The three surviving sisters of the Austrian chapter of the Canonesses of St. Augustine never cared much for their new retirement home. The rooms were small. They missed their old garden. For the first time in 60 years, they were asked to eat regularly with men.

Less than five miles away lay their former home, an abbey in a castle built in the Middle Ages. Nearby is a cemetery, and on a wall there are engraved the names of the sisters who had lived, prayed, taught and died at the abbey since their order moved in nearly 150 years ago. The surviving sisters — Sister Rita, Sister Regina and Sister Bernadette, who use only their religious names — were meant to be the final three on the list. This was where they wanted to be.

And so at a gathering of former students who loved them, a plan was hatched to free the nuns.

“From the very beginning,” Sister Bernadette said in an interview, “I wanted to go home.”

Much is in dispute about the sisters’ story, which has ballooned into a news-and-social-media sensation. Were they forced to move from their old convent? Was it unsafe? When they broke back into their former home — which they did — did they also break the law?

This much is certain: The flight of the nuns is a story about the difficulties of aging. For people, of course, but also for institutions.