Special charism

[BarbTherese]

A special charism of particular interest to me.  It does mean there is a Vatican precedent for religious sisters to actually work in the general workforce in the secular community as a charism rather than occupations within The Church.

There are a few reasons why this charism is special to me.  First, it brings religious right into the working heart of the secular community and as peers with others employed - as against a sort of  'me doctor, you patient' scenario.  Secondly, it is a means of support (earning a wage).  Thirdly, the religious who are working in the workforce with a wage can provide the financial support for other endeavours of their communities.  There might be even more reasons.
 

Quote

 

http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/2009/ns_lit_doc_20090426_tadini_en.html

 "To educate young working women, he founded the Congregation of Worker Sisters of the Holy House of Nazareth, who went into the factories to work alongside the other women, sharing their toil and tensions, while teaching them by their example."

 

Founder: St Arcangelo Tadini (Vatican News)

Rolling up their sleeves in Burundi

Worker Sisters in the times of the jihad

I have been unable to find a website for the Congregation of Worker Sisters of the Holy House of Nazareth (it might come under a shorter title although I could not find one).  If anyone knows the link or can share information about these religious, please share.

 

PRIVATE VOWS

http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/132845-home-mass-private-vows/

[allegra]

This is their website: http://www.suoreoperaie.it/

- only in Italian though.

There's an English speaking branch in Peterborough, UK, mentioned on the Italian website, the concrete details cited by opencharities:

http://opencharities.org/charities/280448

[Guest]

Thank you very much, allegra, for taking the time to post.  I will try to work the Google translate on the Italian site to put things into English (much of computer how-to-do is hit and miss with me........oh and also sometimes sheer fluke ).

[NadaTeTurbe]

6 minutes ago, BarbaraTherese said:

Thank you very much, allegra, for taking the time to post.  I will try to work the Google translate on the Italian site to put things into English (much of computer how-to-do is hit and miss with me........oh and also sometimes sheer fluke ).

That would be so kind of you, this community sounds so interesting ! I want to know more ! 

[Sister Leticia]

I can read Italian, and have taken a brief look at the website. The congregation was founded in 1900, so they pre-date the Little Sisters of Jesus who have the same apostolate. These sisters also seem to do other things, though, as there are adverts for summer camps for young people.

They were founded in a town in the province of Brescia, in Lombardy, N Italy by the parish priest, and all their Italian houses are in that area. They also have missions in Brazil and Burundi. The three sisters in Peterborough, UK, are in a town with a lot of Italian immigrants - they came specifically to work with/alongside them.

The first sisters not only worked alongside women in factories and mills, but they also lived in the same hostels. They evangelised the women through their example rather than through preaching. At that time factories were seen as bad, risky places for women to work in - a woman's place was in her home - and female factory workers, often poorly educated, were looked down on. The idea of religious sisters working in factories was therefore greeted with a lot of incomprehension.

The website has a lot of out-of-date material on it, though - articles about communities dated 2009 or 2012, for example, and the homepage hasn't been updated for some time.

[Guest]

Thank you, Sister - much appreciated.

Do the Little Sisters of Jesus also undertake employment in the workforce?  And do they were a habit - and if so traditional or modified?

By religious, especially in habits, getting out right into the heart of secular life as it were in the workforce, they have a wonderful opportunity to evangelise.  This is because, the habit itself 'says' God, Jesus, The Gospel and even Catholic too.....before a Sister does or says anything at all.  Also a religious is expected to talk about religious matters.  It is much different for a lay person.

By "habit" I do not mean necessarily the full traditional type of habit with veil.  We have a religious in our parish and her outfit is like a uniform with crucifix on a chain.  She always wears her habit.  Her habit does strike me as leaning more towards secular wear than common religious habit type wear nowadays, even the modified habits.  She doesn't wear a veil.  And once one gets to know her, even a little, she is a beautiful person..........a lovely personality.  I sometimes wonder if formation brings about the transformation into such lovely human beings, or whether the person had it when she entered.

That is probably what I miss most about secular life in the laity............i.e. ongoing formation.  In secular life formation is very often a question of "Do I have the time and the money. What would I do for transport?"

