This is not about criticism. It’s about understanding where the vocations went and where they should come from. In that discussion the religious have an advantage. We came from the laity. The laity has never been religious. We, on the other hand, have been lay people, lived in families, some religious are moms and dads and have been marrid. The majority, which has never been married, has parents, married sibblings and so forth. More and moer religious have held jobs in the world. The day of the religious who goes from high school to novitiate are over. Today’s religious is much better educated than religious of any previous generation. Most religious communities do not admit anyone who does not have a college degree or equivalent work experience. The idea is to recruit men and women who have knowledge about something.
Agreed! Whatever happened to “Outdo one another in showing honor?” I know that this spirit of division and criticism is not of the Lord, no matter who it is coming from.
Not of necessity or “never”, Brother. I was a religious and now in the laity by my own choice and call and am certainly not alone amongst lay people - hence I have opinions, not often voiced, if ever - re how religious life is lived out at least in some instances. I also have opinions and concepts about living out the lay vocation and verbalize more re this. Re any sort of criticism, we are all coming from our own unique experiences and very often our concepts and opinions are drawn at least in part from such and hence, necessarily, are quite limited and cannot speak for all instances without exceptions.
You’re right. After I posted that, I realized that “never” was not a good word, because there are former religious among the secular laity.
There is definitely an increase. I know that the regional seminary in our area has standing room only. The problem is that the region is very large.
And this applies for any form of rightful authority The Church may place over one anywhere. “Whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it is loosened, and whatsoever though shalt bind upon earth, it is bound” And if perchance Rome has not spoken or instructed, then let liberty prevail in Charity always - for The Church is always very clear on the point of Charity and adamantly so if carefully worded in the interest of Charity. Charity is the heartbeat and soul of The Church and we are The Church and we see this vividly in Jesus, Second Person of The Blessed Trinity whom we are called to imitate and follow in His Gospel.I am certainly seeing more religious habits than say 10 years ago and also some priests wearing the collar again. I tend to think that the religious habit and the collar will not die out at all, rather that those in habit and those not, priests wearing collar and those in secular clothing will continue to develop side by side. Be interesting to see where we are at the end of the next ten years.There is definitely an increase. I know that the regional seminary in our area has standing room only. The problem is that the region is very large.
In my own Franciscan family, we have given birth to at least 10 new Franciscan obediences since the 1980s.
We all follow the Rule of the Friars Minor. We were all founded by Friars Minor; therefore, we have maintained uninterrupted Franciscan Succession; but we serve the Church in different fields. Our lives are the same or ministries are diverse.
- Franciscans of the Renewal
- Franciscans of the Primitive Observance
- Franciscans of the Eternal Word
- Little Brothers of St. Francis
- Franciscan Brothers of Peace
- Franciscan Brothers of the Eucharist
- Franciscans of the Immaculate
- Franciscans of the Holy Family
- Order of Poor Friars
10.Franciscan Brothers of Life (my community)
I know that there are several families of women religious that are also growing. As Mother Agnes, the General of the Sisters of Life said, Don’t expect to see the sisters in your parishes in the nunbers that we had them. It’s not going to happen for two reasons. 1) Those sisters who are truly faithful will follow the vision and mission of their founders and thier original community and 2) the world in which we live has produced many more urgent needs than the loecal Catholic school, protecting the life of the unborn being at the top of that priority list.
I’m paraphrasing her, because this was not something that she wrote. It’s something that she said in an interview. But she made a point that is very valid. Needs more urgent than the parish school have emerged in todays’ world. It’s unfortunate that they exist at all, but they do.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
The habit and collar certainly have their place. I wear both (not at the same time). LOL
I agree with this. Fewer children means fewer vocations. And if married couples do not see children as a gift from God, neither are they willing to have their children commit to the service of God.
I hear what you are saying, but I’m not sure I totally agree.The habit and collar certainly have their place. I wear both (not at the same time). LOL
But I do not think any less of my coiunterparts in other communities who do not have a habit. They too are good holy men and women. They are on the same road as I am. I certainly understand the good reasons for not wearing a habit or a collar and I just ignore the bad reasons. This is what the Holy See does too.
I would suggest that all Catholics assume this posture. Understand the good reasons and ignore the bad reasons; but whatever you do, file the habit question with your cookie recipes, not in your medicine chest. The point is that the habit question is not that important. In the end, the habit works only when and where it’s supposed to work.
