Toni Greaves

Radical Love, The Vow: Twenty-one-year-old Lauren was in college, leading a rich and full life out in what she now calls “the World.” She had a boyfriend, and plans for marriage and children. Instead of following this seemingly known path, she felt called to religious life and, after hearing God propose to her via a song on YouTube, has chosen to live her life as a cloistered nun. Since entering the monastery, she now spends her days leading a hidden life of prayer and ritual, shielded from the outside world in order to focus on the spiritual realm and a higher calling—praying to save all souls. Radical Love, The Vow is the third series in a seven-year photographic narrative of this young woman’s journey within a small monastic community in Summit, New Jersey. Documenting her passage through various stages of religious life, this story is a window into her early love of God. Having now taken the religious name of Sister Maria Teresa of the Sacred Heart, this series follows the years leading up to her Solemn Profession at age twenty-eight in which she receives a simple gold band, much like a wedding ring, as a symbol of her vows and final commitment. The story also reveals her daily life, and her interactions living within a small community of nuns who are themselves in various stages of their own spiritual paths—the same path that lies ahead of her. The Dominican Nuns of Summit, New Jersey, are a cloistered Roman Catholic monastic community, founded in 1919. Their primary mission is to pray for the salvation of souls by leading a hidden life of prayer. While the number of nuns in the monastery varies at times, upon my first meeting them, there were twenty-one nuns ranging in age from twenty-one to ninety-two years. Some had been in the monastery for as long as sixty-two years. At the time I started this project, Sister Lauren, then the youngest nun, had been there for just three weeks.