At a convent in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the bell chimes every day at 5 a.m. Then the 40 or so women who live there year-round—Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist—head to the chapel.

Their day begins with an hour of prayer, followed by Mass. At 7 a.m., they have breakfast together, in complete silence. Many of them head off afterward to teach at nearby Catholic schools—sisters, unlike nuns, are not cloistered—while the novitiates stay behind to study at “the motherhouse,” as they call the convent. On some days, one of the women—Sister Miriam Holzman, who started living there 20 years ago—turns to a new item on her schedule: podcasting.

Back in February, Sister Miriam started hosting Dominican Sisters Open Mic, a weekly show in which she and her fellow sisters discuss topics such as scripture, the saints, and day-to-day convent life. Sister Miriam told me that when the podcast started, she hoped it would encourage listeners to “go deeper in their spiritual life, no matter what their background might be”—Catholic or not, religious or not.

The show seems to have resonated outside Catholic circles. Clips of the sisters playing the ukulele and describing an Ultimate Frisbee match have gone viral on TikTok. As of late August, their account on the platform has more than 275,000 followers and more than 8 million likes. The podcast has been featured in The New York Times and on the Today show. Listeners seem to be especially drawn to the sisters’ cheerfulness. They laugh frequently and have an easy way of interacting with one another. “Their laughter seems so stress free,” one commenter observed. Another said, “Sisters, I also want that regulated nervous system laugh.” In a post liked by more than 5,000 people, one listener asked, “Why does being a nun seems so fun even though I’m not religious?”