| Within the context of Catholic sisters' congregations today, there is an imbalance between the numbers of women who are entering religious life and those who have been sisters for many years. This dissertation explores the lived experience of eight Catholic Sisters from two different age groups. The younger participants were no older than 43; the older ones were no younger than 70 and had entered before the Second Vatican Council (1962--1965). This study utilized a phenomenological methodology, which employed semi-structured interviews that were recorded, transcribed, and subsequently divided into sections corresponding with the topics in the literature review. Each topic was then analyzed, and the similarities and differences in the lived experience of the members of each group, as well as those that existed between the cohorts, are presented. |
