Nuns and Outward Appearances

[JReducation]

I’m always curious as to why this is such an important issue to the average layman, when it was such an insignificant one to the founders of religious life.

St. Francis of Assisi never specified a habit for his friars or nuns other than the peasant’s tunic with a chord. As a result, we have many variations on the Franciscan habit and some non-habited Franciscan communities that date back to the 1200s.

St. Clare of Assisi said that her sisters were to wear a religious habit only when the abbess though that it was practical and in keeping with the local culture. She never defined a habit for her nuns, nor did she impose it.

Mother Teresa said that Jesus had literally told her that he wanted Indian sisters, not European and that they were not to wear the European habit. At first, Mother and her few companions dressed as Indian women of the time. It has become a very popular sari, because of the large numbers of Missionaries of Charity who wear it. When she founded the Missionaries of Charity Brothers, she wrote into their constitution that they should not wear any kind of religious garb, because it was contrary to what Jesus had revealed to her. To this day, the male Missionaries of Charity do not wear a habit.

St. William Joseph Chamenade forbade the use of any kind of habit or Roman Collar among his religious, because Christ had revealed to him that his religious were to be anonymous. They were to evangelize through teaching and other forms of education, but were to disappear among the faithful. To this day, they are forbidden the use of a habit.

St. Vincent de Paul forbade the use of a habit and told his priests that they were not to appear as religious, but were to wear whatever was customary for the secular clergy. They were to be anonymous among the seculars, even though they were religious. To his Daughers of Charity he commanded that they were to avoid all signs of religious life, including making formal vows, living in convents, calling any sister Mother, or even electing a Mother General. There were never to go through a novitiate or the normal formation that sisters go through. They were to make vows for one-year at a time, so that they could be free to return to their homes at any time. They were not to claim for themselves the title of congregation or religious order, but were to be the Society of the Daughers of Charity. To this day, they have avoided all forms of religious life including a uniform habit. There were always variations in their dress, depending on the province from which they came. The most famous ones were the ones founded in Flanders because of their coronette. Not all of the Daughters of Charity wore the coronette. Elizabeth Ann Seton never did. To this day, the Church forbids the use of the term nun or religious applied to the Daughters of Charity. They do not live in convents, nor do they ever make perpetual vows, nor do they have superiors as do other communities of consecrated life. They are governed by a president and a council that answers to the Superior General of the Congregation of the Mission.

The Sisters of St. Ann were to wear an orange Hindu sari without a head-covering. They were not to clip their hair, but to wear it long.

The Missionaries of the Most Holy Trinity were never to wear a long habit, veil or coif. The Capuchins founded them to adapt to American culture in dress and work. They never had a veil or a long habit. They wore a black dress with a pin. When outdoors, they wore a straw hat that was common to women in the 1940s, which is about the time that they were founded. They were not allowed to adopt the Rule of St. Francis, because the Capuchins feared that it would turn them into Franciscan sisters, which was not what Jesus had revealed that he wanted.

St. Jose Maria Escriva never allowed the consecrated members of Opus Dei to wear any kind of distinctive garb, even though they make vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. Nor did he allow them to work in traditional apostolates that were the norm for consecrated men and women. He specified that they must retain their secular appearance and work in secular jobs: banks, offices, retail, factories and other places where they would sanctify the daily work of the common man by turning iit into the Opus Dei, the Work of God, by doing so, they would attract other non-consecrated laymen and women to the Work.

There were founders who wanted a habit for a very specific purpose and others who had very specific reasons for not wanting one. Why do we want to interfere with the mind of these founders? Should we not allow each religious family to follow the inspiration of their founders? Should we not encourage them to return to the original idea of their founders?

 

[JReducation]

As a Franciscan, I can’t imagine a Franciscan Order that is homogeneous. That was not the mind of Francis. His family was to be very diversified. This was very clear in his resistance to adopting monastic customs for the entire family or the customs of the hermits. Thus he wrote in his admonitions around the Gospels, rather than around the rules that governed religious life at the time. But this is the greatness of his religious family, it’s unity in diversity. It is one family, devoted to one father and to the vision of that father (Francis), while each house and each obedience is very different in the externals, the ministry and the customs, yet preserving the same rule of life, to live in absolute obedience to Francis.

Sometimes we have to take to heart the words of St. John of the Cross.

“Some souls suffer from another kind of spiritual anger. They watch over others with a kind of restless fervor, perpetually annoyed by the transgressions they perceive. The impulse arise to reprove the other souls in an angry way. Sometimes they even indulge this nasty urge, elevating themselves as masters of virtue. This is all quite contrary to spiritual meekness.”

We also have to remember the words of St. Benedict to his sons. They were not founded for the benefit of the laity, but for their own salvation and were to do whatever was necessary to achieve that goal.

