"Pray for the Geeks" Interview with a wired nun

[Book Lover]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/10/29/findrelig.DTL

Her cell phone has a custom ring tone. She frequents the Internet's most popular social networking sites. She gets jittery when she can't check her e-mail or post on her blog. She communicates with her family mostly by AOL instant messenger. And she's a 50-year-old nun.

Sister Anne Flanagan has been a Daughter of St. Paul for almost 30 years, and lives with five other nuns in a convent upstairs from a Catholic bookstore near Chicago's Magnificent Mile. She teaches Bible study classes, edits Catholic books and magazines and roams the Internet looking for cool technology, although, she wryly notes, "a vow of poverty tends to limit one's access."

She spends her under $100 monthly stipend on cables and gadgets. She's currently developing a "retreat in a box" idea for a pre-loaded MP3 player, complete with a sermon and hymns. I spoke to Sister Anne by phone — and in case you were wondering, her cell phone's custom ring tone is "Ave Maria" from the Renaissance composer Tomas Luis de Victoria.

Her blog, nunblog, is at http://romans8v29.blogspot.com/

[DemBones DemBones]

1. Great interview and I am going to check out her blog and

her Angelus project.

Have you run into conflicts with church leaders?

No. There is the assumption out there that Catholics are the most restrictive people of all when it comes to freedom of thought. But truth is a lot bigger than people give it credit for, and truth is actually the widest form of freedom.
I think a lot of problems people have with church teaching is because they don't really know what the church is teaching. Or they don't know it with any kind of depth. Or they are reading it from a cultural lens that is entirely inappropriate.

As Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, there are very few people who actually hate the Catholic Church, but thousands who hate what they think the Church is.

Tell me about your Angelus project.

Everybody knows that the Muslims pray five times a day, and the Jewish people have their blessing prayers — they say their Shemas. But since the '60s, Catholics have lost the tradition of praying the Angelus. We used to pray three times a day, at 6:00 in the morning, noon, 6:00 in the evening. And what we do in the Angelus (prayer) is remember and reaffirm the principle belief of the Catholic Church, that in Jesus, God has become human. And not only is that reviving our faith, but it is also putting us in the position of Mary, saying: "Be it done to me."

So the Angelus Project is really aimed at restoring the practice of Christians praying the Angelus, and I say Christians, not just Catholics, because it really is a Christian profession of faith. And I think that it would help bolster the personal commitment. You know, being Catholic isn't just saying you are Catholic. It involves a very deep belief and a personal commitment to that belief.

Sr. Anne has helpfully posted the Angelus prayers online so Catholics can pray along with them. Great idea since the Angelus has fallen into disuse in most places. In New Orleans, I've been to a Jesuit church for the Angelus at noon and it was quite well-attended.

Thanks for posting this, I enjoyed it.