Growing up in a devout Catholic family, Sister Nancy Usselmann, FSP, knew of many religious orders. But, she said, she never considered joining one.
“Many of them would see me with my sisters and cousins around the same age and ask if we ever thought of becoming a [religious] sister,” she said of her childhood in St. Louis. “I would immediately smile and say, ‘Oh no, Sister. Not for me!'”
“I remember one sister behind the cloistered grille looking sad when I said that,” she added. “I just keep thinking to myself, ‘Oh Lord, I could NOT be silent!'”
Then, she met the Daughters of St. Paul, a religious order of more than 2,500 sisters worldwide who are dedicated to communicating — communicating Christ’s love with their own lives and through the media.
“The Daughters of St. Paul are consecrated women religious, first and foremost, living a profound media spirituality that informs our media mission of evangelization,” Sister Nancy described. “We live Christ and give Christ through the media and in the media culture.”
“We seek to infuse the popular culture with an awareness of God’s grace at work in the world and present everything in a Christian way, after the example of St. Paul the Apostle, the Church’s greatest evangelizer.”
— Sister Nancy Usselmann
Founded 1915 in Italy, the sisters known as “Media Nuns” pursue their mission in the spirit of St. Paul through various forms of media including publications, podcasts, social media, music and video. (Yes, that includes a TikTok account with nearly three million likes.)
In the U.S. and Canada, they run nine Pauline Books and Media stores. But the sisters do more than sell books, according to Sister Nancy, who serves as director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies and specialist in media literacy education for the order.
“Our sisters are writers, producers, media literacy educators, film/TV review[er]s, international speakers, presenters of retreats and parish media missions, and evangelizers,” she said. “We seek to infuse the popular culture with an awareness of God’s grace at work in the world and present everything in a Christian way, after the example of St. Paul the Apostle, the Church’s greatest evangelizer.”
Communicating Christ
Since their founding, the sisters have dedicated themselves to communicating Christ.
Their founder, Blessed James Alberione, appreciated the value of media, Sister Nancy said. She quoted him as saying: “The press, motion pictures, radio, and television today constitute the most urgent, most rapid, and most efficacious means of Catholic apostolate.
“He saw that to reach the masses of people with the message of the Gospel, we need to use the most rapid means possible,” she commented. “Today that is every form of media — legacy media and digital media.”
The mission of the Daughters of St. Paul, she said, is to direct people to Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Media mindfulness
The sisters not only use media to communicate but also educate others on navigating today’s world of communication. The Pauline Center for Media Studies, a project of the Daughters of St. Paul, develops and encourages media literacy, or media mindfulness, within the context of culture, education and faith formation.
Sister Nancy’s top workshops address media mindfulness, living virtuously through social media, and instruction on becoming “cultural mystics.”
“The popular media culture offers entertainment, news and opinions, some that are contrary to faith values,” she said. “We have to be conscious of our media choices and how they do or do not align with Gospel values.”
The sisters call this “media mindfulness.”
“It is a method of asking questions of the media we engage with through critical inquiry to discover the values, ideologies and understanding of the human person that are embedded in media messages,” Sister Nancy described. “We can then make informed choices of what media we choose to engage.”
“To be cultural mystics is an exercise in seeing God’s presence in the world, in the artistic questioning of popular media, and to become the bridge between our faith and the popular culture.”
— Sister Nancy Usselmann
“This method also helps us to reflect and think before we post or respond on social media or gaming platforms to consider how we can be a virtuous presence online,” she added.
She shared that part of the mission of Daughters of St. Paul is to teach people to become “media mindful” and to engage the media as cultural mystics.
“That means we bring our transformative experience of God as we delve into films, television series, social media, online games, music and any form of media to discover what deep human existential desires are present there,” she said. “Those human yearnings are the starting point of leading people to God, for whom they seek, whether they are aware of that search or not.
“To be cultural mystics is an exercise in seeing God’s presence in the world, in the artistic questioning of popular media, and to become the bridge between our faith and the popular culture,” she concluded.
Supporting the sisters
As media nuns, Sister Nancy said, they support others in the media by praying daily for all those who work in the media industry as well as those who are influenced by media messages.
That includes people like actor Harrison Ford, she said.
“When I meet directors, actors and media professionals, I always tell them that there is a group of nuns that pray just for them. They are immensely appreciative,” she revealed. “As Harrison Ford said after I told him we pray for him, ‘That means more to me than you know.'”
Sister Nancy shared what everyday Catholics do to help support the Daughters of St. Paul, beginning by joining their page on Patreon, an online platform allowing them to offer a subscription service for their content.
She also encouraged Catholics to connect with the sisters online at daughtersofstpaul.com, pauline.org, bemediamindful.org and on social media with the handles @daughterstpaul, @paulinebooksandmedia, @paulinemediastudies and by searching for #medianuns.
A vocation
While she did not consider becoming a religious sister as a kid, Sister Nancy remembered enjoying movies, music and books from a young age.
Her life changed after her cousin invited her to a retreat day with the Daughters of St. Paul. While she felt reluctant, she went.
“As soon as I walked into their center, I saw that they use movies, music and books to speak about Jesus!” she recalled. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Now that is something I could do!'”
Even so, she hesitated to return.
“Still not convinced religious life was for me, I would find any excuse not to attend other retreat days when the sisters kept calling to invite me,” she said. “I would sometimes go because my mother would say, ‘You can’t lie to a nun!'”
Mary also played a part in her vocation. The sisters handed her a prayer card to Mary, Queen of Apostles “To Know One’s Own Vocation.”
“I was going to Mass several times a week, and I would pray that prayer after Communion, asking Mary to help me to know my vocation in life,” she said. “Then I would add, ‘As long as it’s not a nun!’ Mary, I’m sure, had a good laugh!”
After several years and visits with the sisters, she said, she entered, to her family’s surprise.
“But, here I am 34 years later,” she said, “blessed and grateful to God for making me his media apostle!”
