Three co-consecrations of Benedictine virgins, 2018

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Beautiful.

Is every nun in this community addressed as “Mother”, or are all three abbesses/previous abbesses/prioresses/etc? Just curious.
 
Interesting! I thought that was only a custom in the East…and that only Abbesses/Superiors were “Mother” in the West.
 
@nunsuch can probably explain and expand better than I.

In my admittedly anemic understanding of that particular situation, there were lay/housekeeping Sisters in the convents at the time. They were addressed as “Sister”. The Sisters who had made vows were known as “Mother” to differentiate.

I am presently thinking of St Faustina and the Merciful Jesus congregation. She stipulated that there would be no “Mothers” and the extern Sisters would wear civvies.
 
Actually, there were several congregations that used “mother” for all professed choir sisters (when there were choir sisters). Two I can think of offhand are the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus and the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In some parts of the world, Benedictine choir nuns were called “Dame,” as commemorated in Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede,

As for habit differentiation, that was very common in the days of lay sisters. Oftentimes, they wore white veils (or shorter veils), non-cowled sleeves, etc. There is a rare but very informative British vocation directory (no pictures, but lots of detailed descriptions), by Hohn, which documents this. But there is a lot of information in the histories of individual US communities that had lay sisters (such as many, but not all, Dominican ones). Honestly, I have not run across any US communities in which lay sisters did not wear habits in the days when habits were pretty universal.
 
In the UK, once they make profession, all Benedictine Nuns are called “Dame”…
In Brazil, most Benedictine abbeys & monasteries have claustral oblates
who wear the same habit as the nuns & who, for the most part do the work of
Lay Sisters.
 
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I don’t know that the use of “Dame” is still true, at least not everywhere, in the UK. On the Stanbrook Abbey website, for instance, authors of articles in the newsletter are identified as “Sr.”
 
Again, from my contact in the UK, who spent some time in a Benedictine monastery there:

"Historically, there were Lay Sisters whose function was to work for the community. it was simply a reflection of the strict class-system of society at the time; a Lady would enter with a servant, the Lady would become a Dame, and the servant would be a Lay Sister.

A Lady/Dame would have an understanding of Latin and would be able to recite the Divine Offices, the Lay Sisters would normally have less (or no) education and would recite a number of Our Fathers and/or Hail Marys instead of the Latin Office as they continued to work.

All members of the community would wear a habit though there would be some differences in design. The cowl (with long sleeve holes, floor length and with a short train) was only for Dames.

A Lady would bring with her a rich dowry. Those who could not afford the dowry could enter as Lay Sisters (or look for another order of a different social class who may accept a smaller dowry).

The Benedictine communities in the UK no longer have Lay Sisters.

Although I have come across one community who did have nuns known as “Dames”, this was only used in formal situations and nuns called themselves “Sisters.” Interestingly, the title of a superior of that community would be known as “Lady Abbess” (though there had not been a Lady Abbess for quite a while and the tiny number of remaining nuns are now part of another community).

The only community I know of, in the UK, where all the professed nuns call themselves “Mother’ is Tyburn.”
 
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The reason Benedictine sisters in the UK—and everywhere—no longer have lay (claustral) sisters is because they were eliminated in Perfectae Caritatis (Vatican II): “care should be taken that there be only one class of Sisters in communities of women.” [paragraph 15]
 
I see. For some reason I thought it was pretty common for women religious to become CVs when they make their perpetual vows.
 
Exceptionally rare these days. I saw someone mention the Carthusians doing this. Their nuns dropped that a long time ago.

We were considering doing so in our congregation, though.
 
There are plenty of African American consecrated virgins. Just because Regina Laudis monastery is not aware doesn’t mean that their nun is the first to receive it.
Mother Therese, OCV, JCL
Specializing in theology and law of consecrated life.
This communication does not establish a canon lawyer-client relationship.
 
SerraSemper said:
There are plenty of African American consecrated virgins. Just because Regina Laudis monastery is not aware doesn’t mean that their nun is the first to receive it.
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Yeh, it doesn’t sound right to me. Not at all. Seems odd that none of the pre vatII African American sisters would have been CVs as well especially when it was much more common for women religious to be made CVs when making vows before VatII. Odd indeed.
 
mrsdizzyd said:
Yeh, it doesn’t sound right to me. Not at all. Seems odd that none of the pre vatII African American sisters would have been CVs as well especially when it was much more common for women religious to be made CVs when making vows before VatII. Odd indeed.
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Actually, this is not true at all. Most religious congregations did not do the consecration, and none of the three African American congregations in the US did. Most communities, after all, do not require (and never did require) virginity to enter. Many founders, even were widowed or divorced, and at least 2 that I know of in the 19th-century US were unwed mothers. The consecration of virgins is a very specific rite and rarely practiced in the US, now or ever.
 
Sisters never became CVs because only certain religious orders of cloistered nuns had/continue to have the privilege of receiving the consecration of virgins. To this day, religious sisters continue to be excluded from the ability to be elevated to this role. Even most of the Benedictines did not have it for most of their stay in the USA because they had dropped to simple vows due to becoming more active than cloistered. Thus it would have been a rare event for an African American to become a nun and receive the consecration of virgins. It is possible that some were consecrated in the wave of consecrations that happened when the Benedictines received an indult last century. Once 1970’s expansion of the Rite occurred to once more include women who were not religious to receive the consecration of virgins, then some African Americans laywomen were consecrated over the years. I know some personally. As very few places in the USA have the right much less the practice of consecrating virgins amongst their solemnly professed nuns, I doubt that there are many black nuns who were constituted Brides of Christ by the consecration of virgins today.
Mother Therese, OCV, JCL
Specializing in theology and law of consecrated life.
This communication does not establish a canon lawyer-client relationship.
 
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