I wonder if we don’t get confused, believing that every religious family exists for the benefit of those outside of the family, forgetting that some exist for the benefit of those who join their family. We must also remember that the founders had the benefit of the people and cultures whom they serve in mind as well. They had a plan that was revealed to them by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, there are going to be variations in the manner of dress and the manner of living the consecrated life according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as he spoke through the founders and the Church who approves the foiundations and the constitutions for each institute… Each community is a gift from the Holy Spirit, but for a different purpose. Each community has to rediscover its purpose.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[JReducation]

I should add here that I wear a habit. Yet, my habit is very different from that of other Franciscans. We retain the common element, a tunic with a chord. But the style of the tunic, the color and the manner in which I wear it responds to the work that I do and the manner in which I live, as did the habit worn by Francis, Clare, Bonaventure, Colette and the other great Franciscan founders and reformers. None of us ever felt tied to a fixed habit, because Francis and Clare never gave one to the friars or the nuns. Each community developed its own custom of dress. We keep the part that’s in the rule, because that cannot be changed. The rule says a tunic and chord for the men. Everything else was left up to the friars to decide. By the time Francis died there were many variations on the habit, each according to the ministry and life of the friars. For example, the Conventuals adopted black, with very long flowing robes and wide sleeves, because they lived in convents (monasteries). This was the traditional Benedictine dress. They kept the chord, because the rule called for a chord. But their tunic is very unique to the Benedictines. We, Franciscan friars and nuns, would feel very strange if all of us were suddenly wearing the same thing, since it has never been done in 800 years.

I’m reminded of a letter that St. Maximilian Kolbe wrote the friars while he was in Japan. He told the friars in Poland not to travel in their habit, because it was not practical. They were to exchange their habit for secular dress while traveling. He was very practical in his advice. This has been true for every Franciscan founder and reformer.

It would be contrary to our custom to lose this common sense.

Many lay people do not know about the great conflict between the American bishops and the religious superiors of men during the Council of Baltimore. At the Council of Baltimore, the American bishops, who were mostly secular priests, demanded that religious men not wear habits in public, but only wear the Roman collar. The Roman collar was the garb of clergy in Rome, hence the name Roman. It had been adopted by the Anglican clergy. It almost cost the return of religious orders of men back to Europe. The Vatican had to intervene and negotiate some compromises. By 1950, it had become obvious that the compromises were hurting the religious orders and by 1965, the compromises had to be retracted. Religious men looked like and worked like secular and diocesan clergy. The return cannot just be to the habit, it has to be to the way of life and the work of the order as envisioned by the founders.

If we want mendicants, for example, then we have to be willing to let them leave our parishes be mendicants again. Let the monastic men go back to the monastery and their libraries. Allow the clerks regular to go back to teaching, preaching and mission work. This will mean the undoing of thousands of parishes staffed by monks, friars and clerks.

The same will apply to sisters. Except for the Dominicans, who always taught the middle class or the Religious of the Sacred Heart who were founded to teach the upper classes, the other sisters will not be returning to the middle class school or hospital. They should be going into the slums, poor rural areas or moving to developing nations to teach and nurse the poorest of the poor. The return to the origins cannot be just in dress. It has to be in lifestyle, ministry and surroundings too. I would hate to see Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in a middle class suburban parish. They don’t belong there anymore than do the Daughters of Charity or the Franciscans. We, as a Church, have to be willing to promote the whole package, not just the outward appearance.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[John_of_Woking]

Again I may be wrong but I get the feelng that some of the nuns who have kicked the habit (so to speak) may actually be embarrassed by it. They are happier teaching the enneagram and yoga in plain clothes

 

[JReducation]

Again I may be wrong but I get the feelng that some of the nuns who have kicked the habit (so to speak) may actually be embarrassed by it. They are happier teaching the enneagram and yoga in plain clothes

In every walk of life, including religious life, you’re going to have lose canons. Before we had women religious teaching Yoga, we had religious order priests running parishes while living as if they were diocesan priests. That was equally wrong too. It violated the prime directive of religious life. Go back further and you will find religious living alone in mission stations, again against the prime directive of the religious life. There were religious who were involved in matters of state. Religious orders of women often sent cloistered nuns to live in houses of wealthy families as companions to widows or women who were pregnant, because they wanted “consolation”. These women religious were living rather comfortably. In the Spanish Carmel, the nuns were not known as Sister, but as Lady. Those who did not come from the nobility were forced to become Lay Sisters who served the other nuns. There is a wonderful mini-series in Spanish, with subtitles, Teresa of Jesus. It shows how some religious of her time, males and females, were very secularized.

We tend to look at these things as if they were new. They are not. They just take different forms. The problem was always resolved by going back to the founders. This helped for a while and then people forgot and you started all over. It’s really a cycle.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[joandarc2008]

I am not going to say the Nuns are wrong or right because I am not a member of their relgious community nor am I a member of the Magisterium that holds their Charter- in other words their right to be formed Canonically dressed as they are. I as a lay person in this function may have an opinion but it doesn’t count for much - it is more important I believe to look at the person and to look at what they give to the community.

I also wonder - there are many Secular priests (granted Secular priests have no vow of poverty and no religious dress outside of Mass) that dress very oddly. For instance I have seen a priest in the keys wear a shirt underneath his Cassock promoting a brand of alcohol - and yes it obviously showed because it could be seen through the cassock. I wonder if as many of you who are complaining about the dress of the Nuns complain of the dress of Secular priests.

