From Korea to Greensburg, from mission translator to nun, life keeps evolving for Sister Hyeon Lee

When it came time to profess her vows Saturday morning, there was no doubt Sister Hyeon Lee was ready for the lifelong commitment.

“I am so resolved,” she said with emphasis, to laughter of about 100 friends, family and fellow sisters who had gathered at Caritas Christi in Greensburg to witness the rite of religious profession.

Lee, 51, a native of South Korea, admired the silver ring on her left hand that serves as a physical symbol of those perpetual vows she took as part of Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill. Afterwards, she took photographs with friends, posing in one with several fellow sisters, their ringed hands outstretched toward the camera.

“Life keeps evolving,” she said.

Lee’s interest in potentially becoming a woman religious came while she helped Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati with translation while they were in South Korea for mission work, according to Sisters Barbara Ann Smelko and Mary Norbert Long. She approached the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill in Greensburg because of their connection with a branch of sisters in South Korea.

Over the following six years, Lee’s formation came with the help from nuns who guided her on a religious path, said Long, provincial superior of the United States Province of Sisters of Charity.

“It’s a journey to the ring, and it’s now living the ring,” Smelko said. “There’s no beginning and no ending to the ring, it just goes on.”

Lee’s vows come at a time when fewer women are becoming nuns. The numbers in the U.S. have plummeted from over 180,000 in 1965 to fewer than 35,000 in 2021, according to statistics from Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, the national church retirement office and U.S. Census figures.

Sisters have staffed and run parochial schools and colleges and built hospitals and orphanages. Locally, they were trailblazers in both health care and education.

Saturday was the first time a woman took vows with Sisters of Charity since 2012, Long said. Lee’s vows have boosted morale for her counterparts and represent a coming transformation.

“We pray every day for vocations, for women to come,” Long said.

In her vows, Lee promised chastity, obedience and poverty for life. Monsignor William R. Rathgeb, chaplain at Caritas Christi, welcomed Lee into the sisterhood.

“We don’t make the choice on our own, God calls us. And how does he call us?” Rathgeb said. “He calls us through the beautiful people that are gathered here.”