Can Former Franciscan Postulants still wear their habits?

F

Former Franciscan Poulant

New member
Hello,
My name is Andrew, I'm a Former Franciscan Postulant.
I've been told 2 different answers on whether or not Former Franciscans can still wear their habits even if they're out of the community and returned to worldly lives. I have been told yes we can still wear them and the other said no we can't.

I hope the correct answer will be a definite yes.

Please Priests in religious communities reply or superiors of communities or orders.

Thank You for your time. 🙏

- Benedict
 
I seriously doubt they would allow this. There is no reason for you to be wearing their habit, once you have left the postulancy.

My best advice would be to ask the superior of the community from which you departed.
 
The wearing of a habit, similar to the Sacraments, is something that is received and not taken. If you have left the order for any reason, you have officially separated from it. It is now in your past. As Christians we are to learn from the past, but always look forward (Luke 9:62). Thus a desire to wear the habit strikes me as somewhat disordered, and if done so in public, risks the sin of scandal and potentially the sin of bearing false witness. One would also be a hypocrite, and we certainly must avoid that if at all possible. Please speak with your confessor about this, as I strongly suspect that there is some underlying issue which has not been resolved.
 
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Take the spirit of the community with you in the Cloister of your heart. I think it would be ok for a certain amount of time (months) indoors, but the Lord will probably withdraw the graces to wear it when He has something else for you to do for Him.

Blessings,
Cloisters
 
Former Franciscan Poulant said:
Hello,
My name is Andrew, I'm a Former Franciscan Postulant.
I've been told 2 different answers on whether or not Former Franciscans can still wear their habits even if they're out of the community and returned to worldly lives. I have been told yes we can still wear them and the other said no we can't.

I hope the correct answer will be a definite yes.

Please Priests in religious communities reply or superiors of communities or orders.

Thank You for your time. 🙏

- Benedict
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Really an interesting question. If I see it the right way then the Franciscans are not really a religious order, but a brotherhood; therefore, they are indeed not monks and nuns, but brothers and sisters. This means for some of them they don't use a traditional habit - while living together. You like to use a traditional habit although you do not live together with other Franciscans.

Question: Why do you care what anyone says - except your Franciscan friends?

 
vz71 said:
Why would you want to pass yourself off as someone from an order that you left?
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Are you sure he left the Franciscans? Maybe he just went away - for whatever reason. Home is where the heart is. To be alone and to feel to be lonesome are sometimes totally different things.

 
Anobsitar said:
Are you sure he left the Franciscans?
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That is how I am interpreting "if they're out of the community and returned to worldly lives."

Perhaps if the "returned to worldly lives" were not there I could see a different meaning. But the qualification would seem to make it clear that the question involves someone that has left.
 
vz71 said:
That is how I am interpreting "if they're out of the community and returned to worldly lives."

Perhaps if the "returned to worldly lives" were not there I could see a different meaning. But the qualification would seem to make it clear that the question involves someone that has left.
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Not really. Your problem is that you say, in the case of all Protestants, including Lutherans, “... they are excluded from the community ...”, but you cannot say, “... we are excluded from the community ...”, which is the same thing. My problem seems to be that I cannot say that Mormons have anything to do with the Christian religion at all, even though they also refer to our older texts.

...
Oh, sorry: now I am actually in a different place in my thoughts with a different person than I should be in reality. Wrong topic.
...

But there is one common element: whether someone leaves one of our Christian organizations – and whether someone leaves our Christian world altogether. Such processes seem to take place across a very broad spectrum. But pantha rei – “everything flows.”
 
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Speaking as a foundress, I make it clear to those who leave our project that there is to be no external representation of our institute in their lives after leaving us. I personally would be questioning the motives behind the desire to retain the distinctive garb.

Obviously, there's something in the previous experience that spoke to your heart. With the assistance of a spiritual director, I think I would be working towards a plan of life that included some kind of distinctive garb in civilian clothes (civvies). One also has to be careful about the kind of cross worn, because the wooden Tau cross signifies a Secular Franciscan.

Wearing the habit for private prayer should be acceptable. Just please forewarn any family or friends who might happen upon you while so garbed!
 
Cloisters said:
Speaking as a foundress, I make it clear to those who leave our project that there is to be no external representation of our institute in their lives after leaving us. I personally would be questioning the motives behind the desire to retain the distinctive garb.

Obviously, there's something in the previous experience that spoke to your heart. With the assistance of a spiritual director, I think I would be working towards a plan of life that included some kind of distinctive garb in civilian clothes (civvies). One also has to be careful about the kind of cross worn, because the wooden Tau cross signifies a Secular Franciscan.

Wearing the habit for private prayer should be acceptable. Just please forewarn any family or friends who might happen upon you while so garbed!
Click to expand...

Something is happening right now – billions of light years away. The message of this “now” took billions of years to reach us. But now it is here. Now this message reaches us. Now it is real. And it is the same universe (= “us”) that touches us – whether we feel it or not, whether we know it or not. We are all dressed in the same garment: God's creation. And perhaps no one felt this better than St. Francis.

 
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