yea the sisters have a garden that surrounded by a metal fence that a lot of houses have in the area, but you can see right through it. Most homeowners put these little plastic strips in between the metal so you cant see inside, but the sisters don’t. They hang their outer garments right in the garden. Of course they do not do this in the winter as their clothes would freeze lol, so I assume they have a dryer inside somewhere that they just don’t use in the summer? Idk, I just love to see nuns, it makes me happy so see easily identifiable religious.
on the topic of wearing a habit, I kind of want to start wearing a uniform, I have serious materialism issues and ive been toying with the idea of wearing a uniform for a few years since my friend introduced me to the uniform project. I even recently asked my Muslim uncle to get a hijab for me so I wouldn’t be constantly doing things to my hair. (I’m African American and I swear every month I’m changing my hair in new and more expensive ways.) I guess I just want to be more humble and that’s the only way I know how… please pray for me that I can embrace the spirit of humility and poverty and reject all the commercialism and consumerism that is engrained in my mind.
My sister, true humility is not in how one dresses, but in how one sees oneself. The fact that you admit that you have a problem with consumerism is the beginning of humility. True humility is self-awareness.
Our Holy Father St. Francis always said this, “I am what I am before God . . . nothing else.” He spent his entire time trying to see himself as God saw him. The more he looked, the more weeds he saw that had to be pulled. After years of self-examination he became the Brother Francis that the world knows and loves.
He went from being a slave to consumerism to being one with the poor. He did not dress poor, just to look the part. He dressed poor, because he had nothing else to wear. He had given everything he owned to the poor. He went from being intemperate in food and drink to being moderate without being exaggerated. On his deathbed he asked for his friend to bring him his favorite almond pastries. Yet, at times of fasting and abstinence, he was very strict with himself.
Here is an interesting detail about his humility. When he began his journey with the first 10 brothers, he insisted that he was Brother Francis. He was just one of the guys. Two weeks before he dies, he writes his Lat Will and Testament and while he still refers to himself as Brother Francis, he speak like an authoritative patriarch of a large family. He writes that what he did he owed to no human influence. But that the rule and the way of life that he laid out for his brothers and sisters were directly revealed to him by Christ and that the Church confirmed those revelations to be true. Observe. It would sound arrogant to say that one owes nothing to another human being, because one has a hot line with God. But then he follows by saying how he took his revelations to the Church for its examination and seal of approval. This is what we mean by seeing ourselves as God sees us.
God saw him as the patriarch and it was to him that God revealed our way of life. But God had also left a Church with a papacy. And only the pope could confirm or deny if the revelation came from God. So he saw himself in relationship to God as submissive to what God asked. Yet he also so himself in relationship to the Church as submissive to the Church’s authoritative confirmation.
Finally, he warns his brothers that anyone who does not do what he commands will end up in hell. That’s pretty arrogant. Don’t you think? Actually not, because he sees himself where he belongs. He is the father and it is a father’s job of exercise his authority for the salvation of his children. When a father accepts his place in life, he is humble. When he abdicates, he is irresponsible, but not humble.
As you see, humility takes work and concrete actions beyond how we dress.