Or is it that we are quicker to cast aspersions on Religious women for vanity and modesty than we are to cast aspersions on men of the cloth? Just some food for thought.

 

[Shoshana]

I am not going to say the Nuns are wrong or right because I am not a member of their relgious community nor am I a member of the Magisterium that holds their Charter- in other words their right to be formed Canonically dressed as they are. I as a lay person in this function may have an opinion but it doesn’t count for much - it is more important I believe to look at the person and to look at what they give to the community.

I also wonder - there are many Secular priests (granted Secular priests have no vow of poverty and no religious dress outside of Mass) that dress very oddly. For instance I have seen a priest in the keys wear a shirt underneath his Cassock promoting a brand of alcohol - and yes it obviously showed because it could be seen through the cassock. I wonder if as many of you who are complaining about the dress of the Nuns complain of the dress of Secular priests.

Or is it that we are quicker to cast aspersions on Religious women for vanity and modesty than we are to cast aspersions on men of the cloth? Just some food for thought.

He probably got the shirt free in a case of beer!

I’ve seen a priest a priest walk into the church to go into the sacristy with boxer shorts that an old italian lady asked me if they were underwear because her husband has the same kind of shorts on that he was wearing IN his pants!

I did not need to see this!

 

[Shoshana]

In every walk of life, including religious life, you’re going to have lose canons. Before we had women religious teaching Yoga, we had religious order priests running parishes while living as if they were diocesan priests. That was equally wrong too. It violated the prime directive of religious life. Go back further and you will find religious living alone in mission stations, again against the prime directive of the religious life. There were religious who were involved in matters of state. Religious orders of women often sent cloistered nuns to live in houses of wealthy families as companions to widows or women who were pregnant, because they wanted “consolation”. These women religious were living rather comfortably. In the Spanish Carmel, the nuns were not known as Sister, but as Lady. Those who did not come from the nobility were forced to become Lay Sisters who served the other nuns. There is a wonderful mini-series in Spanish, with subtitles, Teresa of Jesus. It shows how some religious of her time, males and females, were very secularized.

We tend to look at these things as if they were new. They are not. They just take different forms. The problem was always resolved by going back to the founders. This helped for a while and then people forgot and you started all over. It’s really a cycle.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

You are right of cour Brother…and I must remidn myself that when I read the schedule of our local monastery which teaches the “Course of Miracles”…

 

[ThomasEugene]

Bro JR, thank you for post #61-62, that was very informative. I hope those who participate in this forum read your posts and try to understand.

Just a thought: Do we really have to blame the loss of habits for the “misdirections” of some religious who teach new age? What if they wore tall headbands, double veils and coifs?

To be clear I have nothing against religious habits, I do not campaign for unreasonable discarding them . If they were founded without habits, I accept it, I cannot go against their founder.

 

[JReducation]

I don’t know if it came from a fortune cookie or a saint, but whoever said, “Be careful what you ask for” was very wise.

You see, if you ask sisters to return to their habit, you must also ask them to return to their origins, which is what Vatican II called for. However, there is a little problem for most Americans. Most of us live in middle class neighborhoods. Most communities of sisters were founded to teach and nurse the poorest of the poor. This means that we will never benefit from their service. They’ll be history. They’ll be in the inner cities, among the rural poor or moving to the developing nations of the world.

Most male religious were founded as brotherhoods where the priesthood was accidental, not essential. They began to ordain more men, to satisfy the needs of the American Church. They assigned men to parishes as a favor to American Catholics. Their founders never intended to ordain more men than they needed for their internal liturgy, not for the faithful. The purpose of these foundations was not the laity, but the religious. In other words, the term “religious order” was an ordered way of living the Gospel for those who joined them. Benedict, Albert, Bernard, Bruno, Francis and Augustine never envisioned their men running parishes, schools, universities or living and working among the middle classes. They were to be either monastic or itinerant preachers who were free to roam. Their holiness consisted in living the rule, not in their ministry. The ministry expanded out of charity, not because it was their duty to take it on.

Let’s take the sons of these men, put them into their old habits and back into their original communities. That would effectively cripple the American Catholic Church. To ask them to put on their habits, but remain outside of the structures for which they were founded is dishonest. It’s we dictating to them what they must be according to our definitions and our needs, not the definitions of their spiritual fathers.

We are already seeing the effect of the return to the roots. How many new parishes run by religious do you see? Almost none. Why not? Because religious orders of men are saying they will not serve in these parishes. It’s contrary to the mind of the founders. Take an order like the Franciscans. We’re moving to running soup kitchens, walking the streets, running shelters and pregnancy centers, working in social communication or not doing any ministry, but simply living in a neighborhood and evangelizing by being there. The result has been that over 300 parishes that were once run by Franciscans have either closed or merged. That’s what happens when mendicants return to their roots.

Then you have other religious who never had a habit, but did have a mission, such as the Jesuits. They are to teach and preach in the mission field. The 21st century Jesuit will not go to a parish, unless it’s one that has been in their possession for a long time. They don’t take on new ones. They are sending their men to the missions instead.