Edited September 15, 2016 by BarbaraTherese

[Nunsuch]

I don't think the Little Sisters of Jesus ever wore habits when working--and, on some jobs, they would wear the uniforms of other workers. These days, I think they just wear whatever is appropriate to the job--jeans, whatever. 

The vast majority of sisters in the US do not wear a habit of any sort, of course. So the "typical" garb of a sister is.... whatever.

Off to spend the weekend with the sisters with whom I'm an Associate!

[Guest]

Thank you for the info on what the Little Sisters of Jesus wore.  I am wondering too what the Worker Sisters of Nazareth wear? 

I am all for a religious having a habit and secular wear also.  Sometimes there is a positive payoff in just being one of all the rest, just melding into the crowd.  I used to have a saying for myself in my previous suburb "If you can't beat 'em - infiltrate". My previous suburb was beset by poverty and probably every social problem in the book.  By the time I left some 30 years later, I had friendships with ALL (probably) walks of life.  That is another focus of mine still - i.e. to form real friendships of felt equality, rather than 'me doctor you patient' type of mentality, attitude and perspective.  It is mind blowing to me that God chooses to become one of us and one of us in poverty and vulnerability.

Here in Australia it is most unusual and rare to see a religious in habit.  Hence, I was delighted when our new pastoral associate was not only a religious, but a habited religious.  I just love the habit mainly because it is evangelising without saying a word, before one even gets to that point.  In pre V2 days when all our sisters were in very traditional types of habit, I could be in the city with friends talking and thinking about whatever we might be doing on Saturday night.  I'd spot a couple of religious on the street in the distance (always they were in pairs) - and immediately my thoughts were on a totally different subject, although sometimes it was only briefly.  But there for a moment anyway at least.

I hope you have a very happy and holy - a rewarding weekend.

_____________

 

PRIVATE VOWS

http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/132845-home-mass-private-vows/

[Nunsuch]

Thanks, Barbara Therese. Of course sisters who choose--either individually or for their entire congregations--to wear habits are fine with me, too! I have 4 friends who have entered religious life here in the US in the past year, all in congregations that do not wear a habit. While many people say that they would not discern with a community that didn't wear habits, others feel just the opposite. I'm glad our church and religious life offers options for both.

By the way, at least one community I know--the Baltimore Carmel--wears "lay" clothes most of the time, but has an alb-like garment that they wear for prayer in chapel/choir. I think that is an interesting option, too.

[Thijs]

How about working in the government? 
— Working hard has become a habit for Catholic Sister Anthony Marie. But she’s going to give up her career at the Southeast Idaho Council of Governments Area Agency on Aging this month.

[NadaTeTurbe]

8 hours ago, Nunsuch said:

Thanks, Barbara Therese. Of course sisters who choose--either individually or for their entire congregations--to wear habits are fine with me, too! I have 4 friends who have entered religious life here in the US in the past year, all in congregations that do not wear a habit. While many people say that they would not discern with a community that didn't wear habits, others feel just the opposite. I'm glad our church and religious life offers options for both.

By the way, at least one community I know--the Baltimore Carmel--wears "lay" clothes most of the time, but has an alb-like garment that they wear for prayer in chapel/choir. I think that is an interesting option, too.

I think that's what Redwood Cistercian abbey do too ? 

We had a teacher in habit in my college (a catholic college), and nobody wanted to speak with him - everybody was afraid of his habit. Myself, I don't feel comfortable with religious in habit. I think that catholic love habit, but non-catholic don't even know what it is - one day we saw a priest in cassock with a friend, and she said "I did not know that muslim had black djellabas !". I respect every congregation choice - don't have an habit, or have one, or leaving the choice to the individual sisters, or even having the same habit than their foundress (two spanish congregation did that : Hermanas de la Cruz and Hermanitas de los Ancianos Desamparados). 

As for the LIttle Sisters of Jesus, it's up to the individual sister, I think. Some of them wear a blue "dress", with a belt, a cross, and a blue veil. Most of the sisters don't wear an habit, but they all have the community's cross, and most of them tends to dress in blue. In France, for example, it would be difficult, since religious garbs are forbidden in many places (school, administration, hospital, most business). 

