Question about religious life

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LilyOfTheFather

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A friend of mine is wondering when it became the custom for most religious to be given a name other than their given name. I don’t know the answer so I am posting here. Does anybody know ?
 
I think that some religious orders have that custom and others do not.
 
I believe that this started as a way to show that one is dieing to the world and entering a new life.
 
It goes right back to biblical times…Jesus renamed apostles…it signifies dying to the old life and being born again into the new…our confirmation names are symbolic of that as well.
 
They used to not any more. Now you have 5 “Father Mikes” in one house.

I was on the Archdiocese of Neward, NJ’s web site the other day. They announced that Sister Dawn was the new religious education direction. Sister Dawn? Where is Fr. Tony Orlando?
 
The orders and congregations faithful to the Magisterium still rename people, but may allow a person to keep his or her name. Some communities of women still are “Sister Mary _____”.

Elizabeth
 
Forgot part of what I meant to post –

People getting new names when they took religious vows didn’t
really begin until around 1000 A.D. One of the earliest was
Pope Sylvester II, who took the name Sylvester when he became Pope in the 990s: his given name was Gerbert.

Elizabeth
 
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