For Lack Of A Better Word, Can Nuns Still Have A 'beauty' Rout

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I seem to recall reading a letter between St. Therese and her sister Celine reminding her to take tweezers along to the convent to deal with stray chin hairs, so clearly that counted as minimally expected maintenance.

 

What is difficult to imagine is trying to feel clean back in the days when Discalced Carmelite nuns were allowed a bath once per week and the remaining days had a wash up in cell with pitcher and basin.  Admittedly standards were quite different then and perhaps I am just too spoiled by having easy and cheap access to clean running water- but I am thankful that I do.

 

 

Yes, I read that also, and that Therese said that even though they were nuns, they didn't have to have moustaches! :)

 

As for the bathing once a week thing, this still goes on in some English Carmels but I think that might be a cultural thing - the English don't seem to have a problem with weekly baths, whereas Americans and Australians like daily showers. In the Canadian and Australian Carmels we could shower as often as we wanted - and the few US Carmels that I have asked have said the same thing.

 

But the thing is that no one has to be stinky in Carmel - even those that bathe weekly. In the English Carmels, we were allowed to take a bucket of hot water to our cells at night. We would put plastic or waxed paper on the floor to catch water, and then we would pour the water into a basin and wash all over our bodies. When this was done, we could soak our feet in the water. And even though we didn't use perfume, we could use deodorant and body powder. I always felt clean before I got into bed at night.

 

And besides, this wasn't any worse than when I lived as a hermit in the Australian bush and had no hot water at all. I used to heat up water in kettles on the wood burning stove and then fill up buckets to wash myself. Once a week I would use the chip heater to make enough hot water to fill up the bath tub and have a bath.

 

The Missionaries of Charity also wash in a bucket. People can get used to almost anything. But if the issue is important to someone, it is probably a really good idea to add this to the question list before entering! :)

[MarysLittleFlower]

Interesting, I was wondering too about keeping oneself clean, and they work a lot too, like in the garden or around the monastery. Having some water in between the bathing times could help even if it could take a bit of time getting used to no showers.

Edited September 22, 2013 by MarysLittleFlower

[be_thou_my_vision]

Yes, I read that also, and that Therese said that even though they were nuns, they didn't have to have moustaches! :)

 

As for the bathing once a week thing, this still goes on in some English Carmels but I think that might be a cultural thing - the English don't seem to have a problem with weekly baths, whereas Americans and Australians like daily showers. In the Canadian and Australian Carmels we could shower as often as we wanted - and the few US Carmels that I have asked have said the same thing.

 

But the thing is that no one has to be stinky in Carmel - even those that bathe weekly. In the English Carmels, we were allowed to take a bucket of hot water to our cells at night. We would put plastic or waxed paper on the floor to catch water, and then we would pour the water into a basin and wash all over our bodies. When this was done, we could soak our feet in the water. And even though we didn't use perfume, we could use deodorant and body powder. I always felt clean before I got into bed at night.

 

And besides, this wasn't any worse than when I lived as a hermit in the Australian bush and had no hot water at all. I used to heat up water in kettles on the wood burning stove and then fill up buckets to wash myself. Once a week I would use the chip heater to make enough hot water to fill up the bath tub and have a bath.

 

The Missionaries of Charity also wash in a bucket. People can get used to almost anything. But if the issue is important to someone, it is probably a really good idea to add this to the question list before entering! :)

We didn't have water for two weeks when we first moved into our house, so my husband and I got a bit of a Carmelite experience...haha... but really, you are so right-- one can get used to anything. I would encourage anyone discerning an order with once a week baths or things like that to not be afraid! You never know until you try! And it's really not so bad! :)

[Egeria]

I once did a live-in with a community who bathed once a week (well, had a bath once a week - they also took a bucket of hot water to their cells each evening after Compline, so it wasn't as if they didn't wash. And given that the water was heated in a wood stove, it was quite a reasonable practice). But they forgot to put me on the roster for a bath. Being young and zealous and not knowing what their practice was, I didn't say anything. But after I'd been there two weeks the novice mistress came to me and apologized most profusely that they had forgotten to put me on the roster, and worried that I would think them more austere than they were!

 

Having later entered a monastery where bathing or showering every day was not the norm (although it wasn't rigid and had more to do with the lack of facilities than anything else) I realized how culturally relative these things are. And by that I mean not just the differences between geographic regions that Nunsense speaks of, but also that what is seen as expected in one historical era would have been considered the height of luxury in another.

 

And one really does get used to keeping oneself clean without taking a shower!

 

 

[brandelynmarie]

I seem to recall reading a letter between St. Therese and her sister Celine reminding her to take tweezers along to the convent to deal with stray chin hairs, so clearly that counted as minimally expected maintenance.

What is difficult to imagine is trying to feel clean back in the days when Discalced Carmelite nuns were allowed a bath once per week and the remaining days had a wash up in cell with pitcher and basin. Admittedly standards were quite different then and perhaps I am just too spoiled by having easy and cheap access to clean running water- but I am thankful that I do.

I was trying to remember this story about St Therese. :saint: I think simplicity is key & I'd be perfectly fine with a chapstick, moisturizer/lotion & a pair of tweezers. And to never color my hair again...that would be heavenly! ;)

[nikita92]

I totally second that last statement Brandelymarie!!!! ( btw-if I don't trim my eyebrow hair, it will grow out like Albert Einstein's white and all!)

[Aya Sophia]

My first novice mistress years ago was young and handsome but...had a moustache!  She too had to pluck or wax.  Objectively, this may seem like a vanity inappropriate in monastic life but, in the compassionate heart of Jesus, it is something quite other.  St. Therese had a wise and quick-witted delicacy about her (nurtured, imho, by her Salesian formation) that caused her to respond with His compassion to the needs and weaknesses of others and to rejoice in His mercy with regard to her own.