At a convent in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the bell chimes every day at 5 a.m. Then the 40 or so women who live there year-round—Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist—head to the chapel.
Their day begins with an hour of prayer, followed by Mass. At 7 a.m., they have breakfast together, in complete silence. Many of them head off afterward to teach at nearby Catholic schools—sisters, unlike nuns, are not cloistered—while the novitiates stay behind to study at “the motherhouse,” as they call the convent. On some days, one of the women—Sister Miriam Holzman, who started living there 20 years ago—turns to a new item on her schedule: podcasting.
Back in February, Sister Miriam started hosting Dominican Sisters Open Mic, a weekly show in which she and her fellow sisters discuss topics such as scripture, the saints, and day-to-day convent life. Sister Miriam told me that when the podcast started, she hoped it would encourage listeners to “go deeper in their spiritual life, no matter what their background might be”—Catholic or not, religious or not.
The show seems to have resonated outside Catholic circles. Clips of the sisters playing the ukulele and describing an Ultimate Frisbee match have gone viral on TikTok. As of late August, their account on the platform has more than 275,000 followers and more than 8 million likes. The podcast has been featured in The New York Times and on the Today show. Listeners seem to be especially drawn to the sisters’ cheerfulness. They laugh frequently and have an easy way of interacting with one another. “Their laughter seems so stress free,” one commenter observed. Another said, “Sisters, I also want that regulated nervous system laugh.” In a post liked by more than 5,000 people, one listener asked, “Why does being a nun seems so fun even though I’m not religious?”
Sister Miriam said that the show’s popularity may be connected to the overall trend of people seeking wellness content online. “People are looking for balance, and so are we,” she told me. “We want wellness too.” Their fixed routine—prayer, study, work, fun—minimizes unnecessary distractions. But the sisters aren’t just offering wellness advice or preaching self-optimization. Their search for balance includes trying to become a particular kind of person in body and soul, and noticing traces of transcendence every day. In one podcast episode, Sister Miriam talked about how, when she struggles to focus or when obligations and to-do lists intrude on her mind, her consistent schedule reminds her that in that moment, she is precisely where God wants her to be. “Which is such a gift,” she said. “I don’t need to be planning the rest of my life.”
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Resisting the pressure to multitask or worry about the future seems to help the sisters prioritize prayer, a pillar of their Dominican order. At midday, the sisters meditate on the essential Christian belief that the all-powerful God took on human form in the person of Jesus Christ. Later in the afternoon, they recite the Liturgy of the Hours, a set of reflections on the Psalms and Gospels. Many of the sisters have said that after years at the convent, these practices spill over into the rest of their life—when they pray for a passerby at the airport, perhaps, or let out a sudden “Come, Holy Spirit” or “Jesus, I trust in you” at difficult points of the day. Prayer, a sister concluded in one episode, “expands your vision of reality.” It has allowed her to notice “the dew on the grass, or the sunrise on the way to work.”
As evening approaches, the sisters return to the motherhouse. They pray the rosary and have dinner together as one of them reads aloud from a recent papal address or a biography of a saint. Then out come the Trivial Pursuit boxes and guitars, the bicycles and Frisbees. As with prayer, recreation time together is fixed in their schedule. It’s not optional. The sisters don’t watch TV during it, nor do they scroll on phones.
For all the joy that the sisters display on the podcast, they are also open about the sacrifices involved in convent life. They seldom see their families. Their daily lives downplay individuality: Their sleeping quarters, called “cells,” are designed to be interchangeable and are minimally arranged with a bed, a dresser, a table, an image of the Virgin Mary. Adjusting to the 5 a.m. wake-up call can take years. And like all of us, the sisters are prone to stress and worry.
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The contentment that the sisters seem to have despite these challenges may be partly explained by the documented benefits of engaging in religious practices. Clay Routledge, a social psychologist who studies sources of meaning in people’s lives, told me that prayer’s “cognitive and motivational power” can make people more attentive. He added, “It focuses your attention on something; it takes you off of these other distractions and worries, and helps you pay attention to what you care about.” In a 2016 study, psychologists at Georgia State University found that prayer motivated very religious students to “invest a greater amount of mental energy in the performance of everyday tasks.” A study from 2012 found that praying for others made participants feel more satisfied about making sacrifices for others—about living, in other words, a less self-oriented life.
Starting at 8 p.m., after their evening prayer, the sisters spend the rest of their night in complete silence. Sister Miriam told me that during this time she likes to pray about both the difficulties of the day and the things she’s grateful for. Another sister said that she sometimes walks up a nearby hill, notices the twilight sky, and thinks of her Creator. Then she returns to the motherhouse, ready for the next morning’s bell to chime.