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anode
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If you check out the men’s Trappist websites, you will observe that men working in their factories or fields do not wear habits. Ditto the Trappistines doing manual labor.
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JReducation
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That’s right. For manual labor many religious men and women wear either work clothes or a work habit. The work habit for men is usually a tunic-shirt that reaches down bast the hips. I’m not sure what each community of women wear in that case. They vary.
One thing that has to be understood is that habits are not cheap. Our habit costs over $200.00 for one tunic. You try to take care of it as much as possible. We wear it 24/7, but there are some jobs (i.e. painting, climbing etc) where it is better to wear something else. It’s not as if we have an entire wardrobe either. We have one habit, two pairs of pants and two shirts. Rarely do we wear the black shirt with the Roman collar. I’d rather wear a habit than than the Roman collar. Maybe it’s me. But I don’t like something choking me. Heck, I hated neckties when I wore them. The habit fits loosely around the neck.
It’s true that many religious communities have gone all over the place and are in serious trouble. But it’s going to take more than a habit to bring them back to the main road. They have many issues to deal with. This derailment is more common among religious sisters than men. The losses among male religious has been less. I’m not sure why that is. There are as many theories as there are religious.
The diocesan clergy is in a completely different category. They are not religious. They were never supposed to wear a habit or Roman collar. Most diocesan priests did not wear any kind of identifiable clothing until the mid 1800s and that was more common in some countries than others. It was not universal until much later.
We still have pictures of Fr. Ratzinger in a shirt and tie at the Vatican II Council. The custom in Germany and many European dioceses was that only priests in parishes wore clerical garb. Since Ratzinger was a professor, he wore the typical suit of a university professor. They did wear a cassock, but not in public.
In some countries the diocesan clergy borrowed the cassock from the Clerks Regular. Jesuits, Vincentians, Salesian, Redemptorists, etc are Clerks Regular. They often have a distinctive detail on their cassock. The Redemptorists have a white collar. The Passionists have a heart. The Fathers of Mercy have a blue logo and so forth. But it’s the same Jesuit cassock.
I think that the Roman Cassock, as we know it, came in the 1800s or early 1900s. It’s called Roman for obvious reasons. It was worn in Rome. That too caught on gradually.
I’m not opposed to habits, cassocks, veils or hats etc. But we have to be careful to know and remember what the Council called for in returning to the habit and other religious garb. It had to meet three criteria: simple, practical and becoming… OK, so I have to smile, because I’m not sure what the Council Fathers considered “becoming.” Some of us look good in a potato sack and others don’t look good even if you dress them up in high fashion. LOL
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
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TiggerS
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Appeals to me and thank you, ThomasEugene, for sharing it. Unforgettable words indeed. I think we each are called differently at times and what appeals to one is not so appealling to another. The Holy Spirit leads as He may and at times we might not appreciate this. I think that while The Holy Spirit may build on attraction, He leads by circumstances.
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ThomasEugene
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ThomasEugene
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you’re welcome tigger!
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JReducation
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Before judging, it is important to know a little history and canon law.
"They were to be religious without:
Habits – the notion of a religious without habit is not a post Vatican II idea. It began in the 17th century with Vincent de Paul. The Daughters were to appear in the world as secular women.
Solemn vows – this is very important. A religious who does not make solemn vows is not a nun. She remains part of the world. She makes simple vows. A religious in simple vows may own property, have bank accounts, inherit money. The Daugters were never meant to observe poverty as the nuns were meant to do. Today, many religious congregations, such as the Missionaries of Charity, still make simple vows, not solemn. They own no property or have money because their constitutions say they cannot, not because it is forbidden by their vow of poverty.
Those of us who make solemn vows, do not own property, cannot inherit property or acquire posessions, because the vow of poverty does not allow it. We cannot change that. But those who make a simple vow of poverty can change that at any time. The Church allowed this in the 17th century and it has not been abrogated.
Also, observe the use of the word “Company”. This was a common word for those who were not to be a religious order. They were canonically companies, societies or congregations. In the case of the Vincentian family, men and women, they are a company. This means that they are not bound to the community life as religious who belong to an order.