Sisters, such as the Sisters of St. Joseph, were founded to teach the very poor. For a while, they ran schools in parishes among the working classes. Today, they are gradually disappearing in the USA and growing in numbers in South America and Africa. Those sisters who did not go to South America and Africa are aging and disappearing. They wanted to keep up with modern culture, while the bulk wanted to go back to their founders in France. How practical is it to ask the Sisters of St. Joseph to go back into full habit, but not go back to teaching only the destitute?

As I said above, we’re not about to ask the Missionaries of Charity to come to our Middle Class parishes. They’d rather cutoff their left arm before doing that. Mother Teresa is still very much alive to them. They’re not about to digress from the mission that she gave them, to seek out the poorest of the poor.

The argument about dress is oversimplified. There is much more to the reform of religious life than just a habit. There is also the return to the original way of life. The two must happen together.

Those who would like to see religious in traditional garb in their middle class parishes are going to have to found new religious communities that serve the middle class. The Dominican Sisters cannot do it alone. There is a need for new religious communities that target the middle class, if anyone feels inspired by the Holy Spirit to start such a community. The middle class was the merchant class of yesteryear. The founders avoided erecting houses among the merchant classes and the aristocracy. These were left to the secular clergy to care for.

Be careful what you ask for.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[joandarc2008]

I don’t know if it came from a fortune cookie or a saint, but whoever said, “Be careful what you ask for” was very wise.

You see, if you ask sisters to return to their habit, you must also ask them to return to their origins, which is what Vatican II called for. However, there is a little problem for most Americans. Most of us live in middle class neighborhoods. Most communities of sisters were founded to teach and nurse the poorest of the poor. This means that we will never benefit from their service. They’ll be history. They’ll be in the inner cities, among the rural poor or moving to the developing nations of the world.

Most male religious were founded as brotherhoods where the priesthood was accidental, not essential. They began to ordain more men, to satisfy the needs of the American Church. They assigned men to parishes as a favor to American Catholics. Their founders never intended to ordain more men than they needed for their internal liturgy, not for the faithful. The purpose of these foundations was not the laity, but the religious. In other words, the term “religious order” was an ordered way of living the Gospel for those who joined them. Benedict, Albert, Bernard, Bruno, Francis and Augustine never envisioned their men running parishes, schools, universities or living and working among the middle classes. They were to be either monastic or itinerant preachers who were free to roam. Their holiness consisted in living the rule, not in their ministry. The ministry expanded out of charity, not because it was their duty to take it on.

Let’s take the sons of these men, put them into their old habits and back into their original communities. That would effectively cripple the American Catholic Church. To ask them to put on their habits, but remain outside of the structures for which they were founded is dishonest. It’s we dictating to them what they must be according to our definitions and our needs, not the definitions of their spiritual fathers.

We are already seeing the effect of the return to the roots. How many new parishes run by religious do you see? Almost none. Why not? Because religious orders of men are saying they will not serve in these parishes. It’s contrary to the mind of the founders. Take an order like the Franciscans. We’re moving to running soup kitchens, walking the streets, running shelters and pregnancy centers, working in social communication or not doing any ministry, but simply living in a neighborhood and evangelizing by being there. The result has been that over 300 parishes that were once run by Franciscans have either closed or merged. That’s what happens when mendicants return to their roots.

Then you have other religious who never had a habit, but did have a mission, such as the Jesuits. They are to teach and preach in the mission field. The 21st century Jesuit will not go to a parish, unless it’s one that has been in their possession for a long time. They don’t take on new ones. They are sending their men to the missions instead.

Sisters, such as the Sisters of St. Joseph, were founded to teach the very poor. For a while, they ran schools in parishes among the working classes. Today, they are gradually disappearing in the USA and growing in numbers in South America and Africa. Those sisters who did not go to South America and Africa are aging and disappearing. They wanted to keep up with modern culture, while the bulk wanted to go back to their founders in France. How practical is it to ask the Sisters of St. Joseph to go back into full habit, but not go back to teaching only the destitute?

As I said above, we’re not about to ask the Missionaries of Charity to come to our Middle Class parishes. They’d rather cutoff their left arm before doing that. Mother Teresa is still very much alive to them. They’re not about to digress from the mission that she gave them, to seek out the poorest of the poor.

The argument about dress is oversimplified. There is much more to the reform of religious life than just a habit. There is also the return to the original way of life. The two must happen together.

Those who would like to see religious in traditional garb in their middle class parishes are going to have to found new religious communities that serve the middle class. The Dominican Sisters cannot do it alone. There is a need for new religious communities that target the middle class, if anyone feels inspired by the Holy Spirit to start such a community. The middle class was the merchant class of yesteryear. The founders avoided erecting houses among the merchant classes and the aristocracy. These were left to the secular clergy to care for.

Be careful what you ask for.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

Well, Brother JR - not to nit pick but the way certain administrations may have it we may need the religious to start administerring to the middle class because they will be just as broke as yesterday’s poor.

