Well, is she?

Angela Svec is a 27-year-old, St. Louis University attending, fashion loving woman, and she is going to be a nun.

Already she is an ambassador of National Catholic Sisters Week and has spent time living with the Poor Clare nuns in Belleville, Illinois. But when she tells people this is the vocation she wants to follow, they mostly look astounded. She receives many comments and questions, but the most astounding one has to be “You’re too pretty!”.

Their questions have forced me to confront my self-image. Who do I see in the mirror? How do I appear in God’s eyes? How does one affect the other?
When I lived with the Poor Clare nuns in Belleville, Ill., I discovered that their monastery has no mirrors. At first, it was a shock for this cosmetics junkie, but it became incredibly liberating. I felt free to be who God designed me to be and more fully attuned to the people around me. I could pour the energy I used to invest in my appearance — fretting over the reflection in the mirror, trying to alter it — into my spiritual life.
Now I am better prepared to respond when, invariably, someone quips that I’m too pretty for the convent. “Thank you!” I say. “But there is no mold. God calls everybody! It doesn’t matter what you look like, where you’re from or who you know.”

Angela says there are “1 000 U.S. women in some stage of formation to become Catholic sisters”. This is why she is doing it:

I was raised Catholic in a loving home in Belleville, Ill. I envisioned a white-picket-fence future of marriage and motherhood and even got engaged at one point. But I was always seeking something more. In many ways, my attraction to consecrated life is a reaction against the trappings of modern, secular life. I yearn for service and simple living. I crave a sisterhood centered on my deepest values, not a sorority based on boys and booze. I’ve had the privilege of visiting convents across the country looking for the right fit, and I meet with a spiritual director regularly to guide me as I determine my next step.
I may not look like a nun, but my heart is shaped for this vocation. I see religious life as an adventure that will exceed my wildest dreams.

What do you think? Should looks affect what career path you take? What does a nun even look like? Or an accountant. There’s no checklist for long or short hair, is there?

[Source: The Huffington Post]