The word “order” means that the way of life that we live has been organized, structured and prescribed by the rule. We cannot change the rule. A company does not have a rule. They have statutes or a constitution that they write themselves and that they can change by a democratic process called a chapter. For an order, the rule is set in stone. We have constitutions, but they are written to fill in the blanks that are not already mentioned in the rule. They are also commentaries on the rule, so that every member interprets the rule the same way. This keeps our life ordered around the world.
For example, a Franciscan can no more change the Rule of St. Francis than we can change the Ten Commandments. Neither can a Benedictine, Carmelite, Augustinian, Carthusian or a Basilian. These families follow a rule. We are orders and we make solemn vows.
God in his infinite love and wisdom has graced the Church with many religious families, each with a different charism and a different way of life. Each has its mission and identity. Each takes its inspiration from its founder.
To suggest that the Daughters are rebels because they took off the cornet, is contrary to history. Vincent never mentions it in his writings. It became a habit, because the first Daughters wanted to imitate Louise de Marillac. The Daughters never had conventual structure or hierarchy. They were all secular stisters. They still are today.
The catastrophe that began before Vatican II was that many orders began to imitate the apostolic communities. They began to place more emphasis on the apostolic work and less on the daily life of religion. After a while, they lost their connection to their origin and their founder.
Today, the orders, congregations, societies and companies are undergoing reforms. There is a strong movement to go back to the founder and to recover the way of life that the founder left us. But many lay people are not too happy with this. What has happened with men is that those orders that were once very involved in parishes, schools, hospitals, colleges and other apostolates are pulling out.
Either we have religious who live like our founders wanted or we have the “new” version created in the 1800s who run parishes, shools and hospitals. Either we are religious orders or societies of priests, but we can’t be both.
Vatican II said that we could not disobey our founders, that we have to get back to them, to recover the original charism of the community. In fact, what Vatican II promoted cost parishes and Catholic schools dearly. The diocesan bishops were not ready for a return to religious life.
Many religious left their communities because they entered one version of religious life. Now they were told to go back a few centuries. That was not the community that they fell in love with. The community that they fell in love with was the one that they knew. So, they left.
Other religious did not know how to go back to their founders, make the 20th century religiuos happy and meet the demands of the faithful. They became dysfunctional. When you try to make too many people happy everything falls apart.
Today we are in the process of returning to the founders. This places greater demands on religious, but also takes religious out of parishes and schools. Take the Franciscans, it means going back to 1209, no new parishes.
Let us pray and let us be positive, not negative. No good ever comes from negativity.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
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JReducation
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I would add one more thing here. The laity has to decide whether it wants religious orders who live according to their ancient customs or the renovated version of the 1800s. Those who want the renovated version of the 1800s, which is what existed at the time of Vatican II, will have to give up their secular life and start new religious communities that follow that paradigm. Because the old orders are going way back. In my community’s case, we’re gong way back to 1209. The Benedictines and Carmelites go back even further. The Dominicans also go back to the 1200s. Augustinians back to Augustine.
That is why you have new foundations such as the Sisters of Life. They go back only to the 1800s. They are not attempting to go back further. The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia are going back to the 1800s and no further. The same with the Dominicans Sisters of Mary. They were not founded by St. Dominic. They take his inspiration, but they are not bound to follow his life in detail, which is what Vatican II called the old orders to do.
But there are not enough groups out there who can go back to the model of the 1800s. So we need some volunteers to start new religious communities. We do need the apostolic communities to run parishes and schools. The mendicants and monastics were not founded for that purpose. So we’re not going to be around parishes and schools much longer. Basically, the idea right now is to let the folks who have always been there die out and not replace them. You don’t want to be cruel to them and have them return to the austerity of the primitive observance or the obedience and restrictions of the ancient observance. You don’t do that to people. You don’t draft them into a religious order where they can have certain comfort and freedoms and after 20 or 25 years tell them, “Oops, we made a mistake and drifted off course. You have to change your way of thinking, acting, dressing, doing things by tomorrow morning.” You may as well ask them to leave.
And you don’t walk up to your local bishop and say, “OK what do you want? Do you want us to be religious in solemn vows or apostolic companies that run your parishes and schools?” I don’t think too many bishops would take that too well.
What is being done, which is a good thing, is that many lay people are taking it upon themselves to start apostolic societies and companies, such as the Daughers of Mary, Sisters of Life, and so forth. This is a good thing.