 

[JReducation]

Well, Brother JR - not to nit pick but the way certain administrations may have it we may need the religious to start administerring to the middle class because they will be just as broke as yesterday’s poor.

If a person is in such dire straights, then he or she is not middle class. A middle class community is one where everyone has enogh resources for the basic necessities. Some communities, especially Franciscan ones, have gone as far as to write into their constitutions that the friars or sisters must move as soon as the community is able to sustain itself financially or if the state can provide. Their spiritual care becomes the duty of the secular clergy or another community that may be allowed to live among the middle class.

My own community serves those who are facing life threatening issues: abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, death penalty and so forth. We do not live among the middle class. It is forbidden to us. But they may be served if they come to us with these needs. We came into existence to promote the Gospel of Life. This often involves going to middle class parishes to preach and teach. We go in, run our workshops and leave. We don’t stay. However, we have many wonderful people who come from the middle class and work with us as volunteers. Many middle class parishes keep our pregnancy centers supplied with all kinds of baby goodies. We are very grateful to them. However, we cannot remain among them. It’s a matter of us going in, evengelizing them and leading them to those who need them.

You see, we’re not settling in at a middle class parish. That’s what I meant. We’re not going to see too many Franciscans, Vincentians, Daughters of Charity, Missionaries of Charity, Missionaries of the Poor, Servants of the Most Holy Trinity and other such communities going back to live in those parishes or run those schools and hospitals.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[joandarc2008]

If a person is in such dire straights, then he or she is not middle class. A middle class community is one where everyone has enogh resources for the basic necessities. Some communities, especially Franciscan ones, have gone as far as to write into their constitutions that the friars or sisters must move as soon as the community is able to sustain itself financially or if the state can provide. Their spiritual care becomes the duty of the secular clergy or another community that may be allowed to live among the middle class.

My own community serves those who are facing life threatening issues: abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, death penalty and so forth. We do not live among the middle class. It is forbidden to us. But they may be served if they come to us with these needs. We came into existence to promote the Gospel of Life. This often involves going to middle class parishes to preach and teach. We go in, run our workshops and leave. We don’t stay. However, we have many wonderful people who come from the middle class and work with us as volunteers. Many middle class parishes keep our pregnancy centers supplied with all kinds of baby goodies. We are very grateful to them. However, we cannot remain among them. It’s a matter of us going in, evengelizing them and leading them to those who need them.

You see, we’re not settling in at a middle class parish. That’s what I meant. We’re not going to see too many Franciscans, Vincentians, Daughters of Charity, Missionaries of Charity, Missionaries of the Poor, Servants of the Most Holy Trinity and other such communities going back to live in those parishes or run those schools and hospitals.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

I am sorry I was joking and should have put the laughing smiley there. It is tough all around and too highlight your earlier point we do see it - my own parish is run by Franciscan Brothers. There should be at least two priests and a deacon. We have one priest and a deacon. On weekdays we have an hour Adoration every morning followed by the Divine Office, followed by Daily Mass. Our Saturday morning schedule is the same plus we have two evening masses. Sundays we have two morning masses and an evening mass and that does not include baptisms, weddings, and funerals. They are very joyous but needless to say by Sunday night very tired. God bless them. We were hoping they would be sending another Brother but that did not happen so it looks like things be like this for a while.

 

[JReducation]

I am sorry I was joking and should have put the laughing smiley there. It is tough all around and too highlight your earlier point we do see it - my own parish is run by Franciscan Brothers. There should be at least two priests and a deacon. We have one priest and a deacon. On weekdays we have an hour Adoration every morning followed by the Divine Office, followed by Daily Mass. Our Saturday morning schedule is the same plus we have two evening masses. Sundays we have two morning masses and an evening mass and that does not include baptisms, weddings, and funerals. They are very joyous but needless to say by Sunday night very tired. God bless them. We were hoping they would be sending another Brother but that did not happen so it looks like things be like this for a while.

If your parish is a middle class parish, you’ll most likely not get another brother. You may eventually lose the ones that you have as soon as the secular can take over or another community allowed to live among you may come in. You see, the mandate was very clear. Religious are to return to their roots. Unfortunately, at the time that the Franciscans were founded, the merchant class, which evolved into the middle class, was considered to be beyond our limits. We were to Christianize Catholic merchants and leave. It was St. Francis’ idea that we live and work among the peasants and farmers only to make enough money to survive, but our life was to preach to the middle class so as to help them become holy Catholics, not to share their exitence. On the contrary, our mission has always been to bring the middle class to the service of the poor so that the brothers can leave. Even among the poorest of the poor, the brothers are not to make our home. We are to have no home. That’s what makes us mendicants. We are nomads or as St. Francis always said, “the Lord’s Troubadors”. I guess that’s what made us excellent missionaries. We were not attached to any place, any group or any ministry. We are in many ministries and masters of none, except one, fraternity.

That’s why I said above, people must be careful what they wish for. They may get it. Everyone wants religious to go back to habits. There is more to it than that. Going back means giving up many things and no serving many people whom we began serving in later years, contrary to the design and vision of our founders.

