Grandmother becoming nun

59-year-old blazes trail with Franciscan order

‘The call was always within me but I chose to ignore it for a while,’ says Sister Shirley Shafranek.

THE BLADE/LORI KING
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‘The call was always within me but I chose to ignore it for a while,’ says Sister Shirley Shafranek.

TIFFIN -- When Sister Shirley Shafranek makes her final profession of vows as a Catholic nun Sunday morning, two of her grandchildren will be gift bearers at the Mass.

The 59-year-old mother of three and grandmother of five will become the first grandmother ever to join the Sisters of St. Francis of Tiffin as a nun and the first mother since Elizabeth Schaeffer, who co-founded the religious order in 1869.

"The call was always within me but I chose to ignore it for a while," Sister Shirley said in an interview last week.

Representatives of several national religious orders said they had no data on the number of mothers or grandmothers becoming Catholic nuns, but Brother Paul Bednarczyk, executive director of the Chicago-based National Religious Vocations Conference, said "it is not a trend, it's more of an exception."

Brother Paul said canon law, the Catholic Church's legal code, sets no age limit for someone entering religious life but "allows each community to set their own policies in that regard."

A woman who has been married and divorced must have her marriage annulled within the church, he said, and, if she is a mother, her children must be old enough to not be her dependents. Widows can become nuns but have different criteria, he said.

Msgr. Charles Singler, the Toledo diocese's director of vocations and its worship office, said someone who has been a parent or grandparent has life experience that can benefit others.

"Although it's not a large number of people who would be following that pattern, they bring a great wealth of experience as a parent or grandparent. They have had experience in life and of life's trials and tribulations in a way that they can provide a service to people in faith, maybe in ways that a young person would not be able to," Monsignor Singler said.

He said he knew of two priests in the Toledo diocese who entered the seminary after having been widowed.

"Certainly God does not have limits on who he calls into service in the church as women religious or priests or brothers," Monsignor Singler said.

The United States has 67,000 nuns, and 103 Tiffin Franciscan sisters are serving in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Mexico.

Brother Paul, a Holy Cross brother, said a National Religious Vocations Conference study found that the average age of a woman entering religious life Sunday is 32.

Sister Shirley, a native of Chelsea, Iowa, who lived in Milwaukee for eight years before moving to Tiffin, said she got a divorce because of an abusive relationship.

She taught school for 28 years and is focusing on education as a Tiffin Franciscan nun.

She said she began thinking seriously about becoming a sister 10 years ago, when she signed on as an associate of the Tiffin Franciscans.

Associates can be men or women who share the Tiffin Franciscans' mission to pray and work for justice and peace, serve the poor, and be good stewards of God's creation.

"To become an associate, you read a covenant statement but you're a lay person, either married or single, going about your life," Sister Shirley said. "The night I became an associate to this community, there was a voice within me that said I need to keep going. There's more."

Andrea Coble and daughter Graci, Sister Shirley Shafranek and her mother, Beaty Dvorak, and Terry Smith and son Isaac prepare for today’s ceremony. Graci and Isaac will be gift bearers. Ms. Coble and Ms. Smith are two of Sister Shafranek’s daughters.

She professed her temporary vows in 2008.

The Tiffin Franciscan order requires women to wait three to eight years after temporary vows before professing final vows.

"My goal was to make final vows before I'm 60," Sister Shirley said, "and I made it."

Two of her children will attend Sunday's Mass; the third couldn't afford the trip from Texas, she said. Two of her five grandchildren, ages 2 and 5, will carry the bread and wine to the altar as gift bearers in the 10:30 a.m. Mass Sunday in Convent Chapel.

"My children are all very supportive. They also think I have a special connection now with heaven, and they've made it into heaven because of me," Sister Shirley said with a laugh.

Her oldest daughter, Andrea Coble, 32, of What Cheer, Iowa, said she was not surprised when her mother broke the news about joining the convent.

"I was excited for her. She's a very caring and giving person and she lives very simply," Mrs. Coble said. "She definitely fits right in and seems very happy and content and at peace with it."

She said the biggest drawback is that her mother is 550 miles away.

"The biggest thing is we were used to having her right there," Mrs. Coble said. "But we can call any time. We email. We've done some Sky- ping. We definitely keep in contact."

Sister Shirley said she is not nervous about Sunday's ceremony.

"I'm excited," she said. "Whenever I think about it, I just grin. It is just such an honor for me at this point in my life. I feel very blessed and honored to be able to do it and I trust God. I'm as sure as anybody can be that this is the right move for me and that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing."

Contact David Yonke at: dyonke@theblade.com or 419-724-6154.