(Lisa Schiltz teaches law at the University of St. Thomas. A graduate of Yale and Columbia, she grew up in Germany. She has four children. Her son Peter has a dual diagnosis of Down’s Syndrome and pervasive development disorder, a diagnosis on the autism spectrum.)

Kristen: Are you a cradle Catholic?
Lisa: Both my parents were Catholics of German and Polish descent. There were six kids and we went to Mass every Sunday and mother took us to stations during Lent. The faith was a very natural part of growing up.

My father worked as a civilian for the army after World War II in Germany. To be an American there was interesting. I got a little taste of both cultures: on base, there was very traditional parish life, while the German church in our village was older and prettier but very empty and dry.

More than one nun has confided to me that she was forcefed a spiritual diet of the “Little Way” of St. Therese during her novitiate. It’s an acquired taste, at least for some. Although Therese is a doctor of the church and widely invoked today, her wisdom is more readily apparent after life’s experiences buffet our complacency.

The Martins weren’t exactly your average Catholic family. Both Louis Martin and Zelie Guerin attempted to join religious orders in  early adulthood, and were rejected. Louis lacked the Latin scholarship necessary for the priesthood, and Zelie’s fragile health disqualified her. They met in Alençon, and  recognized one another as soulmates.

(Loyola Classics, 2005, reprint of Viking 1969), 656 pp., $13.95

Philippa Talbot appears to have it all: good friends, a respectable career, a pension plan. She inspires employees to walk taller, dress with style, and improve themselves. However, at age 42, Philippa decides to abandon it all to serve God as a cloistered Benedictine nun. She gives away her office possessions to her co-workers and explains, “An enclosed order is like a kind of powerhouse. A powerhouse of prayer; you protect a powerhouse, not to enclose the power, but to stop unauthorized people getting in to hinder its working.”

Archbishop John Carroll visited Emmitsburg on October 20, 1809. At age seventy-four, every clump of the horse’s hooves must have jolted his brittle backbone. He was anxious to see the foundation of the first American nuns. But he also needed to assess the spiritual problems reported to him by Mother Seton.

The sisters were largely settled by the end of July 1809. After their first community retreat, Fr. Dubourg, the first provincial, decided the sisters were too dependent upon one priest, Fr. Babade. To Elizabeth’s shock, Dubourg forbade them to correspond with Babade, nor to go to him for confession.