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Thijs said:

How about working in the government? 
— Working hard has become a habit for Catholic Sister Anthony Marie. But she’s going to give up her career at the Southeast Idaho Council of Governments Area Agency on Aging this month.

What a wonderful woman and religious.  She might be giving up her career, but she sure isn't putting her tools down.

I loved this: ""Someone told me ‘who’s going to laugh with me when you’re gone,’" Sister Anthony Marie said. "  There is a recommendation!

Thank you for sharing

[Guest]

2 hours ago, NadaTeTurbe said:

I think that's what Redwood Cistercian abbey do too ? 

We had a teacher in habit in my college (a catholic college), and nobody wanted to speak with him - everybody was afraid of his habit. Myself, I don't feel comfortable with religious in habit. I think that catholic love habit, but non-catholic don't even know what it is - one day we saw a priest in cassock with a friend, and she said "I did not know that muslim had black djellabas !". I respect every congregation choice - don't have an habit, or have one, or leaving the choice to the individual sisters, or even having the same habit than their foundress (two spanish congregation did that : Hermanas de la Cruz and Hermanitas de los Ancianos Desamparados). 

As for the LIttle Sisters of Jesus, it's up to the individual sister, I think. Some of them wear a blue "dress", with a belt, a cross, and a blue veil. Most of the sisters don't wear an habit, but they all have the community's cross, and most of them tends to dress in blue. In France, for example, it would be difficult, since religious garbs are forbidden in many places (school, administration, hospital, most business). 

I think that sometimes a religious habit can scare us Catholics too.  I know I am always more guarded when a religious I don't know is in habit, then when one is not.  Although I don't think "guarded" is quite the word.  Had a bit of a think and I think it is my pre V2 Catholic nun education might be showing - we were taught to have nuns, religious, priests on pedestals..........too high for us.

I don't mind what they wear either - in habit or not in habit.

How very sad for France that religious garb has forbidden venues - but then I thought if France is going to ban some types of Islamic wear, then perhaps they had no alternative.  France has certainly suffered severely.

There is a thread starting up here in VS on religious and nuns without veils.  It answers a question of mine when I see images of religious or nuns but no veils.  I couldn't work out if they were hermits or not.  Now I know some religious do wear a traditional habit without the veil.  I do know at one point that a particular Carmel did wear a modified habit, but inside the cloister, they did not wear the veil.  They only wore it in Chapel or in the parlour.  Perhaps the images in the no veil thread and images I have seen were neither in chapel nor parlour.

But then too.  If religious and nuns choose not to wear the veil at all, I have no problems with it.  They never state what we should wear i.e. lay women.   When you think about it wearing a veil all the time must be penitential rather often especially in a hot summer - although you might get accustomed to it, which I cannot imagine.

Quote

 "I did not know that muslim had black djellabas !".

[katherineH]

What you described sounds similar to Opus Dei founded by Sr. Josemaria Escriva.  Their whole "charism" is pursuing professional excellence at all levels of society.  Their numeraries (consecrated, celibate) live in community, share their income, and undergo rigorous spiritual formation.  It is a very unique form of consecration.  They aren't a religious community (they call themselves a prelature) and don't call themselves brothers and sisters but there are many parallels. They are very devoted to the Church and are an impressive group of people. Maybe something worth looking into! 

[NadaTeTurbe]

4 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

How very sad for France that religious garb has forbidden venues - but then I thought if France is going to ban some types of Islamic wear, then perhaps they had no alternative.  France has certainly suffered severely.

It's not because of islamic garbs. Those are laws dating back from 1905. During a time in France, religious brothers and sisters were forbidden. Some of them left the country, but other stayed, living like laypeople. There's a lot of anti-catholic hate here. A lot of people feel "assaulted" when they see someone with a visible religious garb (catholic or muslim or jewish)  : it doesn't open any dialogue for evangelization. It's the case of my mom. She refused to speak with a priest - ever. Until I found one without roman collar or anything - she spoke with him during two hours !  
Religious garb are forbidden in everything governement related : education, hospital, administration. And then most business forbid it because they know that if you have someone with a cross or a hijac, consumers are not going to like it. There's a lot of things to change here !!