Let the old communities go back and start new ones that will do what the old ones did, which they should never have done in the first place. It’s almost ironic to say this, “They should never have become involved with parishes and schools, because they were not meant for this.” When you stop and think of it, they did a great act of charity for the Church and paid a price for it. The almost lost their identities as religious in solemn vows. They were willing to take this risk for love of God and Church.
I for one, feel a depth of gratitude to those communities that involved themselves in our lives in a way that they were not meant to be involved, just to help out. I pray for them, that now that they have a mandate to go back to their roots, that they will find the way back there. I also pray that God will bless them for their generosity and their courage to take the risk and pay the price.
We owe them a lot and we can repay them by being supportive as they return to their roots, rather than being critical of every mistake they made. Many of these mistakes were made in an effort to meet our needs and repond to our demands.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
That is why you have new foundations such as the Sisters of Life. They go back only to the 1800s. They are not attempting to go back further. The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia are going back to the 1800s and no further. The same with the Dominicans Sisters of Mary. They were not founded by St. Dominic. They take his inspiration, but they are not bound to follow his life in detail, which is what Vatican II called the old orders to do.
But there are not enough groups out there who can go back to the model of the 1800s. So we need some volunteers to start new religious communities. We do need the apostolic communities to run parishes and schools. The mendicants and monastics were not founded for that purpose. So we’re not going to be around parishes and schools much longer. Basically, the idea right now is to let the folks who have always been there die out and not replace them. You don’t want to be cruel to them and have them return to the austerity of the primitive observance or the obedience and restrictions of the ancient observance. You don’t do that to people. You don’t draft them into a religious order where they can have certain comfort and freedoms and after 20 or 25 years tell them, “Oops, we made a mistake and drifted off course. You have to change your way of thinking, acting, dressing, doing things by tomorrow morning.” You may as well ask them to leave.
And you don’t walk up to your local bishop and say, “OK what do you want? Do you want us to be religious in solemn vows or apostolic companies that run your parishes and schools?” I don’t think too many bishops would take that too well.
What is being done, which is a good thing, is that many lay people are taking it upon themselves to start apostolic societies and companies, such as the Daughers of Mary, Sisters of Life, and so forth. This is a good thing.
Let the old communities go back and start new ones that will do what the old ones did, which they should never have done in the first place. It’s almost ironic to say this, “They should never have become involved with parishes and schools, because they were not meant for this.” When you stop and think of it, they did a great act of charity for the Church and paid a price for it. The almost lost their identities as religious in solemn vows. They were willing to take this risk for love of God and Church.
I for one, feel a depth of gratitude to those communities that involved themselves in our lives in a way that they were not meant to be involved, just to help out. I pray for them, that now that they have a mandate to go back to their roots, that they will find the way back there. I also pray that God will bless them for their generosity and their courage to take the risk and pay the price.
We owe them a lot and we can repay them by being supportive as they return to their roots, rather than being critical of every mistake they made. Many of these mistakes were made in an effort to meet our needs and repond to our demands.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
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quinnsellars
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this is an interesting topic! my mom was taught by the D. C. in Cuba prior to the revolution and her leaving and coming to the USA. Her favorite teacher Sor Monica has been a D. C. for over 60 years and still works in an infirmary in Spain. I always wonder at the excuses that Religious use for their abandoning the habit. The first thing i think is: Gee, how did the community survive and thrive for sooooo long with so many problems with their habit(s)? The with modification and abandonment altogether these communities are close to extinction and that took less than 50 years. Another thing that bugs me is blaming Vatican II. Perfectae Caritatis did not say to abandon the habit. As a matter of fact Pope Paul VI specifically emphasized on P C by saying that orders were not to lose their original charism or abolish Religious dress for lay attire.It’s all for naught now as the newer orders are sustaining and these original orders will be gone in less than 50 years. But back to the Daughter’s of Charity. My mom told me that during Vatican II the order wanted to change their habit from the original and the person who designed that first habit after that was none other than Yves Saint Laurent who had been taken in by the sisters in Paris and had always been upset that he couldn’t kiss his caretakers because of the head wear at the time. Their second habit was very nice and quite accommodating but as with most Western orders they got caught up in change. The American provinces now boast that only 4 of 5 of the provinces require and veil.
