Community And Internet

[Winchester]

The internet is not a big truck.

[AnneLine]

Very true, Winchester, but it is a vehicle.

Ironically, that really is an interesting aspect of this. There was a time a hundred years ago when religious were FORBIDDEN to ride in automobiles, much less to DRIVE them. Because they were new... and the rules and customs that governed communities hadn't ever even considered they might end up existing. So... because originally they were ONLY for the rich, they weren't considered appropriate for 'poor religious'. Which makes a lot of sense!

I have an aunt-by-marriage who is a 102 year old Felician Sister. She told us of the days when traveling religious were ONLY allowed to eat at bus stations... because that was the one exception that had been written into the rules--otherwise they were NOT allowed to eat outside the convent! (This is the kind of customs that religious were really asked to re-evaluate in the 1960's, by the way....)

I remember in the late 1990s, one of my Secular Order novices suggested that our secular order community needed a website. I asked him, whatever for? He said, so potential applicants can find the community. I insisted for quite a while that we had done just fine without one for many decades, why did we need one now? He pointed out... and I took his answer to prayer.... that while WE might not have changed too much, people OUTSIDE the community had changed a lot, and that if THEY were looking on line, we might need to be find-able on-line. Then I looked at how the Vatican and many religious communities and parishes were starting to have websites.... and reluctantly our community's Council said, OK, a limited website as long as no one can find ME. At this point, if I am honest, we get about 9:10 of our applicants via either that website or email. So yeah, in some ways I really think that some kind of internet access (even if thru a community friend) really is an important thing.

Even the Dallas Carmel (which is a very traditional 1990 Community) has a website run by community friends and a variety of ways for people to reach the community. Their preference is fax but they also allow snail mail or a form on the website (that probably gets printed out and dropped on the nuns' Turn.....) And the Valpariso Carmelites (about as traditional as one can get!) have a website about their monastery run by the Las Vegas Marian Center.....

I suspect many Secular Order groups get contacts with a request that they be passed on to local monasteries of nuns of various orders... I know ours gets contacts for our Nuns and for several other nearby cloisters, and we are happy and honored to do that for the Nuns.....

God works in many ways....

Edited November 25, 2012 by AnneLine

[BarbTherese]

One Order I have contact with in pre V2 days had to have curtains on the windows at the back where the Sisters sat - and they always prayed the Rosary while travelling. Nowadays they are driving vehicles themselves, going to the beach and swimming (in bathers), visiting their families. All these things were once never even remotely contemplated. I am reading Pope Benedict's "Jesus of Nazareth" for the third time (and each time I read it grants me more internalized insight) and he comments that some things are open to change and must change as society changes and develops.