At 84, Twin Cities Nun Heals With Massage

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- March is Women's History Month, a chance to highlight the contributions of women to history and contemporary society. Within that, it's also Catholic Sisters Week, which is a new addition to this month's celebrations.

WCCO This Morning's Natalie Nyhus met a woman who dumped her boyfriend 65 years ago to find her vocation.

Sister Rosalind, 84, has spent the last 40 years touching lives with through massage, with 21 of those years spent kneading muscles at St. Paul Saints baseball games, where they call her "The Stress Reliever."

"People ask me, 'Are you retired?' I say, 'Well, I have all of eternity to retire, so I am busy now doing massages,'" she said.

Standing less than 5 feet tall, what she lacks in stature she makes up for in massage power. Sister Rosalind's clients say she packs a lot of strength in her paws.

"We didn't have electricity where I grew up and we had cows to milk," she said. "I think God knew I was going to do massage, so that was part of my practice."

Sister Rosalind said that she finds her practice a tremendous way of helping people in a society that's "skin hungry."

"There are many times that a person needs to talk or cry. Even out at the Saints people say, 'While you're massaging me will you pray for me or pray with me?' That's where I find that people need to talk. They need to share some of that pain that is within them," she said. "I do lots of hugging."

Rosalind says at one time, she had three boyfriends that she "got down to one." But then she left that boyfriend in November 1949 to enter the convent. Ever since then, she has been connecting with people through prayer and a strong pair of hands.

"I am so happy in the sisterhood. If i had 100 more lives, they would all go to the sisterhood," she said.