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quinnsellars
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I’m sorry but I could not let this slide: Br J. R. thou dost protest too much! Today as we all know from the demise of everything after the mis-education as to the intentions of Vatican II some of your explanations and reasons are just semantics as the orders you referred to simply took it upon themselves to abandon their life as established by their original charism and/or rule and to live a secular life while having the church or it’s parishioners pay for that lifestyle all in the name of social justice. Example: a C.S.J. who drives a very nice luxury car in a large city with an incredible public transportation system and wears gap jeans and make up and jewelry says to those who ask her that the car is not hers it’s lent to her(yet she uses it every day of the week). The clothes are from her stipend or are gifts as are the other accouterments. I say that that is not living poverty as a vowed life nor is it living the life that Jesus lead in the gospels(something that these communities love to throw at you). I say it’s living as I do without the responsibility of having to make the payments for the items(luxuries).Yes, the original idea for these communities were as you say to live outside of the enclosure/monastery. They also had no approved rule or name or anything as they were nascent communities. Their founders and companions then went through the timely painstaking tedious work of getting their charters, rules, charisms, constitutions approved by the Vatican and the pope. With this approval always came their suggestion for their religious habit identifying their community also needing approval. If we’re gonna get into the canonical details let’s not leave out the means by which the end was reached.
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quinnsellars
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OK, I’m going to just stop reading these posts I think… The parish visitors that I know of who were started by a Holy Cross sister from South Bend ,In were formed in the 20 th century but they most certainly wore a habit and still do. As far as the M.S.B.T. the sisters (they also have a male component) did wear a habit as well and took Religious names up until 1970. I am confused as to where you get your information. As far as the difference between the habits of European and non-European orders while some distinguished themselves from the original orders from the “old world” their habits were their own initiation. An example would be the religious of Jesus and Mary. They ran houses for single women in central America and south America. Their habit rivaled that of any traditional Old world order complete with wimple large white bibb and a very large medallion on the chest.
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JReducation
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I believe that you may be misunderstanding what I’m saying as complaining. I’m not complaining at all. I was the one who said that many religious communities have gone all over the place and it will take more than a habit to bring them back to where their founders intended them to be.
As to the habit question, many religious communities were not founded with a hbit. That’s what I am saying. They adopted a form of dress that became a tradition for them. But their founders never wrote it into their original constitutions, such as St. Vincent de Paul. The habit worn by the DC became a habit almost by accident. When Vicent describes the new sisterhood he describes them in very secular term. They were to live and minister in the world, not like nuns.
Gradually, they took on many of the practices of nuns, including passing on a habit from generation to generation.
Whether they go back to that or not is not that important to me as long as they go back to the original spirit of St. Vincent, St. Louise and St. Elizabeth Ann.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
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Sister_Leocadia
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I know of some Poor Clare Colettines who express themselves through dance, mimes and little sketches to learn about festivals and saints and other holy topics. They are cloistered but they do seem to be very happy, out-going and expressive. I would not say that those Religious who choose to do these things have a “nerve”. They also wear a traditional habit and go barefoot so you can’t lump all religious together into one stereotype.Even though the Vatican Counsil II never said to take them off, some orders did anyways. But here is my question … Do any nuns or sisters wear the Cornette like the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul did? I also find that in some convents, the sisters are very liberal! I was on one of the Sisters of St. Joseph’s websites, and they had liturgical dancers!the horror, and the NERVE of these sisters. Statistics show, that Orders that wear habits, have more younger, and older vocations, and have a higher population than those without the habit. I love the habit, and I wish some orders interpreted the documents of the Second Vatican Council correctly. The documents never said to institute altar girls. Neither did they say to remove Altar rails. Sorry to go off topic (I do that alot). But, I much rather a Nun or Sister in traditional habit, Priest in Clerics or a Cassock, and during mass with the proper Vestments (not some tie-dye hippy creation that he made out of some of his old rags, which you wouldn’t be surprised to find in the sixties
) and Brothers and Monks in habit. God bless you all now! I hope you all had a blessed Christmas and Advent, and I would like to wish you a glorious New Year!
Dominus Vobiscum!
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Shoshana
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Someone asked earlier if there are many women religious who still wear a habit. Yes, there are many.
womenreligiousorders.blogspot.com/ (NOTE: click “older posts” at the bottom of the page to continue to the next page.)
