don’t have to be ordained or specifically consecrated to be holy. We all have vocations, we all are meant to be prayerful and be who we are and be that well.”

Acclaimed Catholic author Patricia Hampl described Hofmeister’s new book as “an intensely moving document, detailed, attentive and refreshingly candid – a real treasure.”

To learn more about Extraordinary Ordinary Lives, visit www.visbooks.org. For a high-resolution image of the book cover or author, email christinacap@gmail.com. To interview the author, contact her at 952-895-3600.

# # #