Reality television built its success on the occasion of sin, but every so often the genre demonstrates some of its redeeming qualities, as is certainly the case with Lifetime’s “The Sisterhood: Becoming Nuns,” a short but intriguing docuseries that follows five young women through a six-week “discernment” tour of three Catholic convents.
The women are all in their 20s and are trying to decide if they are being called by God.
“The Sisterhood” manages to revive, at least for the purposes of this show, the comforting notion of a young woman leaving her family and entering the convent, where she will devote her life to prayer and a ministry, while obeying vows of chastity, poverty and obedience.
The seekers got here in different ways: Claire, a 26-year-old from Joliet, Ill., is well-versed in discernment and takes a hard line on the faith; Eseni is a 23-year-old fashionista from the Bronx who seeks the simplicity of convent life; Christie, 27, from Glendale, Calif., is a charismatic believer who speaks eagerly of ecstatic visions in which she and her boyfriend Jesus have slow-danced together and almost made out; Stacey, 26, from Huntington, N.Y., who is well-adjusted and open-minded, recently gave up on the dream of becoming a Broadway actress.Finally, from Harrison Park, N. J., there’s emotionally fragile Francesca, who has a meltdown on the first afternoon when Mother Mark, the superior general at the St. Teresa convent of the Carmelites for the Aged and Infirm order in Germantown, New York, tells the young women they can’t wear makeup during their stay.
It’s a rare glimpse into a world that is mainly portrayed in popular culture through the prism of stereotype. On the rare instance that a documentary crew gains access to a convent, the results can be illuminating.
But that’s the beauty of a project like this: The nuns are learning just as much about millennial women as the women are learning about them. “My first reaction [to them] is ‘Get a grip’ and ‘It’s not all about you,’ ” says Sister Cyril, one of the Carmelites. “But they are products of their environment, and I use much energy trying to build bricks that create a bridge over to their way of thinking.”
