As a young woman, Sister Anna Mirijam Kaschner CPS dreamed of having a whole football team of children. But her encounter with the Catholic faith and the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood awakened a deeper longing within her. Today she lives in a convent and has taken vows of chastity, obedience and poverty.

By Sannie Terese Burén, featured in Magasinet Psykologi 06/2012
Photos Christina Hauschildt

Our meeting begins with laughter. I have rung the doorbell and, after introducing myself, have been buzzed in by another sister. But Sister Anna Mirijam does not know this, so she hurries out to open the door. As a result, we arrive in the entrance hall at exactly the same moment – she with a little hop that makes it look as though she has just dropped down from heaven.

The situation is unexpectedly comical and we both burst out laughing. We are already no longer strangers; the ice has been broken.

I have come to Nordvanggaard near Birkerød, where six Catholic Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood live, to ask the German-born Sister Anna Mirijam Kaschner CPS what led her to choose the convent life and what her daily life looks like today.

How do nuns actually live today, in 2012? Are they allowed to drive a car, talk on a mobile phone and eat pizza? Do they watch television? And how can they live without sex and voluntarily choose to give up family life and children?

Sister Anna Mirijam leads me to a small meeting room with two chairs and a round table. In advance she has kindly asked whether I drink coffee or tea. She herself sticks to coffee.

“That is actually the first thing I do in the morning – put the coffee on – because I really need to wake up before morning prayer at 6.25,” she says with a little smile, and continue:

“Fortunately, in this convent we do not get up terribly early, and we do not get up during the night to pray, as some orders do.”

She explains that there is a difference between outward-looking and contemplative orders, where the sisters’ main task is prayer. In fact, only the latter are formally called nuns. In her own order, the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood, they are simply called “sisters”, and they typically work outside the convent – for example at the nearby nursing home, which was originally run by the sisters themselves. Today the municipality has taken over the operation.

Sister Anna Mirijam herself works partly as General Secretary for the Nordic Catholic Bishops’ Conference and partly as leader of a course for people who wish to convert to the Catholic faith. And she is also the webmaster for the convent’s website.

“People stare when they see me driving to and from work,” she says, “but we live in the present and are part of the society around us. So, we keep up with things and watch the news on television, for example. I would really like to help break down some of the prejudices people have, because they arise out of ignorance.”

It is possible to begin by living in the convent for a while, to see what it is like before making a decision, Sister Anna Mirijam explains. Afterwards comes a two-year novitiate, a time for deepening one’s sense of calling. Only then are the vows of chastity, obedience and poverty taken and the religious habit received. Those who wish may also choose a new name.

That is how Annette – as she was called before – became Sister Anna Mirijam CPS. The abbreviation stands for Congregatio Pretioso Sanguine, the order’s Latin name.

“The name Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood may sound a bit strange today,” she says, “but in 1885, when our order was founded, people generally knew the symbolism behind the name. The idea of the precious blood comes from Jesus shedding his blood on the cross so that we can have direct access to him. If I were naming the order today, I would probably call it the Missionary Sisters of Christ’s Precious Love.”

For her, she emphasises, the choice is about love.

“Of course, it is about loving God – but for me it actually means even more to feel that I am loved. You can compare it to meeting a person who truly loves you; then you want to spend the rest of your life with him or her. For me it is the same with God.”

During her studies she had a boyfriend.

“To have someone to share life with, to receive a hug and all that goes with it… it was lovely! But there was a longing in me that the relationship could not fulfil, even though we were deeply in love – it was not that.”

Something was simply missing, she explains, and with great sorrow she eventually ended the relationship for that reason.

“When I found in the convent what I had been missing, it became clear that it was the right place for me. Otherwise, I would probably have kept searching and never taken the vows.”

But surely the vow of chastity must be difficult, since sexuality is still there?

“For many people today, it seems like a huge sacrifice not to live out one’s sexuality. An older sister once told me that thirty years ago she was always asked how on earth she could take the vow of obedience. At that time there was a strong focus on authority in society, and many people had an anti-authoritarian attitude, so obedience seemed completely unthinkable. Hardly anyone asked about the vow of chastity. Now it is the opposite.”

Some people think that when you enter a convent you suddenly lose your sexuality, or perhaps never had one in the first place.

“But that is not the case: I am a woman! And I am very glad that I am. There are phases when I feel full of vitality, when I have more energy and become more creative.”

She channels that creative energy into her work and into playing music.

