Sister Nuala Cotter, PhD, RA Religious of the Assumption, Professor, Assumption College

Becoming a Sister took me a long time; I didn’t enter the Religious of the Assumption until I was 34. I went to Catholic schools, but never really thought about religious life for myself, despite benefiting from many excellent Sister-teachers. While I was in high school and college, Sisters were also great to me and my family as we faced my mother’s terminal illness. In addition to real emotional support, they encouraged me to develop an active intellectual and spiritual life.  Because of our family situation, however, I didn’t have time to think about much beyond just surviving.  When I left for grad school at the University of Pennsylvania after having commuted to The College of New Rochelle, it was clear to anyone who knew me – and even, sometimes, to me – that I needed to experience life in new ways before I made any serious choices about anything. 

At Penn, I discovered my own interests in Medieval and Renaissance literature, as well as a fondness for conversation and fun – often over a nice cold beer!  Often those conversations took place at the Newman Center; eventually some of us rented a big old house together in West Philly. This was my first experience of community life:  eating together, sharing things, deciding on stuff together. Ironically, although we were all fairly devout Catholics, we avoided praying together, mostly because of the example of an “intentional prayer community” down the street whose members didn’t get along!  Those six years in “Penguin House” (as we baptized ourselves) meant a lot to me. Even now, many of us “Pinguini” are still in touch.

As I was writing my dissertation, I worked as an adjunct professor at Penn, Temple University, and Haverford College – not making much money, but happy enough. At that point, however, I didn’t have many long term ambitions or dreams.  Even after I’d completed my doctorate, it would be fair to say that I lacked direction. I used to attend Mass at St. Francis de Sales Church, where I’d notice two little old nuns dressed in purple habits with white veils. Unusual outfits, to say the least. One Sunday I bought Sr. Dorothy a doughnut after Mass; she amazed me by immediately inviting me to their house to pray with them. Just like that!

I showed up, two weeks later, at their convent on 49th Street in West Philadelphia. Their row house looked just like all the others on the block except that it had a small sign next to the bell:  “The Assumption.”  I’ll never forget the feeling I had when I stepped into their little chapel on the second floor. They were actually singing the psalms of Vespers. Looking back on it now, I realize that it probably wasn’t remarkably beautiful as liturgy, but at that moment, I felt that I had come home. Praying with them also led to knowing them better and getting involved in their projects, too. In the Assumption, we say that it’s dangerous to be friends with the “Purple Nuns” unless you’re looking for something new in your life. That was very true for me.

Sitting in their kitchen, I would often hear them talking about people in parts of the world that I considered pretty obscure, places like El Salvador or Burkina Faso, Tanzania or the Philippines. It touched me to realize that they were talking about Sisters they knew. Things that I’d read about in the newspapers happening “over there” had to do with family for the Assumption. That was something new and eye-opening, even heart-opening, for me.

That internationality finally did me in.  When I was invited to visit the Assumption in Kenya and Tanzania, I saw Sisters my own age – something I hadn’t experienced in the U.S. One said to me, “I have heard a lot about you. I am wondering why you are not one of us.” One of them? Me? There was something so wise and so shocking about that question that, for the first time, I began to think seriously about joining the Religious of the Assumption.

Back home, when I finally talked with the Provincial Superior about my experience, she fell gently asleep.  Not for long, but definitely asleep.  She woke up with a start, apologizing, but somehow, her little snooze really touched me. Others have told me the Assumption would have been crossed off the list if this had happened to them, but for me, it said:  “she’s just an ordinary human being who’s very tired after a long day of many things.” That ordinariness had drawn me to the Assumption many times in the five years that I’d known the Sisters. In fact, I loved them for it. It’s hard to explain, but I thank God for allowing me to feel that way, not only on that day but on all the days since. 

Today, I teach English and Theology at Assumption College, Worcester, MA. As a professor who’s also a Sister, even at this Catholic college I run into students for whom I am their “first nun ever.” They’re not sure how to act with me. Sometimes at the start of a semester I feel that I’m walking a line between Meryl Streep and Whoopi Goldberg, but as we work together on Chaucer or Shakespeare or Flannery O’Connor, they usually begin to see me for who I am.   (The fact that I am a proud member of Red Sox Nation probably doesn’t hurt.) Although I might not say it explicitly, I think many of them come to realize that my religious life informs my professional life; for me, teaching is a kind of pilgrimage that I love to share.  Together we’re moving toward the Truth, which for me means a person, Christ Jesus.

Life in the Assumption is always a life in community. For us, that means living under the same roof, dealing with the same faces every day.  In our Rule of Life, there’s a line that says:  “The Sisters look at each other with new eyes each day.”  Well, that’s the ideal, of course, but in my life in the Assumption I’ve discovered that it’s also pretty true.  You learn to forgive and to be forgiven. You learn to share your life – even though sometimes you share kicking and screaming.  But you learn because you make a conscious decision to love – and you see the others doing the same. Our Rule devotes one section simply to “Joy,” something I’ve known a lot of in the Assumption. (I’ve also had a lot of fun, which isn’t exactly the same thing!)  For me, the joy comes from having been given the grace to become more and more the Nuala that God wants me to be. I’m deeply grateful for that freedom.
Founding Congregations: Sisters of Divine Providence; Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, Houston; Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament; and Dominican Sisters of Houston.