Home // April 6-10 2009 > Sr Anna now dances for God

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Sr Anna now dances for God

Published: April 06, 2009

Anna Nobili, 38, spent years working as an exotic dancer and striptease artist at Milan night clubs but now she's a Catholic nun who describes herself a "ballerina for God".

The Daily Mail reports that Sr Anna Nobili, a lap dancer turned nun is to perform a religious dance in front of an audience of Catholic cardinals and bishops.

She swapped string bikinis and high heels for a nun's habit after a visit to the shrine of St Francis in Assisi, a place of pilgrimage for millions of Catholics in Umbria, in 2002.

Sr Anna, as she became, joined an order of nuns called the Sister Workers of the Holy House of Nazareth.

"I am like St Paul who was converted on the road to Damascus," she said according to the UK Telegraph.

"I really liked my old life. I was at the centre of looks but then I realised I was throwing my life, my body and my sexuality away.

"The nights were dark, they were filled with evil, with sex and with drugs.

"Then one day I went to Assisi and I was struck by how beautiful the sky was.

"I saw something fluorescent within the clouds, a cascade of colour and I felt the presence of God, the Creator.

"I started dancing and people were looking at me, I got on the train back to Milan and I felt as if God was in me.

"It was such an emotional moment, when I looked at myself in the train toilet mirror I didn't recognise myself.

"It was a transfiguration, I danced in the club one more night and the men were just looking at me, trying to take me to bed and I knew that was my goodbye.

"I called my boss and I said to him I found a new clean treasure and it was God."

"But now my life has changed, I have been reborn. I have never given up dancing but now I dance for God. 

Now she says she has been reborn by her faith in God and practises a form of "mystical" choreography which she calls "Holy Dance".

SOURCE

'Lap dancing nun' to perform for cardinals and bishops (UK Telegraph)

Like a prayer: The Italian nun who spent 20 years as a lapdancer (Daily Mail)

LINKS

Sister Anna dances (YouTube)

 

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Recent Comments

  1. Miracles are still happening and isn't it wonderful.

    Posted By: Lord of the Dance

  2. The 19th April is the feast of Divine Mercy, but everywhere one is seeing proofs of the glorious mercy of God!

    Posted By: Anne Boyce

  3. Oh dear, this kind of prancing around from an ex-stripper in front of bishops and cardinals...not exactly a good look in a church rocked by clerical abuse scandals!

    It is wonderful if this woman has indeed repented of her past life. Self-indulgent exhibitionism of this kind, however, probably isn't working off too much time from purgatory for her! But perhaps to be expected of many a-catholic religious orders these days.

    Posted By: terra

  4. If ever one was going to experience the presence of God it would have to be in Assisi. I visited the shrine of St Francis of Assisi in 2004 and was struck with the incredible beauty of the Church which was shrouded in mist at the time. I recall standing first at a distance from the Church and gazing at the sheer beauty of the surrounding countryside. The mist seemed somehow mystical and moved strangely swirling around the Church for some time and then vanished. The Town of Assisi is absolutely beautiful with its streets paved in what seemed to be pink marble. I shall never forget my experience and the feeling that something has stirred in my heart.

    Posted By: Kate

  5. Terra, who is without sin casts the first stone

    Posted By: Peter

  6. Terra it's not like Sr Anna is performing a striptease in front of the cardinals and priests! It seems like once again someone is polarising what's going on; she is dancing therefore she is being a self-indulgent exhibitionist! Please, she's merely using her skills of dance to express her devotion.

    I once saw a critical video of WYD in 2005. It was of an interpretive dance, with a caption of something like "Sensual dancing". The two people couldn't have been less sensual if they were dressed as Eskimos! Putting all forms of creative expression using the body in the same category as the sexual are unhelpful and, frankly, ridiculous.

    Posted By: Alex Knight

  7. There's too much of this silliness going on in the Church. People need the Mass celebrated with mystery and dignity, devout prayers, and NOT spectacle.

    Posted By: David

  8. Dancing for whom? God? The Church?
    Does this Church respect women ? What career path have they got? Does the church respect life?
    Why celibacy? And this based on a version that this
    God chose a particular people (discriminating against others?) and took his time to include us all?

    Posted By: Ennio Palozzo

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