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Yes, these Sisters ride bicycles.
				At least &ldquo;the young ones&rdquo; do.
				This group of eight women, living together in community at St. Nicholas Convent in Wilkes-Barre, also teach children, run a school, tend a garden, perform clerical duties, make sandwiches for the poor, arrange blood drives, clean up cemeteries &mdash; just about every good deed you can imagine, all while wearing their distinctive black habits and veil.
				&ldquo;I like to tell people, I went from black and white to black and white,&rdquo; said Sister Ellen, who used to sport the striped shirt of a referee.
				Ranging in age from their 20s to their 80s, the eight local Sisters &mdash; all but one of them Sisters of Christian Charity &mdash; have taken varied paths toward their vocations. Among them, Sister Ellen worked for the U.S. Postal Service as well as officiating basketball games, Sister Chiara Marie taught for three years as a lay person, and Sister Elsa made her commitment more than 70 years ago, taking her vows at age 17.
				Sister Anna may have seemed destined for a religious vocation decades ago, when she was growing up in Vietnam and her mother awakened her at 4 a.m. for daily Mass.
				&ldquo;For me it was very beautiful and very powerful,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I love to pray. I am so happy for that.&rdquo;
				And for Sister Mary Theresa, who had Sisters of Christian Charity as teachers, it seemed natural to emulate them.
				&ldquo;They were always so cheerful, with so much enthusiasm,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I wanted to be like them.&rdquo;
				For other Sisters, their vocations may have come as more of a surprise.
				&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t have any Sisters at school,&rdquo; said Sister Josephine, who is from Allentown. &ldquo;And my parents weren&rsquo;t practicing Catholics.&rdquo;
				Nevertheless she felt a calling.
				&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t like a neon sign,&rdquo; she said, but something more subtle. And she kept her thoughts about becoming a nun a secret from her classmates, thinking they wouldn&rsquo;t understand.
				&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t tell any of my friends,&rdquo; said Sister Josephine who, at 24, is the youngest Sister at the local convent. &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t in the culture of my school.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;I kept it a secret from everyone,&rdquo; agreed Sister Chiara Marie, 29, a former Quakertown resident who made her first profession of vows more recently than anyone else in the group &mdash; just this past Aug. 16 at the Sisters of Christian Charity Motherhouse in Mendham, N.J.
				So what has drawn these women to take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience? To live a life of prayer and service?
				&ldquo;God doesn&rsquo;t stop calling,&rdquo; Sister Chiara Marie said.
				&ldquo;I would meditate before the Holy Eucharist, and I didn&rsquo;t want to leave,&rdquo; Sister Elsa said, adding she was also inspired in her youth by a portrait of the Blessed Mother, depicted &ldquo;as a teenager, giving herself to God.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;I thought that was so beautiful.&rdquo;
				The Rev. Joseph Verespy, pastor of St. Nicholas Church which, like the convent, faces South Washington Street in Wilkes-Barre, feels lucky to have them for neighbors.
				&ldquo;There are eight of them, and it&rsquo;s remarkable to have so many Sisters living together in community,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There are other nuns (from other orders) in the area, but they&rsquo;re more likely to live in separate apartments.&rdquo;
				Well, there were eight Sisters in the local convent, as recently as last week. But last weekend Sister Elsa moved to the Sisters of Christian Charity Motherhouse for retirement.
				&ldquo;My body is telling me, physically, that it&rsquo;s time,&rdquo; said Sister Elsa, who walks with difficulty. &ldquo;I certainly will miss everyone here.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;Everyone&rdquo; includes Sister Ellen Fischer, who is the principal at St. Jude School in Mountain Top; Sister Mary Theresa Wojcicki, who teaches and works in the office at that school; and Sister Chiara Marie Stimpfle, who teaches fifth, sixth and seventh graders at St. Jude.
				While those three travel to Mountain Top every weekday, in time for a 7 a.m. Mass, Sister Maria Angeline Weiss teaches at Nativity Miguel School in Scranton, where her knowledge of Spanish helps her communicate with the parents of her students.
				As a social worker Sister Anna Nguyen is the Sister most likely to organize a blood drive, solicit donations of furniture for needy families, distribute food to patrons of the parish pantry, or lead an effort to make sandwiches for folks at Ruth&rsquo;s Place and the Keystone Mission. She&rsquo;s also been in charge of several fund-raising projects that involved the making of Vietnamese egg rolls.
				Sister Josephine Wagner is studying education at King&rsquo;s College, with plans to teach Kindergarten through fourth graders, and Sister Maria Nguyen, who belongs to another order, the Daughters of Our Lady of the Visitation, is studying psychology and theology at King&rsquo;s, in the hope of eventually guiding other people into religious life as a formation director.
				Each day the Sisters go their separate ways to perform their various ministries. Then, as many families strive to do, they gather for the evening meal &mdash; everyone has a turn at cooking &mdash; followed by time spent praying together in their chapel.
				Do they feel they&rsquo;ve sacrificed a great deal to adopt a communal, celibate life?
				Sitting around a table that a benefactor donated to the convent, the Sisters say no, they know a kind of peace, and they&rsquo;ve received more than they could ever give up.
				&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have children of our own,&rdquo; Sister Ellen, the St. Jude School principal, offered as example. &ldquo;But we have many children.&rdquo;
				The bicycles at the convent, like their table, have been donated and the Sisters don&rsquo;t claim to own them. Chalk that up to the vow of poverty. Still, they enjoy cycling in the neighborhood and along the levee system, veils flying in the breeze.
				The Sisters also enjoy lively board games such as Rummikub, a combination of rummy and mahjong that, according to Sister Elsa, &ldquo;Sister Anna always wins.&rdquo;
				Several of them used to sing with the St. Nicholas Parish Choir, until coronavirus concerns halted choir activities.
				Now they&rsquo;re more likely to spend time in a peaceful courtyard of a garden, where Sister Mary Theresa delights in each tomato, pepper and bouquet of basil.
				In recent months, she&rsquo;s had plenty of gardening help from other Sisters in the household.
				&ldquo;It was our COVID therapy (to help in the garden),&rdquo; explained Sister Maria Angeline who, quietly and somewhat wistfully, later admitted there is one aspect of her previous life that she misses.
				&ldquo;I miss ballet,&rdquo; she told a reporter.

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‘For me it was very beautiful and very powerful’