There was never any harm intended. It was always done with the intent to be charitable and help the Church where we thought she needed us. However, today, the popes are telling us that it was a mistake to take religious from their roots and place them in such situations. History is proving them right. Those religious who stepped out of their zone have paid the price. Either they were unable to go back, because human being become accustomed to certain lifestyles and certain work and resist leaving it or they did go back, leaving gaping holes in many dioceses.

It has also proven to be a challenge in getting more vocations. Many men and women who joined the religious life during the 1940s to the 1960s joined one community. Those communities no longer exist. They exist, but not as they were. Some, made the horrible mistake of following modern culture to the point of becoming secularized. Others returned to a way of life and philosophy that came from earlier centuries. Many men and women find these philosophies and ways of life to be very challenging. For many, the idea of not having something as simple as a bed, having to ask for permission to express an opinion, obeying even when they are right and superiors are wrong, is a very challenging way to be. American and European society impressed upon the people of the 20th century the value of thinking, problem solving, self-determination, individuality, self-worth and reason to the point that these means to a good became ends to be achieved and protected. The great founders never saw these as ends in themselves, but only as gifts that could be used at the discretion of superiors and the tradition of the religious institute.

It’s too easy for someone to say, “put on an habit”. Anyone can put on a habit. Not everyone can live the life that comes with that habit as it was meant to be lived 1,000 years ago. We (religious) do not want to go back to wearing a habit for the sake of a habit. We want to go back to a way of life that our founders designed for us under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That way of life may or may not include a habit. The Holy Spirit acted differently with each foundation. Only He knows why.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Monica4316]

I put up with similar prejudices all the time, because I wear a nose ring. Sadly, there are some people who still believe what you wear has some sort of magical power to make you “better” (or “worse”) at whatever you’re doing. I guarantee I work just as well with a nose ring as I do without. And I’ve done some of my best work while in my pajamas with my knee on ice.

Wearing makeup and nail polish doesn’t seem to me like it would affect a nun’s ability to work the soup kitchen or teach class or plant a tree or bear witness to the Love of God. It only offends the narrow-minded, preconceived notions that one has to “look” a certain way to be effective.

Miz

a nun is not just a social worker… it’s not a “job”, and what defines her is not even the type of work she does… a nun is consecrated to God. She is Christ’s bride. There is no room there for fashions and unnecessary things; the religious live in simplicity.

 

[JReducation]

a nun is not just a social worker… it’s not a “job”, and what defines her is not even the type of work she does… a nun is consecrated to God. She is Christ’s bride. There is no room there for fashions and unnecessary things; the religious live in simplicity.

Let us be very careful not to impose disciplines on others that were not imposed by their founders. That would be a grave error.

I certainly believe that the garb of a religious, male or female should be as directly by the Church: simple, modest, practical and becoming. The rest is up to the founder, not the worldwide Catholic community.

Also, be careful with terminology. There are many forms of consecrated life in the Church. Most consecrated women are not nuns. Some are not even sisters. There are theological, doctrinal and canonical differences between consecrated people. I’ll show you some examples.

• simple vows vs solemn vows
• order vs congregation vs society vs secular institute vs society of apostolic life
• perpetually professed vs temporary professed
• monastic vs mendicant vs apostolic vs hermit
• clerical vs lay
• secular vs religious
• vows vs promises

The women that most of us have called nuns are not nuns. Many of them are not even religious. The term Sister is applied to every woman who belongs to a community. Not every community is an order, most are congregations and some are societies of apostolic life.

Congregations are definitely defined by their work, not their way of life. Their work defines their way of life. Whereas in orders, the way of life defines the work. There are only five orders for women as opposed to over 100 orders for men. The rest of women’s communities are either congregations, societies or institutes.

Founders are also important, as I have said before. What we believe is important to the members of a community is not relevant. We are not the founders. The founders were the ones who decided what was important for them. This includes manner of dress. Therefore, we owe them the respect that they deserve and consider their wishes and their mandates to their sons or daughters. When we try to dictate to these men or women, we usurp their founders.

Before we ask them to wear or not to wear, ask what were the wishes of the founder? Ultimately, the religious does not owe allegience to the faithful, but to the founder and the vision of the founder. The Church’s theology makes this very clear and so does Canon Law.

There are too many people on this thread speaking about these women as if they had the authority of the founders. That’s disrespectful to these founders. This kind of fervor is not virtuous, whether the fervor is from the lay person or from the religious himself or herself, no one has the right to speak for the founder.

Those religious who have decided to do their own thing and those lay people who have decided what the religious should do are equally mistaken. Only the founder has that kind of power. This is what Vatican II mandated. Return to the vision and directions of the founder. This applies to the ministry, way of life and the manner of dress as well. There were founders who did not want a distinctive garb. Other didn’t care one way or another and then some gave very specific directions on the matter.

Why are we trying to get around this?

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[TiggerS]

Why are we trying to get around this?

Refusal to abandon preconceived notions?

TS

 

[JReducation]

Refusal to abandon preconceived notions?

