Sister Sarah discerns the religious habit

[Thijs]

They are founded wearing their habits. I hope they return someday having one.

Edited July 5, 2016 by Thijs

[krissylou]

A lot of communities that typically don't wear a habit will have some older sisters who chose to maintain it.  When communities were discerning to stop wearing the habit it was reasonably common for them to decide that women who had entered and received the habit could choose to keep it or not, while newer entrants would not ever receive it.  If you look at jubilee photos of even the most "liberal" of communities, you'll often see a couple of the Golden or Diamond jubilarians with some sort of veil.

I've heard of at least one community where a young woman in temporary vows wanted more of a habit.  She brought this to her community.  They discerned together.  (I'm no nun but I am given to understand this is how it's supposed to work.)  They said hmmm, well, we've had "habit optional" for our older sisters for a long long time now.  Would it make sense to just extend that same principle to sisters of all ages?  They decided they could.  Now they are habit-optional throughout the age range.  Young nun was happy happy happy to adopt the habit.  And I get the impression that some of the middle aged sisters are kind of perplexed that the young 'uns are attracted to the habit, but we don't all have to agree on everything.

[NadaTeTurbe]

On 01/07/2016 at 9:59 PM, katherineH said:

I discerned with a community where the habit/veil were optional and it ultimately put me off because I felt like it reflected disunity as a community.  It would have been easier for me if the community just flat out said no habit or veil.  At least there would have been a unified and cohesive outlook on the issue.

For me, having it optional is smart, because you can adapt to the apostolate. I am in a catholic college, and we have a religious brother as teacher, and students don't want to speak to him because he have an habit. It frightens them. I tried to speak to him about it, and he told me he could not take it out because of their Constitutions. It makes me sad. And I'm sure my mother would be more opend minded to the faith if the religious in our cities did not wear an habit (when we had a priest who wasn't always habited, she would speak to him sometimes, but now it's a big "no"). When you are member of an active institute, sometimes you have to adapt yourself to the people in front of you (specially those who don't even want to speak with you !)

There's also the case of Society of Apostolic LIfe. Members of such a society, like the Daughters of CHarity, are not religious, but some of them call themselves "sisters" and wears an habit. A Daughter of Charity once told me that those who did not wear an habit did it because St Vincent de Paul wanted them to be unhabited, and those who did wear an habit did it because of the many Saints (such as Catherine Labouré or Rosalie Rendu) in the Company who did. Of course, there are other reasons, but I like this idea of balance between the wish of the founder and the later history of the company. 

[krissylou]

I've often observed that men's communities tend to be much more likely to have a habit in the closet which they wear sometimes.  In different communities and sometimes among different individuals that "sometimes" can be more or less frequent, but it's much more common to have a wider range of how often you're in a habit as opposed to women's communities that seem much more likely to be all or nothing.

I kind of think the men are onto something here ...