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ProVobis
Guest
Then I agree with your statement.
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Mary_Estelle
Guest
Several have posted what they know of what obedience meant 40 and 50 years ago. Things have changed a whole lot in the years since Vatican 11. Now most orders want at least the canadites to have a high school education, and if they have a solid college education, all the better.
Many Sisters are working as administrators, teachers, nurses, doctors and in science. As there has been a profound loss in religious orders these well educated women are much needed. As they are better educated they have a firmer foundation to build their spiritual lives upon. Many communities are taking “older” women including widows, annulled and just plain “late” vocations because they have already “been there, done that,” and tend to be more more mature for the most part. Todays Sisters are given credit for having more than “half a brain” and have a sense of autominous independence and proper/moral/behavior.
That doesn’t exclude obedience or humility, but religious life now is a more balanced life than it was 40 and 50 years ago. Sometimes there are Sisters who will work themselves into bad health or just forget about their work is God directed and need a little they may need a little “tweeking” at times. Everyone in life needs some “heads up” from time to time.
As for “The Nun’s Story;” it was a great movie for it’s time and I see it on TV from time to time. It is not the total picture of what religious life is all about, and no one should be discouraged from investigation Community life. This just my (name removed by moderator)ut and I am sure some will disagree…but that’s life, too. P. S. I wish my spelling would change along with everything else.
Many Sisters are working as administrators, teachers, nurses, doctors and in science. As there has been a profound loss in religious orders these well educated women are much needed. As they are better educated they have a firmer foundation to build their spiritual lives upon. Many communities are taking “older” women including widows, annulled and just plain “late” vocations because they have already “been there, done that,” and tend to be more more mature for the most part. Todays Sisters are given credit for having more than “half a brain” and have a sense of autominous independence and proper/moral/behavior.
That doesn’t exclude obedience or humility, but religious life now is a more balanced life than it was 40 and 50 years ago. Sometimes there are Sisters who will work themselves into bad health or just forget about their work is God directed and need a little they may need a little “tweeking” at times. Everyone in life needs some “heads up” from time to time.
As for “The Nun’s Story;” it was a great movie for it’s time and I see it on TV from time to time. It is not the total picture of what religious life is all about, and no one should be discouraged from investigation Community life. This just my (name removed by moderator)ut and I am sure some will disagree…but that’s life, too. P. S. I wish my spelling would change along with everything else.
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otjm
Guest
Having been taught for 8 years by sisters of the SNJM order, I am inclined to think that they appreciated intelligence back in the 40’s and 50’s; they were known, perhaps not as an open comment, as “the lady Jesuits”.
Autonomous independence runs counter to community life; and it is hard to have a community when the individuals are spread all over from heck to breakfast; part of the spiritual dimension has been community prayer - which won’t be accomplished if the community is not gathered.
That is not to say that one cannot have a full and active prayer life other than in community (even the laity can say the LOTH individually now); but if one is going to join a “community” which is scattered to the four winds, it tends to become an oxymoron. Community life is not for everyone; rubbing elbows with everyone else daily can become a short path to sainthood, or a short path to the door with the exit sign over it. Not everyone is cut out for that. And as such, there need to be options for those who wish to be professed, but not live “in community”.
On the other hand, there have been not a few women who have left their congregations, in part because the support of living in community seemed to go the way of the dodo bird, back in the 70’s and 80’s.
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