I;m trying to come to grips with a personal problem, frustrated by the number of contradictory responses I’ve been getting,
I’m not sure what “problem” you are trying to come to grips with. You’ve made it clear that you are heading toward a fairly solitary life, devoted to prayer. If that’s not by choice, then it’s a problem for you. If it is freely your choice, then what you wear strikes me as the least of your problems.
Then you ask if, in that context, you could wear a habit. The answer was clearly no, a habit has a special significance for the religious and to wear one is clearly not appropriate unless you
are formally in religious life. So you got an answer to your question. Perhaps not the one you hoped to hear, but the correct one.
“Such a question is one of those moments when I simply stop the conversation, get up from my desk, walk the person to the door of the chancery, make a note that this person is not to be granted another appointment…with a memo to whoever is their parish priest.”
The question you asked, whether a robe or blouse was more pleasing to God, was silly and Fr. Ruggero was well within his boundaries to shrug his shoulders and conclude that this person wasting his time or was spiritually immature; it’s a “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” type question. God wants you to carry out His plan according to the Gospels as befits your station in life. Outside of religious life, it has very little to do with what you wear, as long as what you wear is appropriate to circumstances, such as wearing something modest & neat and somewhat more formal if you’re going to meet the bishop or tattered work clothes if you’re cleaning around the house or working in the garden (even monks have work clothes for jobs that wouldn’t be practical to carry out in their habits) or neat casual clothes if you’re going out for a coffee with a friend. You are certainly free to favour certain styles, such as skirts/dresses that come down to your ankles, conservative colours, or whatever. What you wear in private is also your affair, but in public, you shouldn’t wear a habit, as many have pointed out.
I’ve been an oblate for 15 years, and in my early years I too wondered what outward sign I could wear of my oblation, when it dawned on me that the “habit” God wanted me to wear, was living according the values I promised- stability, obedience and conversion, and living inspired by Saint Benedict’s Rule, in every day life including seeing Christ in everyone I come across. There are some days where that requires far more effort than it should. The “sack cloth and ashes” that I wear in those circumstances, is forcing myself out of my comfort zone. What I did do, sartorially, is greatly reduce the size of my closet since I retired, giving away a lot of surplus clothes to the parish collection box, dressing simply.
So I wear no outward sign of my faith or affiliation, other than (I hope) the way I act and relate with people.
I respect that you’ve given up a lot to care for your father; I should be so lucky in my old age.