The spiritual director for our house is an OMI. They have never had a habit. They are religious, but they have always looked like seculars. However, we have a very holy spiritual director. Then you have the Legion of Christ. They had a cassock from the beginning. Look at that mess. Their members are good and holy men, but the habit did not stop the mess from happening.
The point that I’m making is avoid giving the habit more attributes than it has. It is a symbol and it can be very effective in the right situation.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
There are many reasons why a religious would not wear a habit or a collar. Some are valid and some are nonsense, like everything in life, right?I hear what you are saying, but I’m not sure I totally agree.
If an order, congregation or association does not require a habit, than fine, I will try and understand, even though I really don’t fully get that. But the habit was meant to transform the world and at one time, it certainly did. Nearly every Catholic had some exposure to the religious, if by no other means, than at least by seeing one in habit. Today, with less religious and priests, combined with the fact that to many do not wear the habit or collar, they can no longer be, at least visually speaking, the transforming figures that they once were. I feel that the religious need to be in habit to be seen, and hence to have some effect on the common lay person. Honestly, when I see a religious in secular clothing, I wonder to myself just how holy can this person be that he would not want to show the world that he is a religious? I know that’s wrong-headed and I shouldn’t think like that, but my human nature, along with my age, makes me ask the question.
The normal parishoner has almost zero exposure to the religious and I feel that if he does come in contact with one, he should at least know it…
But I will try and take your advice and understand the good reasons and put away my bad ones…
**If you’re a religious, DRESS like one./**QUOTE]
Bold is mine.
Remember what I shared above. Religious have a grave moral duty to conform ourselves to the mind of our founders and the mission of our institutes. For example, we cannot tell the Brothers of Mary or the Missionary Brothers of Charity “if you’re a religious, DRESS like one,” when Mother Teresa nd Fr. Chaminade were very clear in their initial directions, not to appear as religious, each for their specific reasons.
Mother Teresa wrote to the bishop of Calcutta that her sisters were not to dress as sisters, because Jesus had revealed to her his wish that they dress and live like Indian holy women. That’s how their habit came about. It’s not a traditional religious habit. What made them stand out was the fact that there was this large group of Indian women all dressed in the same sari. What makes her brothers stand out is this large group of men picking up the poor on the streets, all professing to be Christians. They have no shortage of vcoations The brothers are now on four continents. Those who move among the poor know them well and consider them to be very holy men.
My community, while we do have a habit that is based on the very sketchy discription that St. Francis left in the rule, does not have a common habit. We have over 100 different versions of the Franciscan habit. Francis said that it had to be a tunic, with a cowl and a chord. Today you have tunics down to the floor and tunics down to the hips. Other tunics are down to the knees. All have a cowl and chord. The largest group wears brown, with a caperone. Others wear it without the caperone. Some have scapulars, others have shoulder capes. Some are in grey, others in brown and many in black. You can walk into some friaries and find two different colored habits. For example, you can walk into the Conventual Franciscan friary and you will find some in grey and some in black, all with the same cut In my house you will find everyone in grey, with a cowl, no shoulder cap, no caperone, no scapular, with a Tau over the chest. The variations are as many as there are branches of the same order. If you ask, do Franciscan men wear habits? The answer is affirmative. If you ask is the habit a uniform, the answer is negative. It is a uniform in that the individual wears the same thing daily. It is not uniform to the entire order.
The habit was of such little importance to Francis and Clare that they mention is in two sentences when describing the manner of receiving novices. The focus of that chapter of the rule is on the novice and the rite of reception. They go on for pages on that subject. When one looks at a rule in this context and sees someone like St. Francis mention obedience over 500 times, poverty over 1,000 times, prayer over 500 times, and the habit appears only once and then he and Clare both say, “If the superior believes that something else is more appropriate according to times, culture, climate and needs, then let the superior decide.”
But then you see Francis say that the brothers must always obey, even the most corrupt authorities, as long as they are not calling you to sin and that no superior can dispense you from this, nor is this ever to be debated, it gives you the very clear message of the priorities and vision of the man.
When speaking about habits, we have to read what the founders told their sons or daughters in their entirety. That gives us a better picture. Mother Teresa herself mentions the sari in her constitutioins, but left it open to the sisters to democratically vote it out. However, she did also said that they were never to look like European sisters and this was never to be democratically introduced. This was not up for negotiations. You can see that her enfasis is on the avoidance of appearing to look like European women religious, because this is a congregation that Christ wants to be truly Indian, not European, American, or other. To this day, they not only dress like Indians, but they include may practices in the way that they pray and do other things that come from Hinduism. Even when they setup houses in America, their dress is Hindu. Their manner of praying is Hindu. The names of their houses are often Hindu names. But it has not hurt them. They have many non-Indian men and women in their congregation.
