Many Gen Z young people may have heard about religious sisters, but often they’ve never met one.

“They see them in movies in costumes,” said St. Joseph of Peace Sister Chero Chuma of Bellevue. “Most of them have the idea that sisters are old and white,” she added.

So when they meet Sister Chero, a millennial from Kenya who has an accent, dresses simply and wears her hair naturally, “interesting conversations always come from there,” she said.

As Sister Chero travels around the Archdiocese of Seattle speaking about vocations to religious life, she often is starting with the basics.

“With the younger ones, it’s really planting the seeds — introducing them to a sister and the idea of vocations,” said Sister Chero, who is U.S. vocations director for her congregation.

Sister Chero, along with Benedictine Sister Paz Vital of St. Placid Priory in Lacey, have been promoting awareness of religious life both for their communities and as regional representatives of the National Religious Vocation Conference.

Their work is “more critical now than before because of the need to amplify the visibility and vitality of religious life,” Sister Chero said. “The reality is that there are only a few of us in active ministry, and young people do not have access to ask questions readily or to see how and what it means to be a religious woman.”

Some people, Sister Paz said, “may not even imagine the possibility of offering their life totally to God (because) usually society and the media promote a life of consumerism (as) the way of happiness.”

In the past year, the sisters’ efforts have included visits to high schools, an elementary school, St. Martin’s University, parishes, adoration nights, retreats and gatherings of youth and young adults around the archdiocese, including the Catholic Youth Convention last fall and the Middle School Encounter in March.

Sister Chero has partnered with the archdiocese’s vocations, youth and young adult ministries, while Sister Paz speaks about vocations as part of a group that includes a monk from St. Martin’s Abbey and a deacon and his wife. The priory also invites Benedictine scholarship recipients from St. Martin’s University for Mass, food and conversation. “We are getting them to come to see,” Sister Paz said.

At events, people visit the vocations table and pick up brochures, cards with a prayer for vocations and resources from the vocations conference, Sister Chero said.

When young women stop to talk, “it has been a moment of answering a simple question and sharing a new understanding of religious vocation and how one learns more about it,” she said. “Meeting curious young women and people who want to learn more about religious vocations is life-giving and encouraging.”

At parish events, Sister Chero said she has had the chance “to remind parents and grandparents to actively and intentionally invite young people to consider a religious vocation.” She also has passed that message to priests in the archdiocese, encouraging them to speak about vocations from the pulpit and when they interact with  young adults.

Discerning the call to religious life

Sister Chero said she didn’t think about becoming a sister until she came to the U.S. to continue her studies toward a career in health care.

“While completing my associate of arts degree in nursing and experiencing the dating life, it became clear that married life was not how I wanted to live my baptismal call,” she said when profiled in the August/September 2022 issue of Northwest Catholic.

Through prayer and the guidance of a spiritual director, “I encountered the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace online,” she said. “Reading about their charism of peace through justice and later meeting the sisters sealed the deal!” She professed perpetual vows in 2012.

Sister Paz, who grew up in Mexico City, said she felt the call to religious life “all my life,” but pursued a career in biomedical research. “This call never passed. God never gave up,” she said; she later entered a Benedictine community in the Midwest, spending five years there. Through an online Benedictine sisters’ group, she found the St. Placid community, got to know one of the sisters and transferred to the priory in 2020; her profession of final vows may happen in 2025.

Sister Paz says being a sister is a simpler, “less needy” life. “Living religious life in community helps me to see … what really life is about,” she added.

What does a sister do all day?

When Sister Paz speaks to young people about vocations, the first thing they want to know is: What does a sister do  all day?

“Some people think that sisters don’t do anything” besides pray, said Sister Paz, who lives with 13 other sisters in the semi-cloistered St. Placid community.

Most of the sisters there are spiritual directors, but two teach at nearby St. Martin’s University — a fact that amazes some of the young people she meets, said Sister Paz, a spiritual director who has a master’s degree in theology with a concentration in Hispanic ministry.

Depending on the charisms of their congregations, sisters may be involved in a wide variety of ministries, such as teaching, social justice advocacy, health care, outreach to the poor and vulnerable, parish ministry and contemplative life.

In addition to her work as vocations director, Sister Chero is on-call psychiatric practitioner at the Crisis Solutions Center in Seattle. She holds a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from the University of Washington and a dual bachelor’s degree in nursing and theology and religious studies from Seattle University.

Meeting young people provides opportunities to address basic questions about the typical life of a sister, Sister Chero said, as well as explain the differences between congregations of sisters who wear habits or veils and those, like hers, that dress simply. As a St. Joseph of Peace sister, Sister Chero also wears her congregation’s distinctive “peace cross.”

While attending the archdiocese’s PNW Adoration Nights in different parishes, Sister Chero has been “amazed” at the faith expressed by the youth and young adults. “Some have shared with me how devotions such as Eucharistic adoration are key to recenter and help them focus on their Catholic faith,” she said.

Sister Chero and Sister Paz said their work is about accompanying young people, helping them discern whatever vocation they are being called to.

“My goal,” Sister Chero said, “has been to meet Generation Z and Alpha where they are, actively plant the seed of vocation to religious life and our charism, build and nurture relationships, and pray for these encounters as God graces young people’s curiosity, desires and yearning for what it means to choose a vocation.”

“In the end,” she said, “really it’s the Holy Spirit … who does the work. I’m just an instrument.”

Explore religious life

To learn more about life as a woman religious, contact:

Or visit archseattle.org/sisters.

This article appeared in the June/July 2024 issue of Northwest Catholic magazine. Read the rest of the issue here.