“There are also other phases in the biological cycle when I feel unwell or irritable. And when several women live together, of course there are times when we simply have to give one another a little space…”

Yet, she admits, there is also something she misses.

“It would be a lie if I said otherwise. When I feel the longing for what married women or women with partners have, I try to connect with my spiritual longing. I ask myself: why did I enter the convent? What is it really about for me? Then I go into the church and say to God: OK God, you created me as a woman, this is how I feel right now… what shall we do about it?”

She pauses for a moment before continuing.

“I think it is a gift from God that we have this; it is not something bad that we received by mistake. On the contrary, it belongs to me as a human being. But I have made a vow not to live out my sexuality in order to make space for something else.”

Annette, as she was called at the time, grew up in Germany with her parents and an older brother. Twice a year – at Christmas and Easter – they went to the Protestant church, more out of tradition than faith.

But when she was ten, she began attending a Catholic school, and she quickly came to enjoy the church services, which were livelier and included music that appealed to young people.

“Later I also played the French horn in a church orchestra,” she says.

“In the orchestra I sat next to a boy with long hair who always wore red trousers. He was a bit odd but very kind. One day we were trying to arrange some dates and I had forgotten my calendar. So I said, ‘But Andreas, you have your calendar here,’ took it out of his bag, opened it – and it turned out to be a Bible.”

Afterwards she wondered what kind of person carried a Bible around in his bag and began asking him about his faith.

“It was fascinating to talk to someone who asked the big questions: Does God exist, and how can I know? And if God exists, how can there be so much suffering in the world? To that he answered that God is almighty but has given human beings free will, so we are co-creators of what happens in the world. Even back then, that made a lot of sense to me.”

Andreas invited her to a youth group that met once a month in a nearby convent. It was here that she first met the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood.

“Every time I came to the convent I had a sense of peace. At some point the question arose whether I might want to become a sister – but I quickly pushed it away, because at that time I dreamed of starting a family. And I wanted at least ten children.”

After finishing school, Annette – encouraged by her father – trained as a bank adviser. But she soon realised it was not what she wanted to do.

Meanwhile the thought of joining the Catholic Church had slowly taken root. At the age of twenty-one she converted and began a three-and-a-half-year course as a religious educator – something like an assistant priest who, among other things, teaches confirmation classes.

After completing her studies, she spent a year working in a parish. But the question of convent life kept returning.

“Every time I saw a sister in the city – in Germany it is much more common than here – I had this strange feeling in my stomach. It frightened me terribly! Mostly because I did not know how to explain it to my parents. They were not religious and already had difficulty understanding that I had chosen the Catholic faith. How would they react if I told them I wanted to become a nun?”

She decided to spend a year in Africa and let the question rest in the meantime.

“But after two weeks in my parish there, an African woman asked me: ‘Have you never thought about entering a convent?’”

Sister Anna Mirijam laughs.

“At that moment I realised I could not run away from it. Wherever I went, the question would follow me. I decided to try it when I returned home.

The Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood are an international order with convents in many countries. After eight years in Paderborn in Germany it was time for Sister Anna Mirijam to move to a convent somewhere else in the world.

“In the past, a letter would simply arrive saying that you were to be in Papua New Guinea from such-and-such a date – and you had to say yes,” she explains. “Today we have a little more influence on the decision ourselves.”

In earlier times the vow of obedience could be interpreted very narrowly.

“In some orders it was said that if an abbot told a monk to plant a tree upside down, with the roots in the air, he had to do it. Today I would probably say, ‘Excuse me – hello!? Do you really think that is a good idea?’”

Today obedience is interpreted more in the sense of listening, she says.

“First and foremost, listening to God, but also to what my fellow sisters and my prioress say.”

When it was suggested that she should go to Denmark, she was very surprised.

“I had imagined that perhaps I would go to Africa. And my first thought was that in Denmark I would have to learn a completely new language.”

She was given a week to think about it.

“I weighed the vow of obedience against my own ideas, and in the end, I concluded that although there would be many challenges in moving to Denmark, there was no real reason to say no. And now that I have learned the language, I have become very happy to be here.”

Sister Anna Mirijam has not entirely let go of her connection to her homeland and travels several times a year to courses at the convent in Paderborn. When possible, she also visits her mother, who has now come to terms with her daughter’s choice.

“I am so proud of her,” she says with a smile. “She always tells people that as long as I am happy, she is satisfied. And I am.”

