Change of habits for model nuns

A Spanish supermodel and actress has revealed what led her to become a nun four years ago and she is not the first model or actress to follow the call to the religious life. Heres a look at some women called by God to radically change their lives.

She was one Spains most glamorous models, with her face on billboards and television screens across the country, but four years ago Sr Olalla de Maria walked away from it all to follow a call from God.

Sr de Maria, 36, who was previously known as Maria Olalla Oliveros, recalled that she had made the decision to join the Mandate and Order of St Michael the Archangel, which was founded in 2009.

The Lord is never wrong. He asked if I will follow him, and I could not refuse, Sr de Maria told the Argentinian newspaper El Diaro de Carlos Paz.

Sr de Maria at first had her doubts, but she found that she could not shake the image of herself dressed as a nun out of her head.

Although she became a nun four years ago, she has only now decided to speak publicly about it.

Being a model means being a benchmark, someone whose beliefs are worthy of being imitated, and I grew tired of being a model of superficiality, she said.

I grew tired of a world of lies, appearances, falsity, hypocrisy and deception, a society full of anti-values that exalts violence, adultery, drugs, alcohol, fighting, and a world that exalts riches, pleasure, sexual immorality and fraud, the ex-model said.

Sr de Maria is not the first model to quit modelling in favour of a cloth and veil.

Amada Rosa Perez was one of Colombias top models before leaving to work with a religious community in 2005 after tiring of her stressful life.

Ms Perez told Colombian newspaper El Tiempo that she had been diagnosed with a disease that left her with partial hearing in her left ear. The news caused her to question her lifestyle.

I felt disappointed, unsatisfied, directionless, submerged in fleeting pleasures, she said.

I always sought answers and the world never gave them to me. Before I was always in a hurry, stressed out, and got upset easily, she said.

I want to be a model that promotes the true dignity of women and not their being used for commercial purposes, Ms Perez said.

Now I live in peace, the world doesnt appeal to me, I enjoy every moment the Lord gives me.

Some may think Im crazy… well, the foolishness of God is more beautiful than the wisdom of men.

Ms Perez now works tirelessly with a Marian religious community in Colombia and is featured in The Land of Mary , a 2013 film which is a collection of testimonies from people about their experiences with Our Lady, either by apparitions or miracles achieved by faith.

The two models follow in the footsteps of US Benedictine Mother Dolores Hart, who as an actress in the 1950s and early 60s appeared in films with the likes of Elvis Presley, Montgomery Clift and Anthony Quinn.

In her biographical book The Ear of the Heart, published in 2013, she detailed her journey to the religious life as an encloistered nun, which was also the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary God Is the Bigger than Elvis.

Her big hit movie, other than her two Elvis blockbusters, was the 1960 Connie Francis vehicle Where The Boys Are, but the role which sealed her call to the vocation was that of St Clare in the film Francis, about the saint of Assisi.

Meeting Pope John XXIII during the filming in Italy amplified her call to the religious life.

She entered the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, as a novice nun and was at first received with scepticism and even some hostility from other sisters there.

She said she cried herself to sleep for many years, but was determined to become a good Benedictine contemplative nun.

Mother Dolores is not sorry to have left behind Hollywood and a life of stardom.

I think Hollywood reflects whats going on in the people and I think this is a very dark period in faith. And Im not saying faith to be a Catholic but faith in God, she said in an interview with beliefnet.com last year.

While some women leave the secular life to become religious sisters, one nun recently took to the secular stage to contribute to the Churchs new evangelisation.

Last month 25-year-old Sr Cristina Scuccia, nicknamed The Singing Nun, won wide praise after leading her audience in prayer after winning Italys version of The Voice.

In her audition, Sr Scuccia, performed the the song No One by US R&B singer Alicia Keys.

Sr Scuccias performance was so impressive that the audience give her a standing ovation. Clips of her performance soon went viral on the internet.

In The Voice format, contestants are coached by professional singers. During the blind audition phase the four coaches do not see the performers; they sit with their back to them. They were visibly surprised when they turned their chairs to face the singer wearing her religious habit. Singer Raffaela Carr even asked Sr Scuccia if she really was a nun.

The 25-year-old native of the Italian island of Sicily attended the auditions accompanied by her parents and four sisters from her community.

Throughout the contest, she wore her ankle-length black religious habit, black shoes and a crucifix around her neck.

I came here because I have a gift and I want to share that gift. I am here to evangelise, Sr Scuccia said.

She is not the worlds first singing nun. Jeanine Deckers, a member of the Dominican Order in Belgium, was also known as The Singing Nun, as well as Sister Smile. She scored a world-wide hit in 1963 with her song Dominique.

Her early life was dramatised in a 1966 film, The Singing Nun, which starred Debbie Reynolds. The same year of the movie she left the convent and lived as a lay Dominican. She died of suicide in 1985.