This is interesting

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M31

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I’m taking a break from Apologetics since I don’t want to upset people :o

Anyway, I just wanted to say that yesterday I went to a department store to get some new clothes and when I was waiting in line for my turn, my phone rang and I answered it. What I didn’t know was who came up behind me.

I got off my phone with a friend and it was my turn to check out. When the associate was ringing me up, I heard these loud voices talking in a foreign language behind me and when I turned…there was a nun behind me talking to someone that was with her.

I believe she was Asian and older (like 70+) and she was with the younger person that was purchasing merchandise.

I didn’t think nuns or sisters could leave their convent. She wasn’t a cloistered nun but looked like one of those sisters that gets to go places. She had a veil-like thing around her head and wearing a large, obvious cross around her neck. No doubt she was a sister of some sort!

I’m wondering if she was just taking a little vacation from her religious work to be with a friend? I’m not sure.

Any thoughts?

Wow, what a surprise!:cool:
 
Could have been relatives. My Mom (RIP) had a sister who was a sister! They’d go shopping together.

The habit (religious clothes) she wears is a reminder to all of us of the supernatural…that there’s something beyond the matter we see and deal with every day.

So it could have been a niece/aunt (who was a sister), or some other relationship.

I love seeing priests and religious in their collars / habits.

I’ve taken advantage of it in airports…striking up a conversation, making them feel welcome, buying a soft drink or snack with them. Occasionally I run across a priest and I ask him for a blessing or Confession.
 
Maybe she was the Extern Nun for her cloistered convent? If I recall, an Extern Sister receives permission to run necessary errands for the benefit of her Order, to do things like grocery shopping, … and to answer the door of the convent and take telephone calls from the outside world.
 
All I can remember was her habit was gray. I wonder what order she is from?
 
M31 said:
I’m taking a break from Apologetics since I don’t want to upset people :o

Anyway, I just wanted to say that yesterday I went to a department store to get some new clothes and when I was waiting in line for my turn, my phone rang and I answered it. What I didn’t know was who came up behind me.

I got off my phone with a friend and it was my turn to check out. When the associate was ringing me up, I heard these loud voices talking in a foreign language behind me and when I turned…there was a nun behind me talking to someone that was with her.

I believe she was Asian and older (like 70+) and she was with the younger person that was purchasing merchandise.

I didn’t think nuns or sisters could leave their convent. She wasn’t a cloistered nun but looked like one of those sisters that gets to go places. She had a veil-like thing around her head and wearing a large, obvious cross around her neck. No doubt she was a sister of some sort!

I’m wondering if she was just taking a little vacation from her religious work to be with a friend? I’m not sure.

Any thoughts?

Wow, what a surprise!:cool:
Click to expand...
My friend you have a lot of misconceptions about religious life.

Check out this thread, and anything else Br. JR has to say,
we can all learn very much from him!
 
M31 said:
All I can remember was her habit was gray. I wonder what order she is from?
Click to expand...
Grey sounds like Franciscan nun. Was it grey like this?



Or was it a Dominican nun like this?

Also, from what I understand, nuns are not always cloistered.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
She was probably not a cloistered nun, though even members of cloistered religious orders may leave the convent/monastery for business purposes (buying things, for example, though I imagine that with internet and shipping that may not be as frequent a need now).

She could have been with a friend, a family member, someone from a church or school she works at, who knows? In fact, that younger person (if that person was a woman) might even have been a sister of the same order and even the same community! I once volunteered in various capacities with/for a community of Franciscan sisters in which a couple of the oldest ones still wore the habit, but some others of the older ones and all the younger ones (“younger“ meaning about 40-70) wore plain but secular clothing, often with short hair and a cross around their neck. The habit had become optional (de facto, at least) in the order, and as it happened it was only a couple ancient sisters, who had joined long before “the changes,” who still chose to wear it.
 
Anthony_V said:
Grey sounds like Franciscan nun. Was it grey like this?

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6vg19BJr31qd4kcco1_500.jpg

Or was it a Dominican nun like this?

Also, from what I understand, nuns are not always cloistered.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5rsC2IPDMXg/SL8MSzGGoRI/AAAAAAAAAew/ZbrqejcLbRU/s400/summit.JPG
Click to expand...
First picture, no…but that is a beautiful concept…and a beautiful picture 🙂
Second picture, the veil thing around the head was similar but was gray but the habit was prettier than those 😃

I’ll admit I was kinda attracted to it :o
 
The younger girl was about my age and was no doubt a lay person 😃 It looked like she was buying a new handbag for herself lol.
 
