21-year-old Lauren Franko was in college, leading a rich and full life out in “the World”. She had a boyfriend and plans for marriage and children. But instead, 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. Now 24, she has spent the past 3-years leading a hidden life of prayer and ritual, shielded from the outside world in order to focus on a higher calling of praying to save all souls. During her recent “First Profession” ceremony, she married God.
21-year-old Lauren Franko was in college, leading a rich and full life out in “the Worldâ€, as she calls it. She had a boyfriend and plans for marriage and children. But instead, 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. Now 24, she has spent the past three years 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 of praying to save all souls.
Radical Love is a photographic narrative of the beginning of Sister Lauren’s journey within a small monastic community. Documenting her passage through the first three years of religious life, the story is a window into her early love of God. The story also reveals her daily interactions living within a small community of nuns who are in various stages of their own spiritual paths… the same path that lay ahead for her. “The Promise†is a chapter that shows the young nuns increasing commitment, and the first of her two marriages to God.
The Dominican Nuns of Summit, New Jersey are a cloistered Roman Catholic monastic community. Ranging in age from 21 to 92 years, some of the nuns have been in the monastery for as long as 62 years. At the start of this project, Sister Lauren, then the youngest nun, had been there for just three weeks.