For years, self-confessed rugby addict Jessica Langrell’s ambition was to represent Australia at the Olympics. She had a shot, too; she was invited to a training squad. “My biggest dream was lined up in front of me,” she says, and she turned it down.
Langrell swapped her leather ball for a nun’s habit. Under her new religious name, Sister Mary Grace, the one-time surf lifesaver from Manly moved to a convent in New York and wears a veil, cape and scapular, with a heavy rosary at her hip. Sisters Rose Patrick O’Connor, Marie Vertas, Mirium Bethel and, far right, Mary Grace.
Credit: Steven Siewert Her antiquated outfit is a radical choice these days. After Vatican II modernised the church in the 1960s, most religious orders swapped old-fashioned robes for plain clothes that allowed them to move less conspicuously in the community. Grace could have chosen any one of the venerable religious orders that still exist in Australia, most of which no longer have habits.
Instead, she went to a New York-based order that does. “Something about it captivates you,” she says. She speaks of strangers who’ve burst into tears at the sight of her old-style habit; who’ve beseeched the sisters to pray for sick relatives, and shared with them their deepest fears.
“I’ve only ever experienced [the habit] as a bridge to people,” she says. Her decision reflects a push by young Catholics to resurrect the old traditions of their faith. For nuns, it’s the bride-of-Christ habit; fo.