M31 said:
I’m taking a break from Apologetics since I don’t want to upset people :o

Anyway, I just wanted to say that yesterday I went to a department store to get some new clothes and when I was waiting in line for my turn, my phone rang and I answered it. What I didn’t know was who came up behind me.

I got off my phone with a friend and it was my turn to check out. When the associate was ringing me up, I heard these loud voices talking in a foreign language behind me and when I turned…there was a nun behind me talking to someone that was with her.

I believe she was Asian and older (like 70+) and she was with the younger person that was purchasing merchandise.

I didn’t think nuns or sisters could leave their convent. She wasn’t a cloistered nun but looked like one of those sisters that gets to go places. She had a veil-like thing around her head and wearing a large, obvious cross around her neck. No doubt she was a sister of some sort!

I’m wondering if she was just taking a little vacation from her religious work to be with a friend? I’m not sure.

Any thoughts?

Wow, what a surprise!:cool:
Click to expand...
Simple rules folks:

Nun and sister are not the same thing.

Nuns are cloistered, belong to religious orders, and make solemn vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Sisters are not cloistered, belong to religious congregations, are engaged in outside apostolic work, and make simple vows of chastity, poverty and obedience.

The color of the habit does not identify the community. For example, Franciscans can wear: black, grey, blue, white, brown and khaki. Brown is the most common. Numerous communities were grey habits.

Religious do not have to wear habits, per Bl. John Paul II in Vita Consacrata
  • ** I join the Fathers of the Synod in strongly recommending to men and women religious that they **
  • wear their proper habit, suitably adapted to the conditions of time and place.
  • Where valid reasons of their apostolate call for it, Religious, in conformity with the norms of their Institute, may also dress in a simple and modest manner, with an appropriate symbol, in such a way that their consecration is recognizable.
  • Institutes which from their origin or by provision of their Constitutions do not have a specific habit should ensure that the dress of their members corresponds in dignity and simplicity to the nature of their vocation.
In plain English:

    • You must wear it if it’s in your rule.
    • You must wear it if it was the wish of your founder
    • If it’s not in your rule, the community is free to vote it in or vote it out. The Holy See approves the final decision.
    • Some religious were not allowed to wear a habit by the founder, because he or she wanted them to wear what other people in the same line of work wear. Their manner of dress must be appropriate, but it’s going to be secular.
    Some teaching religious dress as teachers do and so forth. That’s why the Missionaries of Charity wear saris instead of a traditional habit. Hindu women do not wear the clothes that European sisters wear. The male Missionaries of Charity are not allowed to wear any external sign of religious life, because Hindu men wear slacks, sandals and button-down shirt. mcbrothers.org/spirituality.htm

    Women religious, both sisters and nuns, do go shopping, even cloistered nuns go shopping. It’s pretty hard to buy certain ladies undergarments without seeing them and it is especially hard to buy shoes if you don’t try them on to make sure you can walk in them. Then there are the usual things that every religious house needs.

    Communities of nuns usually have extern sisters who go out to shop for the general things: groceries, cleaning supply, tools, etc. But clothing and shoes, you have to go yourself. This reminds me of one of my most embarrassing moments in life.

    We had a monastery of cloistered Dominican nuns that had no externs. They needed a ride to see the doctor. I ended up sitting in the waiting room of a ladies’ doctor in full Franciscan habit. I wanted to stick my head in my cowl and disappear. I kept sticking my face into one of those magazines that they always have at doctor’s offices and hope that I could just blend in with the furniture.

    Fraternally,

    Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
M31 said:
I didn’t think nuns or sisters could leave their convent. She wasn’t a cloistered nun but looked like one of those sisters that gets to go places. She had a veil-like thing around her head and wearing a large, obvious cross around her neck. No doubt she was a sister of some sort!
Click to expand...
certainly sisters can leave their convents to shop, visit friends, work, go to the doctor, do all the things you do when you leave your home.

No, cloistered nuns–a rarity–may not leave without permission but still could do so in grave need such as medical care.

and yes sisters who work also have vacations
 
Anthony_V said:
Grey sounds like Franciscan nun. Was it grey like this?

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6vg19BJr31qd4kcco1_500.jpg

Or was it a Dominican nun like this?

Also, from what I understand, nuns are not always cloistered.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5rsC2IPDMXg/SL8MSzGGoRI/AAAAAAAAAew/ZbrqejcLbRU/s400/summit.JPG
Click to expand...
Bold is mine.

