Vow Of Poverty

[emma8201986]

I am the first person my SD was counseled about entering religious life.  He has counseled many couples in preparation for marriage and is using many of the same exercises with me that he has used for them.  The most recent is beginning to think about what the vows mean.  We started with the vow of poverty.  I get that nothing you use is really yours - it belongs to the community and you use it.  I am exploring several communities - some wear habits, others don't.  The charism  and how I feel about the community are more important to me than clothes.  But as I ponder this vow, I am confused.  There is a sister who works at the school that my nephews attend.  She lives in a condo and wears very nice clothes.  Her hair is highlighted.  My sister told me that she frequently meets her at the nail salon.  My question is how this lifestyle is consistent with the vow of poverty?   There are Daughters of Charity who teach at a different school near my sister.  While they don't wear a habit like the Nashville Dominicans, they always wear a blue skirt and white or blue top and many of them wear a small veil.  Even though they don't wear a traditional habit, to me is seems that their attire is consistent with a vow of poverty and they live in community.  Am I being unfair to the sisters who don't wear any kind of uniform garb or live in communities?  Do i not understand the vow of poverty?  I meet with my SD just after Christmas and would like to have something intelligent to say on our topic.  Your thoughts would be appreciated.

[Eowyn]

I think you raise some very good questions.  If it were me, it would be something I would want to ask someone in religious life and get their perspective on the vows.  I don't know if that is an option, though.

[Totally Franciscan]

For what it is worth, when I entered Carmel, our superior said that poverty is an evil, but the spirit of poverty is a good, meaning that one does not own anything, but is used in common with everyone in the community.  At this Carmel, we wore street clothes most of the time, but wore a modified habit for "witness", mainly Mass and when necessity called for us to wear it out and about.  One of the nuns had a very loving mother with significant means and lavished her daughter with expensive clothes.  How the conversation came up, I don't remember, but I remember the sister saying that she could care less what she wore, but it gave her mother joy to buy these clothes for her. 

 

Another active community that I entered did away with the habit, and the sisters are wearing street clothes and make up.  One thought about this is that they are in the public eye and should present themselves as professionals (teachers).  Like your SD asked, these are things about which you need to search your heart.  Then, with that in mind, when you visit communities, you should ask them how their vow of poverty is lived within that community.

[carmenchristi]

How the vow of poverty is lived is in a large part determined by the individual community. For a more general reflection on poverty see #13 of the decree Perfectae Caritatis. Ot is a document of Vatican II on the renewal of religious life. If i think of more reading material on the subject then i will post again.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19651028_perfectae-caritatis_en.html