Having been able to catch a little of the Olympic speedskating events over the weekend, this article about a former speedskater turned nun was particularly interesting.
Kirstin Holum came from “speedskating royalty” — her mother was a gold medalist in 1972 and went on to train the legendary Eric Heiden to his 5-gold victory in 1980. Holum herself placed sixth in the 3,000 meters at Nagano in 1998, and many people thought that her best skating days were still ahead of her.
But God, it seems, had other plans:
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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“Speedskating was such a huge part of my life,” Holumn said in a telephone interview with Yahoo! Sports. “I still loved the sport, but I had this incredibly strong calling that it was time to move on and take a different path in life.”
There is no television and no internet at St. Joseph’s Convent in Leeds, England, meaning Holum won’t get to watch the Winter Olympics where she was supposed to become a star.
The peaceful surrounds of the convent is where Holum, now known as Sister Catherine, devotes her life to religious service as a Franciscan nun. That calling had begun on a trip to Our Lady of Fatima, a holy site in Portugal famed for a series of religious visions that appeared nearly a century ago. It was outside the Fatima basilica where Holum decided that a path of religious dedication, not frozen skating lanes, would be her destiny.
“It is funny now to think of how different my life is now,” she said. “I had the wonderful privilege of being able to compete as an Olympian, and now I am blessed to able to serve God and help those less fortunate.”
Sister Catherine finds that her status as an Olympic athlete gains her “street cred” with the children she works with as a Franciscan Sister of the Renewal. Her life story mirrors the message that the Sisters of Mary were able to convey to Oprah on their television appearance last week:
“It is not exactly something you would normally expect from a sister. But I think it is good for people to see that members of the religious order can come from any background and any walk of life. It is all about your commitment to the message.”
[H/t: Laurance]