Franciscan nuns do not have a habit per se. St. Clare wrote that the superior and the sisters should decide on the proper religious garb taking into account: the culture, times, climate, work, the likes and dislikes of the nuns. She was a woman way ahead of her times.

There are about 20,000 Poor Clare nuns and almost 100,000 Franciscan Sisters. Each defines its own habit. There is no single Franciscan habit for either males or females. Clare and Francis were not too concerned about it.

Unlike other founders who simply did not mention it, they actually communicated their casualness concerning the use of a habit. For the men it had to be a tunic with a cowl and a chord. There was no parameters as to color, style, length, fabric, etc, for the males or females.

You will see Francisan women in very classical Italian habits, French habits such as Mother Angelica wears, suits, short habits with a veil, short habits without a veil, or something that they put on and take off for different situations.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
puzzleannie said:
certainly sisters can leave their convents to shop, visit friends, work, go to the doctor, do all the things you do when you leave your home.

No, cloistered nuns–a rarity–may not leave without permission but still could do so in grave need such as medical care.

and yes sisters who work also have vacations
Click to expand...
There are also different kinds and degrees of enclosure.

Carmelites, Trappistines, Carthusians, and Cistercians have the strictest form. They hardly see people.

Benedictine nuns do talk on the telephone, receive visitors and travel outside of their monasteries, usually for business.

Poor Clares and Visitation nuns have the most lax enclosure. The two Francises (sp?), Francis of Assisi and Francis de Sales were not big on enclosure. They did it because it was the custom of the day.

That’s how Mother Angelica got to travel around the world raising funds for EWTN and how she got to be on TV. You see her nuns at WYD and on TV too. The Visitandines and Poor Clares decide for themselves how much is enough enclosure. There is no universal rule for them. Each house is autonomous. One house can have a stricter enclosure than another.

Some Visitandines run schools inside the cloister.

What nuns do not do is outside apostolic work.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
JReducation said:
Simple rules folks:

Nun and sister are not the same thing.

Nuns are cloistered, belong to religious orders, and make solemn vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Sisters are not cloistered, belong to religious congregations, are engaged in outside apostolic work, and make simple vows of chastity, poverty and obedience.

The color of the habit does not identify the community. For example, Franciscans can wear: black, grey, blue, white, brown and khaki. Brown is the most common. Numerous communities were grey habits.

Religious do not have to wear habits, per Bl. John Paul II in Vita Consacrata
  • ** I join the Fathers of the Synod in strongly recommending to men and women religious that they **
  • wear their proper habit, suitably adapted to the conditions of time and place.
  • Where valid reasons of their apostolate call for it, Religious, in conformity with the norms of their Institute, may also dress in a simple and modest manner, with an appropriate symbol, in such a way that their consecration is recognizable.
  • Institutes which from their origin or by provision of their Constitutions do not have a specific habit should ensure that the dress of their members corresponds in dignity and simplicity to the nature of their vocation.
In plain English:

    • You must wear it if it’s in your rule.
    • You must wear it if it was the wish of your founder
    • If it’s not in your rule, the community is free to vote it in or vote it out. The Holy See approves the final decision.
    • Some religious were not allowed to wear a habit by the founder, because he or she wanted them to wear what other people in the same line of work wear. Their manner of dress must be appropriate, but it’s going to be secular.
    Some teaching religious dress as teachers do and so forth. That’s why the Missionaries of Charity wear saris instead of a traditional habit. Hindu women do not wear the clothes that European sisters wear. The male Missionaries of Charity are not allowed to wear any external sign of religious life, because Hindu men wear slacks, sandals and button-down shirt. mcbrothers.org/spirituality.htm

    Women religious, both sisters and nuns, do go shopping, even cloistered nuns go shopping. It’s pretty hard to buy certain ladies undergarments without seeing them and it is especially hard to buy shoes if you don’t try them on to make sure you can walk in them. Then there are the usual things that every religious house needs.

    Communities of nuns usually have extern sisters who go out to shop for the general things: groceries, cleaning supply, tools, etc. But clothing and shoes, you have to go yourself. This reminds me of one of my most embarrassing moments in life.

    We had a monastery of cloistered Dominican nuns that had no externs. They needed a ride to see the doctor. I ended up sitting in the waiting room of a ladies’ doctor in full Franciscan habit. I wanted to stick my head in my cowl and disappear. I kept sticking my face into one of those magazines that they always have at doctor’s offices and hope that I could just blend in with the furniture.

    Fraternally,

    Br. JR, OSF 🙂
Click to expand...

  1. Thank you, you are always so informative.

    👍
 
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