Can a health condition impede a religious vocation?

Listener Sarah is considering religious life, but she has a life-threatening peanut allergy and wonders if the needs that spring from that will bar her from community life and the apostolate.

"The common life doesn't mean that we all have to be a certain way and all of our health has to be absolutely perfect — I mean, I don't know of any human being that could achieve that," says co-host Immaculate Heart of Mary Sr. Maxine Kollasch.

Franciscan Sr. Shannon Shrein talks about how her own chronic health condition has affected her life as a nun. "It gives us a tenderness and a heart for those that have an illness or issue that they can't control unless with discipline," Sister Shannon says. "And that's a good thing and a gift, I think."