TS

I believe that you’re correct. On a lighter note, some of us have been watching Bells of St. Mary’s too long. It’s a wonderful movie, but it gives a very distorted view of women religious. Observe that there is only one scene where you see Sister Benedict at prayer. The rest of the movie, you have this woman running around looking beautiful in a habit. Yet, people walk away believing this is what a sister is supposed to be.

If one wants to see a movie that presents the complexity of religious life, beyond the habit, I strongly recommend Nun’s Story. It’s an excellent portrayal of the inner world of women religious of yesteryear. It helps explain why so many of them overreacted, when given a chance to re-examine their way of life.

The abandonment of the habit is a symptom of a problem that had developed in religious life, especially in Europe and the USA. The hierarchy, the superiors, individual religious and the laity all share culpability in the problem. We should stop pointing fingers and ask ourselves what part our attitudes have played in creating the problem, nurturing it, and exacerbating it.

This is the list as I see it from the inside.

1. 
   *]Superiors abused their authority and created an image of a consecrated woman that deviated from the mind of the founder of the individual community.
   
   *]Bishops took advantage of the religious communities (men and women) to meet their needs and in doing so suppressed the original vision and mission of the communities. Religious found themselves in situations that were never in the mind of the founder.
   
   *]Some lay people believe that they know what religious life is about and try to dictate from the sidelines; but how many of these people have read the history of the different foundations, the writings of the founders, the different forms of consecrated life, the vision and mission that the Holy Spirit dictated to the founders?
   
   How many lay people complain because many religious communities have returned to their original charism? I have seen the complaints about the absence of sisters in our Catholic schools. Over half of the complaints come from middle class Catholics. Does the middle class Catholic realize that the founders never intended to educate their children? Their original mission was to educate the materially poor, the poorest of the poor, not the middle class. The number of religious sisterhoods founded to educate the middle and upper classes can be counted on one hand. Let’s put the sisters back in the traditional habit. Let’s make it a full return: back to the veil, back to the poorest of the poor, back to the immigrant, back to the developing nations, back to working on the streets of our inner cities and back to being autonomous. A habit is not just a piece of clothing. It’s a way of living and serving the Church.
   
   I’m a religious who wears a habit. However, our habit had its roots in the farming class. We adopted it because it was the clothing worn by the poorest of the poor. When Francis looked at the tunic and chord, he saw poverty. He adopted the poorest form of dress, because as Pope Benedict XVI said this month, “Francis was the perfect reflection of the crucified Christ.” He looked around and saw Christ crucified in poverty. The tunic and chord are a reminder to the wearer of Christ’s poverty on the cross. But this rule comes from the founder, not from outside.
   
   The same is true of other religious families. Each founder saw a dimension of Christ and responded to the call to incarnate that into daily life. The choice of clothing reflected what he or she envisioned. When someone like Mother Teresa said to her Missionary Brothers never to wear religious garb, she saw Christ going to the poor of India as one of them. Indians don’t wear European tunics and cassocks.
   
   When St. Vincent founded the Daughters of Charity he saw the secular Christ serving the sick and the dying. He founded a secular society, not a religious order. His Daughters of Charity were to blend into secular society and to stand out by their charity, not their dress. This was imposed on them long after Vincent and Louise were dead. The bishops felt uncomfortable with consecrated women who were not religious. Not knowing how to handle it, they encouraged them to adopt the customs of women religious. There had never been consecrated women who were not religious.
   
   The laity liked the idea, because they took care of their needs and the presence of the Daughters gave them a sense of the presence of the Church. They encouraged it. As time passed, many of the women entering the Daughters no longer knew about the vision of Vincent and Louise. All they knew was the present moment.
   
   When you deviate, either to the left or to the right, you create internal conflict in the soul of the religious. If it’s not properly addressed, the result is implosion.
   
   Fraternally,
   
   Br. JR, OSF

 

[1234]

In the 70’s and '80’s, when a lot of sisters were leaving their communities, a number of them wrote books about their experiences in their communities before Vat II. Others interviewed these ex-sisters and summarized these interviews. All of this literature is very interesting.

These sisters were in pre-Vat II habits. Most of them were long, hot, cumbersome, elaborate, and many were ugly. All required a great deal of upkeep and were expensive. Many of the sisters, because of the 19th c. Jansenist restrictive rules of their institutes, were not permitted to keep these habits adequately cleaned. One Daughter of Wisdom, who wore a beautiful 19th c French habit, reported that they were permitted to wash the underskirt crinoline only once a year!

When the renewal after Vat II took place, it was amazing how many foundresses, many of them saints, intended that their sisters dressed like the poor they served. As many of the poor were widows, many sisters were supposed to dress in the local widows’ garb. This attire never changed, although the customs did, and became fossilized into the habits sisters wore up until Vat II. One of these was the attire of the BVM’s, the Sisters of Charity of the blessed Virgin Mary. There was a horseshoe-like thing around the face, surrounded by a huge-box-like thing on three sides. There was a celluloid collar, a cape and a fully pleated skirt which must have contained 5 yards of material. When you looked at drawings of their foundress Mary Frances Clarke, you see that she wore a simple fluted bonnet which was the dress of women of her time and era, which bore no resemblance to the later BVM habit.

