{"id":85990,"date":"2026-08-30T10:05:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T14:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/?p=85990"},"modified":"2026-08-30T10:07:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T14:07:15","slug":"why-do-nuns-seem-so-cheerful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/why-do-nuns-seem-so-cheerful\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Do Nuns Seem So Cheerful?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>From the Atlantic:<\/em><\/p>\n<div>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\u2014Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist\u2014head to the chapel.<\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div>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\u2014sisters, unlike nuns, are not cloistered\u2014while the novitiates stay behind to study at \u201cthe motherhouse,\u201d as they call the convent. On some days, one of the women\u2014Sister Miriam Holzman, who started living there 20 years ago\u2014turns to a new item on her schedule: podcasting.<\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div>Back in February, Sister Miriam started hosting\u00a0<em>Dominican Sisters Open Mic<\/em>, 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 \u201cgo deeper in their spiritual life, no matter what their background might be\u201d\u2014Catholic or not, religious or not.<\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div>The show seems to have resonated outside Catholic circles. Clips of the sisters\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/o\/m5vkV\/https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@openlight.media\/video\/7637705183388028191\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pla<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/o\/m5vkV\/https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@openlight.media\/video\/7637705183388028191\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ying the ukulel<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/o\/m5vkV\/https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@openlight.media\/video\/7637705183388028191\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">e<\/a>\u00a0and describing an\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/o\/m5vkV\/https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@openlight.media\/video\/7607680302093192461\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ultimate Frisbee match<\/a>\u00a0have 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\u00a0<em>The New York Times\u00a0<\/em>and on the\u00a0<em>Today\u00a0<\/em>show. Listeners seem to be especially drawn to the sisters\u2019 cheerfulness. They laugh frequently and have an easy way of interacting with one another. \u201cTheir laughter seems so stress free,\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/o\/m5vkV\/https:\/\/www.cosmopolitan.com\/lifestyle\/a71668183\/tiktok-nuns\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">one commenter observed<\/a>. Another said, \u201cSisters, I also want that regulated nervous system laugh.\u201d In a post liked by more than 5,000 people, one listener asked, \u201cWhy does being a nun seems so fun even though I\u2019m not religious?\u201d<\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Atlantic: At a convent in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the bell chimes every day at 5 a.m. Then the.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-85990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-news","7":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85990"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85992,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85990\/revisions\/85992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}