For These Young Nuns, Habits Are the New Radical

[johnnykins]

A few interesting facts:
The conference [liberal LCWR] has more than 1500 members, who represent more than 90 percent of the 59,000 women religious in the United States . lcwr.org/lcwraboutus/aboutlcwroverview.htm

From CARA::nrvc.net/english_version/?return_url=english_version
• According to the survey of new members, the average age of entrance is 30 for men
(median 27) and 32 for women (median 29). However, there is a ten-year gap in average
and median entrance age between women in LCWR institutes and women in CMSWR [conservative habit wearing nuns] institutes. According to the survey of religious institutes, more than half of the women in initial formation in LCWR institutes (56 percent) are age 40 and older, compared to 15 percent in CMSWR institutes.

• About two-thirds of the responding new members are in institutes that wear a religious
habit.

Note 90% of nuns in institutes belonging to LCWR while 2/3 of new nuns wear habits - presumably from the 10% non-LCWR. Hmmmmm

Is anyone at the un-habited institutes paying attention? Nope!

 

[Tigg]

Just received a mailing from the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. It contained a colored brochure called “More True Tales of the Habit.” I won’t reveal the names of the sisters who wrote of their experiences, but one testified of the power of the habit when a tatooed and body pierced young man approached her asking her to say some prayers for him. She writes, “My habit reminds me of who I am and it reminds others of He to whom I belong.”

Another wrote that as she donned the habit each day, she is stuck by the symbolism associated with each part of the habit and the corresponding virtue in which she daily strives to grow.

Yet another writes as she knelt in prayer the night she received her habit, she felt that the love she had in her heart was now expressed externally.

And one wrote that her habit was an instrument of catechesis to those she encounters.

God bless them all for their faithfulness to the Lord and HIS church!

 

[kentuckyliz]

Mother Angelica’s PCPA’s and the Nashville Dominicans are not new orders without old, frail, dying members. These orders have been around a while and have old members. Mother Angelica herself is obviously old and frail, and there’s some aged ladies there who were there from the beginning. :nun2:

There are orthodox nuns in 70s polyester double knit pantsuits (what they can afford from the thrift store) offering it up, of course…they have to suffer from the terrible decisions of their heterodox sisters. Donna Steichen wrote a book about this. :nun2:

 

[JohnMPhilomena]

I’m in Upstate NY-and you’ll never see any ‘habit-wearing’ nuns here! All we have are the tired old communities that are dying out; and I won’t touch them with a ten-foot pole!

I knew someone who once considered the Sisters of Life. A couple of the Sisters came upstate to my hometown to talk about their community in one of the parishes and at the one Catholic high school. My friend didn’t enter in the end (for some reason the community ‘stonewalled’ her-I think it was due to her age and some health problems). She went to the Intercessors of the Lamb in Nebraska. She took her final vows in 2006. (And of course, we all know what happened to THAT community!) She is currently with the largest group of ex-Intercessors in Blair, Nebraska.

I’d appreciate it, John, if you could ask Mother Assumpta why ‘older’ women are not accepted in the Ann Arbor Dominicans. I’d be curious to know…

‘Third Orders’ for me? Nah-I was in two in succession, the Franciscans, then the Discalced Carmelites. In the end neither worked out for me. I did visit a group of Third Order Dominicans in 2002 with another friend who was looking into them. They met at a cloistered Dominican nuns’ monastery. He didn’t join them, either. I’m not too keen on ‘formal groups’-I always end up being disappointed.

I just got back from Ann Arbor at 1:00 AM today and I did ask Mother Assumpta about age restrictions. She said that they use 30 as the cut-off (although I’m sure they have some latitude - it didn’t sound like a firm rule). She said that the main concern is whether or not an older postulant would fit in, since the average age is only 26. She also said there are other orders that accept older people.