Run for Nuns

Editor's Note: I'm very happy to help support a great initiative that promises to encourage and support young women who wish to give their lives in service by pursuing a religious vocation. Please consider a donation and keep all of those involved in Run for Nuns in your prayers! Lisa

Run For Nuns helps fight debt, the vocation killer!

Pittsburgh, PA. – Taking a vow of poverty doesn’t lend itself to paying off college debt.  Priests, seminarians, religious sisters and friends from the Diocese of Pittsburgh will be running on May 15, 2011 in the Pittsburgh Marathon, Half Marathon or Marathon Relay as part of their 2^nd Annual “Run For Nuns” campaign (seewww.RunForNuns.com), an effort to eliminate the college debt of some young women so they are free to enter Roman Catholic religious communities.

Men and women who enter Religious Life -- a way of living in community focused on prayer and service -- pledge to live according to the example that Jesus Christ presented in the Gospels.  Because religious live a life of Poverty, they do not own anything or receive a salary.  The young women that the Run For Nuns team is supporting must eliminate their educational debt before they are permitted to fully participate in this way of life.

One of the seminarians, Patrick Caruso, was inspired to start the Run for Nuns campaign last year.  “The world has seen many courageous witnesses to love in the lives of religious sisters such as Mother Theresa,” Caruso said.  “These young women we are trying to help are eager to offer the same selfless service for the rest of their lives.”

“Men and women in our generation are looking for meaning. We desire to make a difference in the world. Religious Life and the Priesthood are really supernatural ways of living, serving our neighbor in need while acknowledging that God is the center of life,” said Sr. Alicia Torres, one of the future sisters who were able to enter religious life through the help of Run For Nuns last year.

This year Run for Nuns will be teaming up with Mater Ecclesiae Fund For Vocations, a 501(c)3 non profit organization which will make donations made on behalf of Run For Nuns to Mater Ecclesiae tax-deductible.  To make a donation, visit www.RunForNuns.com or mail a check payable to ‘Fund For Vocations’ to MEFV, P.O. Box 7433, Falls Church, VA 22040 and write “Run For Nuns” on the ‘For’ line.

Sr. Alicia Torres and Emily Davis, who were able to enter religious life last year through the help of Run For Nuns, will be returning to Pittsburgh to run with the Team.  Davis will accompany three sisters from her religious community, the Franciscan Sisters TOR, who will run the Marathon Relay in their full-habit.