There are many orders listed on this blog, after the top post: acatholiclife.blogspot.com/2007/02/nuns-should-wear-habit.html
womenreligiousorders.blogspot.com/ (NOTE: click “older posts” at the bottom of the page to continue to the next page.)
There are many orders listed on this blog, after the top post: acatholiclife.blogspot.com/2007/02/nuns-should-wear-habit.html
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Sister_Leocadia
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Ah, apologies. I would not think that dancing would be appropriate during Mass. My sister used to go to a Pentecostal Christian centre and some weeks they didn’t even have a sermon because “the Spirit moved” them to dance and speak in tongues and shout instead. I went along one week and it was chaos. In the end I sat in the lobby and read my Bible as the whole thing went one for 2 hours.
I know we all worship God in different ways but something like that doesn’t sit right with me. I always wonder how reverent it is to be doing all those things.
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JReducation
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Trust me, you don’t want to bring back the cornette. It takes a lot of work to maintain it. The habit that went with it costs a small fortune to put together.
Besides, St. Louise de Marillac never wore one. This came later. Louise wore a simple white veil that was later starched to keep it out the sister’s way when doing nursing. Vatican II was very clear that the religious were to return to the vision and mission of their founders.
When Louise and Vincent wrote the statutes for the Daughters of Charity they did not write a habit into the statutes. The habit was written in much later. You see, they are not an order; therefore, they do not have a rule. They have statutes that they can change at will. That’s the reason that St. Elizabeth Ann Seton never wore it. She was given a copy of the original statutes written by the founders. Since there was no habit in the statutes, she continued to wear her widow’s garb.
Her daughers, who loved her dearly, adopted the widows cap and shoulder cape out of love for their mother. When the Daughters finally arrived from France and the two communities were merged, those American Sisters of Charity who wanted to do so, adopted the cornette and blue habit of the Duaghters. They were not required to do it as a group. It was always an option. Many houses did not adopt that option.
It would be contrary to the mind of St. Vincent and St. Louise for us to impose something on their sisters, that they had no intention of imposing.
Another little known fact is that the Daughers of Charity are neither an order of nuns or a congregation of sisters. At the time of their foundation there was no such thing as a sister. Women religious were nuns. To avoid being forced to live like nuns, St. Vincent very astutely wrote into their statutes that the Daughers of Charity would never make solemn vows.
He created a new kind of vow for them. These are simple vows that are made for one year and renewed annually on the Feast of the Annunciation. Since there was no precedent for this kind of life in Canon Law, no one knew what to call them. They could not be called nuns, because canonically they were not nuns. That’s how the term “religious sister” came into existence. They are an institute of consecrated life, but are neither an order nor a congregation. They don’t even qualify for the status of a secular order, because secular orders make a perpetual profession.
The original idea was that they were to be lay women who performed corporal works of mercy. They were not bound to the recitation of the Divine Office, wearing a habit, or making perpetual vows of any kind. Today, they continue with that structure.
Observe that they do not live in convents or have superiors. Each house has a local superior, but there is no General Superior. Their superior is always the Superior of the Vincentians. They refer to their place of residence as the “sisters’ house”. They do not have a novitiate. They go through seminary, thus avoiding canonical novitiates and the obligations that come from that. They have no period of temporary profession leading to perpetual profession or solemn vows as do sisters and nuns. They can leave at any time without a dispensation.
Because of the nature of their orginization, it is proper for them not to look like women religious. Theirs is a very interesting arrangement. I believe it’s the only one of its kind for women. There are many for men. But I don’t know of any for women.
I’ll close on a comical note. When I was a missionary in South America, we had Daughters working with us. Because of the cornette (many many years ago), they were not allowed to drive or operate certain kinds of equipment at the hospital. I was very young and one of my duties was to drive them from one mission station to another. It was horrible, because I could not see through the rearview mirror, nor could I see to my right when a sister was sitting in the passenger seat next to me. In those days, cars did not have the mirror on the passenger door. You had to turn and look over to the right. I was often tempted to throw water on them.
Fortuantely for me, they changed out of the cornette by the end of my first-year there. Then I no longer had to drive them around. They were allowed to get a license.Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
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