This archaic, awkward, ugly habit was ultimate tragic in that these were the sisters who taught at OL of the Angels school in Chicago in 1958, which burned in a disastrous fire which killed 92 children and 3 sisters. One wonders if the sisters might have been more able to respond if they hadn’t have been hampered by that habit. Also in the days before Vat II when a number of sisters were driving there were auto accidents, many of them serious because the sisters’ habits restricted their side vision. Fortunately this problem was quickly addressed.

 

[JReducation]

In the 70’s and '80’s, when a lot of sisters were leaving their communities, a number of them wrote books about their experiences in their communities before Vat II. Others interviewed these ex-sisters and summarized these interviews. All of this literature is very interesting.

These sisters were in pre-Vat II habits. Most of them were long, hot, cumbersome, elaborate, and many were ugly. All required a great deal of upkeep and were expensive. Many of the sisters, because of the 19th c. Jansenist restrictive rules of their institutes, were not permitted to keep these habits adequately cleaned. One Daughter of Wisdom, who wore a beautiful 19th c French habit, reported that they were permitted to wash the underskirt crinoline only once a year!

When the renewal after Vat II took place, it was amazing how many foundresses, many of them saints, intended that their sisters dressed like the poor they served. As many of the poor were widows, many sisters were supposed to dress in the local widows’ garb. This attire never changed, although the customs did, and became fossilized into the habits sisters wore up until Vat II. One of these was the attire of the BVM’s, the Sisters of Charity of the blessed Virgin Mary. There was a horseshoe-like thing around the face, surrounded by a huge-box-like thing on three sides. There was a celluloid collar, a cape and a fully pleated skirt which must have contained 5 yards of material. When you looked at drawings of their foundress Mary Frances Clarke, you see that she wore a simple fluted bonnet which was the dress of women of her time and era, which bore no resemblance to the later BVM habit.

This archaic, awkward, ugly habit was ultimate tragic in that these were the sisters who taught at OL of the Angels school in Chicago in 1958, which burned in a disastrous fire which killed 92 children and 3 sisters. One wonders if the sisters might have been more able to respond if they hadn’t have been hampered by that habit. Also in the days before Vat II when a number of sisters were driving there were auto accidents, many of them serious because the sisters’ habits restricted their side vision. Fortunately this problem was quickly addressed.

Your example of the BVMs is a good one. The later sisters and their mother looked nothing like each other. The same thing happened with the Daughters of Charity. I know people love the cornette. Someone on CAF even wants to start a new religious order, just to bring it back. Good luck on finding a bishop to approve that one for that reason.

Anyway, back to the cronette. If we visit the tomb of St. Louise de Marillac and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the two mothers of the Daughers of Charity, neither of them wore a cornette. Both wore secular clothing. Louise wore a white veil with a black hood over it, which seems to have been worn outdoors. Elizabeth wore a white widow’s cap, the traditional Italian garb for widows. Neither of these women gave their daughters a habit.

Over the years, their daughters felt compelled to adopt some of the customs of women religious. Remember, the Daughters of Charity are not canonically sisters or nuns. They are a society. They never make perpetual vows. They make simple vows and these are temporary vows. They can enter and leave at will. They never live in convents. Their houses cannot be convents, because a convent is for a consecrated religious male or female. It’s a canonical house. Their houses are not canonical convents. They do not have the same government as do women religious. So what happened?

They gradually shifted toward uniform way of dress. There were many Daughters of Charity in Northern France. The custom of that area was the cornette. They abounded. When the Daughters came to the USA to absorb the American branch that Elizabeth Seton had founded, they imposed the cornette on them. Catholics had some very strange notion that equality required identical dress among religious. The sisters, who were a product of their time, brought these ideas with them when they joined the Daughters of Charity.

Along comes Vatican II and tells them to go back to the vision and practices of the founders. The founders did not wear a habit. The founders did not consider themselves to be religious sisters. The founders did not consider their community a religious order or even a religious congregation. They called it a society of charity. Among St. Vincent de Paul’s letters to St. Louise de Marillac there were explicit instructions about keeping the Daughers of Charity secular.

This happened to many communities of men and women. Obviously, when you’re attempting to recover the original charism and the vision of the founders, it’s like starting over. When you go back to the beginning, the numbers are going to shrink. No community begins with thousands. Those religious communities that have a healthy mindset realize this. They are not looking for large numbers. They are looking for fidelity to an ideal that has been given to the Church by the Holy Spirit. What is unfortunate is that some people have taken another direction.

If the original vision was to dress like the simple woman of the times, then that vision has to be recovered. Our sisters should dress like the simple women of today. If the vision was to dress in monastic clothing, then that’s the way to go. Each community has to return to the founding vision. The consecration of the religious is in the statutes of his or her institute, not in public opinion. Our opinion must be that religious men and women live their consecration according to the mind and wishes of their founders, not according to our mind and our wishes.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF