Lillies of the Colorado field: The curious life of Colorado’s cloistered nuns

Sister Maria-Immaculata untangles the mane of one of the two horses at the abbey, Savanah, while mucking out their pen on Tuesday, May 30, 2023, at the Abbey of St. Walburga near Virginia Dale, Colo. (Timothy Hurst/Denver Gazette)

By Carol McKinley/Denver Gazette

Sister Assunta rejoiced over the anomaly of a single egg laid in the heat of the afternoon.

“Look! It’s a miracle! One straggler just for you!”

The 33-year-old North Face cap and rubber-boot wearing Benedictine nun was a “success” story in another life. The Baylor graduate was once on a traditional path with a steady boyfriend and a promising career as a program coordinator for an Austin, Texas nonprofit.

But when her boyfriend proposed, she did a stunning about face and committed to a cloistered life as a Benedictine sister.

“I had a mysterious longing in my heart to be a nun,” she explained.

Sister Assunta declined to divulge her former name as if that person never existed.

For their first interviews since before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Abbess of St. Walburga allowed The Denver Gazette into their bubble for a day.

Read the full story on the Denver Gazette.