The same is true about other religious families. Let’s encourage the religious to obey and be faithful to the vision of their founders. If that includes a habit of some kind, then they should comply out of fidelity and obedience. If the founder discouraged it, did not think it was important or forbade it, then let us encourage them to do accordingly. The holiness of our religious depens on their fidelity to their charism. Vicent de Paul, St. Francis, St. Clare, and Mother Teresa were not post Vatican II.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
I don’t know how women religious do this. I won’t attempt to speak for them. There was a time among male religious when we have a group of consecrated men whom we often called “Lay Brothers”. These men were responsible for sewing, cooking, cleaning, laundry, shoe making and all of the things that mothers traditionally did.
Thank you very much, Brother JR, for this open and honest glimpse into your religious order pre V2 and how things had drifted from the mind of the founders with the passage of many centuries and the efforts being made to return to the original vision and mission back those many centuries ago - and the priorities set nowadays in who does what and why. It does give an insight into the fact that while we as lay people pre V2 had religious and clergy on a pedestal and many indeed deserved it and still do, that things may not have been quite what they seemed to us as outsiders trying to look in. Things are not always as they may appear to us.I don’t know how women religious do this. I won’t attempt to speak for them. There was a time among male religious when we have a group of consecrated men whom we often called “Lay Brothers”. These men were responsible for sewing, cooking, cleaning, laundry, shoe making and all of the things that mothers traditionally did.
When Vatican II and later, Vita Consacrata, demanded that religious return to our charisms: vision and mission of our founders, many of us found that we had committed grave sins against justice. We had limited many men to being involuntary servants within their religious communities.
There are religious communities that always had lay brothers who only did these tasks. They did no outside ministries, nor were they choir monks. These lay brothers entered those communities to consecrate their lives and their ministry was to serve their confreres… In those communities the custom continues. It is voluntary and it goes back to the founder.
There were other communities, among them the Franciscans, the greatest sinners of all in this area (not just some branches, but all the branches). we had turned our lay brothers into mandatory servants. They were not allowed to serve outside of the friary in any pastoral capacity. They were not allowed to go for higher education. Eventually, we took away their right to vote in the community. We took away their right to hold the office of superior or to serve on the community council. Then we took away their right to serve as formators of postulants, novices, seminarians and temporary professed religious. In the end, we even went as far as demanding that they refer to their ordained brothers as Father. We never called our ordained men Father. Everyone was Brother, even the great St. Bonaventure who was a cardinal was Brother Bonaventure until the day that he died. Father was only one, St. Francis and he was a lay brother, then a deacon during the last two years of his life. But he was and is Father Francis.
We were in shock when we looked back. This was never part of the original foundation. In the original foundation everyone was a brother, whether you were ordained or lay. Every brother did laundry, sewed, cooked, cleaned house, and served his brothers. Many lay brothers were theologians, professors at seminaries, missionaries, spiritual directors, chaplains, preachers and so forth. Many ordained brothers were cooks, housekeepers, launderers, beggers for the community. Everyone took a turn holding office.
In other words, everyone used whatever talents they had to serve the community internally and the Universal Church externally, provided that those services were not in conflict with the mind of the founder. This was not only true of Franciscans, but of many religious institutes of men.
As we have corrected the flaws that crept into male religious life prior to Vatican II, with all of these distinctions that were not desired by the founders, we have to deal with the reality. Today’s male religious is usually very well educated in theology, science, languages, and so forth. He is very competent in many ministries. The number of men who are tailors is but a handful. That’s because in the modern world, tailoring is not a common craft as it used to be. Men do not know which side of a sewing machine is up.
In addition, we have a great need for men in the shelter, soup kitchen, parish office, retreat house, youth ministry, street ministry, administration, religious formation, community administratin, teaching at the seminary, serving as chaplains or spiritual directors to the faithful. Due to these needs, unless a man says that he wans to be a tailor, we don’t assign male religious to those tasks. We assign them to the ministries of their religious institutes for which they have spent seven to nine years in formation. These are more important to the founder than making habits. We pay to have a habit made.
My own habit, which is very simple, costs $170.00 to make one tunic. I have two. One I wear daily and the other I wear four times a year. And yes it gets dirty and smelly. But what else can I do. Our constitution says that this is to be worn 24/7. We wash it every Wednesday.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF