Best TV Show of 2017 – With Nuns

by Gunther Simmermacher · December 12, 2017

It might have been the best thing I’ve seen on TV this year — and it was a reality show. The British television four-parter Bad Habits: Holy Orders could easily have resulted in something banal. It turned out to be uplifting and moving.

The premise had five young women who lead a hedonistic, amoral lifestyle come to a convent on what they were told would be a spiritual retreat.

The young women, aged between 18 and 23, were not misled, but their expectations evidently involved yoga on beaches in Bali, not a nunnery in rural Swaffam, England.

So when they arrive there, suitcases filled with bikinis and skimpy dresses for the after-yoga parties, they are a little more than disappointed. One exclaims: “This is hell.”

Daughters of Divine Charity

The Sisters, members of the Daughters of Divine Charity congregation, are a little nervous themselves about having their serene house populated by skimpily-dressed women who swearing as they lug their oversized suitcases upstairs.

The convent is headed by the elderly, lovely mother superior and her deputy, the no-nonsense but kindly headmistress of the adjacent Sacred Heart school. There are several younger Sisters there, though none of them English.

The convent’s demographics turn out to be a benefit: the older Sisters give structure and wisdom to their guests, the younger Sisters become identification figures.

It doesn’t begin well for the young women who are required to surrender their smartphones, be in bed by 10pm, up for 4am prayers, and perform manual tasks alongside the Sisters.

The Vodka Incident

There is a vodka incident, when the girls try to smuggle a bottle of liquor into the convent. The Sisters, who may be simple but not stupid, spot the plot before the plonk even reaches the convent.

Caught out, the scared girls expect to be punished or even expelled; instead they are confronted with the disappointment which their breach of trust created, and are then forgiven. It’s an early turning point for these troubled girls.

Later the young women are sent to other convents for a few days. They are less than keen about being with the contemplative Poor Clares, but they positively bloom in convents where they can serve others, in soup kitchens and hospitals.

The transformation of these young women is beautiful to observe, and at times very moving. All of them returned home determined to leave behind their old hedonistic ways — realising that this may be a long road yet — and a couple took concrete action to set their lives on a new course.

The Sisters, with love, guidance and non-judgment, revealed to these girls their true self-worth, something they learnt cannot be measured by the number of likes for a selfie or a prolific series of one-night stands.

Little Seeds Were Sown

The girls, who entered and left as non-believers, might not understand it, nor probably most viewers, but God was present in their transformation.

Bad Habits: Holy Orders was produced by atheists, but the programme documents the power of faith — an important message in a country where 53% of people are totally divorced from religion.

It also presents the vocation to the consecrated life positively. The Sisters are just as we Catholics know and love our Sisters: kind, practical, prayerful and radiant with God’s love. The six young women fell in love with the Sisters of Swaffam, and so surely did the viewers.

As I watched these four episodes (and a second season is to follow), I was thinking that there must be convents in South Africa looking for a new social purpose — and new streams of revenue to sustain them. Maybe Bad Habits: Holy Orders could provide a template for a programme whereby young people with troubled lives could be guided in their transformation in local convents.

Let’s just float this balloon…