Once a year she takes three weeks’ holiday and goes hiking alone in the Alps.

“I really need that time by myself, because the rest of the year I am constantly with other people – talking, teaching, listening… It is good to withdraw a little and be out in nature.”

In the mountains she does not wear her religious habit, because it would be too dangerous and impractical.

But what about money for travelling – do nuns receive pocket money?

“No, not pocket money – but money in the pocket!” she laughs.

“What each of us earns from our work goes into the convent’s common fund. From that fund each sister receives what she needs. The same applies to our holidays.”

She explains that when she goes out, she always carries a small amount of money.

“It is not money I can spend without accounting for it. If I buy something, I have to settle it with the prioress at the end of the month. If I need something bigger – a pair of shoes, for example – I go to the prioress and receive money for it. If there is any left, I return it.”

Because the vow of poverty means that she cannot own anything.

“In a sense I am not poor. I have a mobile phone, I have a laptop. But I do not own them – I use them. The vow of poverty also means not becoming dependent on things. That is something I have to be careful about: how much time do I spend at the computer? Maybe playing a game or browsing the internet. It is easy to get caught up in it.

Sister Anna Mirijam, who is now forty, still sometimes thinks – when she sees other people’s children – that they could have been her own.

As a novice she spent some time training on a maternity ward. She still felt the pull of the idea of having children, and she wanted to be completely certain before giving up the possibility of becoming a mother.

“My greatest wish was to be present at a birth, because it is one of the greatest miracles in the world. I was able to witness two! But it was a difficult time for me, because all the little babies… it was wonderful to be with them. I could really feel the maternal side of myself. That is something where today I can honestly say: it really is a sacrifice.

But she believes the vows are often interpreted too negatively.

“When I promise chastity, it can also mean that I have room for more people. The day before yesterday a woman came here whom I only knew from a course. She suddenly called me crying and said, ‘My son has hanged himself.’ She came here and cried for four or five hours. I would not have had that time and openness if I were the mother of ten children.”

From the corridor we can hear laughter and the chatter of many elderly female voices. It is the knitting club, which meets at the convent once a week to knit blankets for Mother Teresa’s street children in India.

The convent is also home to a parish community that gathers here for services. Besides morning prayer there are services at noon and at 5.30 p.m.

After the evening Mass the sisters eat together. One of them has “table duty” and is responsible for setting the table, but the food comes from the nearby nursing home.

“So, for now we have no discussions about what we should eat,” Sister Anna Mirijam smiles. “But the nursing home is moving in October, and then we will have to figure out how to handle the cooking…”

She rolls her eyes slightly, and it becomes clear that even in a convent there can be lively discussions about practical matters.

“Of course there are things we disagree about. People think we are some kind of superhuman beings who never have conflicts. But we can argue and get angry with each other. If too much time passes without speaking, it becomes unbearable. Then one has to ask another sister to help mediate a little.”

“We have chosen the convent life – but not specifically the people we share it with. And we have no possibility of choosing anyone out or moving to another convent on our own initiative. Sometimes that can be difficult.”

Yet the community is also one of the best things about convent life.

“When I have had a heavy conversation, like the one with the woman whose son had hanged himself, I have people I can turn to for support – people who help me carry it. We are not alone; we share the worries every sister has. That is comforting.”

It is now 5.30 p.m., and we hurry across to another wing of the old four-sided farm. It once served as a barn, but when the sisters took over the property in 1959 it was rebuilt as a beautiful modern church.

The service has already begun, and we slip quietly into our seats.

“Lift up your hearts,” sings the priest.

And the sisters reply:

“We lift them up to the Lord.”

As I sit there, I look curiously at the sisters around me. For them this is everyday life; the church is part of their home.

After dinner tonight they will hold a meeting about installing a new mailbox, Sister Anna Mirijam has told me. Afterwards she may play her flute, watch television or go on Facebook.

As I drive away from the convent, I am still filled with wonder at the life Sister Anna Mirijam has chosen – but also with admiration for the warmth, humour and innocence I encountered there.
Even before I start the car, I have already decided that I will soon return for another cup of sisterly coffee.

Søster Anna Mirijam Kaschner cps, Born in Germany in 1971. Lives at the Nordvanggaard convent near Birkerød together with five other Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood. Works as General Secretary for the Nordic Catholic Bishops’ Conference and also leads a course for converts and adult baptism candidates in Copenhagen.