What do you bring to the convent?!

[Nunsuch]

2 hours ago, JHFamily said:

Well, that's a pretty big assumption.  I think it would be safer to assume that those who choose not to wear habits probably have several changes of clothes.

Exactly. People wear the clothing suitable to their ministries, as well as more casual clothing for "at home" or recreation.  Many of the sisters shop at thrift stores, or sales. And, at the motherhouse, there is a "swap shop" (not the right name for it), where sisters donate things they no longer need, and others take what they might find useful. 

So far as laundry is concerned, think of what any adult woman might do.

[Lilllabettt]

11 minutes ago, Nunsuch said:

Exactly. People wear the clothing suitable to their ministries, as well as more casual clothing for "at home" or recreation.  Many of the sisters shop at thrift stores, or sales. And, at the motherhouse, there is a "swap shop" (not the right name for it), where sisters donate things they no longer need, and others take what they might find useful. 

So far as laundry is concerned, think of what any adult woman might do.

I understand.  Now that I think of it - many sisters who elect to wear street clothes probably have dry cleaning bills, since they need professional suiting in addition to business casual, jeans, and so on. 

And it is a real need - because if one is in street clothes there is a need for a principal, for example, to wear tailored suiting. Her ministry might not be take seriously otherwise. I have seen this rationale used to justify the use of makeup and earrings for religious, which tbh I think is a stretch. But truly, thinking of the sisters I know who are principals, lawyers, health system administrators and so on - suiting is  truly necessary if one is in street clothes. And of course one can't relax at home in a dry clean only suit!

This is may be one example of why some people might opt for habited/uniformed religious life... vs wearing, as you say, "what any adult woman might", and having enough belongings to justify a weekly load of laundry all by oneself.

 

[Nunsuch]

Well, I think clothing is incidental to charism. I don't know any sisters who chose the community of which I'm a part because of clothing, one way or another, though they may be more comfortable in a congregation that doesn't wear a habit. 

I do remember a very holy sister who was general superior of her congregation in the years just after Vatican II. She was elected in a habit, but the same chapter voted to make the habit optional. Most sisters chose to wear secular clothing. Twenty years later, as she remembered those days, she said something I've never forgotten: "Our habits were in fact a real violation of the vow of poverty." She noted that the buttons were imported, the fabric was very costly, etc. As she said this, she wore a simple (and obviously much-worn) cotton dress and simple sandals.

Again, clothing is not the issue in terms of ministry, prayer, etc.

[Lilllabettt]

53 minutes ago, Nunsuch said:

Well, I think clothing is incidental to charism. I don't know any sisters who chose the community of which I'm a part because of clothing, one way or another, though they may be more comfortable in a congregation that doesn't wear a habit. 

I do remember a very holy sister who was general superior of her congregation in the years just after Vatican II. She was elected in a habit, but the same chapter voted to make the habit optional. Most sisters chose to wear secular clothing. Twenty years later, as she remembered those days, she said something I've never forgotten: "Our habits were in fact a real violation of the vow of poverty." She noted that the buttons were imported, the fabric was very costly, etc. As she said this, she wore a simple (and obviously much-worn) cotton dress and simple sandals.

Again, clothing is not the issue in terms of ministry, prayer, etc.

We are getting away from the original post, but re "charism" - this has always been a somewhat squishy thing, hasnt it?  I think a community's approach to poverty and obedience can be a very fundamental part of charism. A lot of people, maybe most people in America,  make it on hand me downs and thrift store finds, and that practice doesn't resonate as an especially evangelical poverty to them. But it can be. An Augustinian type of poverty isnt going to look Franciscan. And so on. There is such a thing as "ostentatious" poverty. Lots of ways to do it - but the approach is key. 

 

[NadaTeTurbe]

On 8/5/2019 at 8:56 PM, Lilllabettt said:

Has it always been that way - the sisters always hired people to cook their meals?

Hey - I have been working with the archives of a dozen of religious communities (from France + their houses overseas) from the XIXth century to around 1950, and all of them hired workers.
Some of them had "lay sisters" (other names were used) who took private vows, were never taught to read in some case, came from poor families, and were only here to cook and clean for the community (good family sisters became "real" religious). [disclaimer : this is a quick explanatio, everything is different, history is complicated] But even with lay sisters, in the motherhouse, there were workers - believe me, I have to read all of the boring paperwork about their wage, "are you sure we don't need another girl for cleaning because there's the second cousin of a priest we know who need a job" etc, etc...

[Nunsuch]

4 hours ago, NadaTeTurbe said:

Hey - I have been working with the archives of a dozen of religious communities (from France + their houses overseas) from the XIXth century to around 1950, and all of them hired workers.
Some of them had "lay sisters" (other names were used) who took private vows, were never taught to read in some case, came from poor families, and were only here to cook and clean for the community (good family sisters became "real" religious). [disclaimer : this is a quick explanatio, everything is different, history is complicated] But even with lay sisters, in the motherhouse, there were workers - believe me, I have to read all of the boring paperwork about their wage, "are you sure we don't need another girl for cleaning because there's the second cousin of a priest we know who need a job" etc, etc...

I have written about lay sisters, including a conference presentation in 2015 and some prior publications. The status of lay sister was officially abrogated in Perfectae Caritatis (Vatican II). 

I also remember a reference to correspondence between the head of the Boston, MA, Sisters of St. Joseph and the Archbishop of Boston, complaining that teaching sisters were paid 1/2 of what teaching brothers were paid. When she asked why, she was told it was because the men of course had to hire cooks, cleaners, launderers, etc., while the sisters did it for themselves (there were no lay sisters in that community). In other words, the women were expected to do twice the work for half the money! UGH. This was in the early 20th century.

[Antigonos]

It's essential to remember that, until well into the 20th century, class structure in many places kept women in definitely subsidiary roles in secular life, and it was regarded as totally normal.  And, not everyone has high intellectual capabilities, while sincerely having an above-average spiritual life.  For, say, a girl from a poor peasant family where no one had much if any schooling, the possibility of living in a convent and participating, even to a limited extent, in the religious life while expressing devotion through "working with her hands", must have seemed like a dream.  It's only now, with our almost universal literacy and higher education, that the concept of a "two-tier" system where some sisters did the heavy physical work while others spent much more time in contemplation and religious exercises, seems unfair and discriminatory.

Think of a saint like Joan of Arc -- had she wanted to enter religious life, would it not be likely she would have been accepted as either a lay or extern sister instead of a choir nun?

[Nunsuch]

3 hours ago, Antigonos said:

It's essential to remember that, until well into the 20th century, class structure in many places kept women in definitely subsidiary roles in secular life, and it was regarded as totally normal.  And, not everyone has high intellectual capabilities, while sincerely having an above-average spiritual life.  For, say, a girl from a poor peasant family where no one had much if any schooling, the possibility of living in a convent and participating, even to a limited extent, in the religious life while expressing devotion through "working with her hands", must have seemed like a dream.  It's only now, with our almost universal literacy and higher education, that the concept of a "two-tier" system where some sisters did the heavy physical work while others spent much more time in contemplation and religious exercises, seems unfair and discriminatory.

Think of a saint like Joan of Arc -- had she wanted to enter religious life, would it not be likely she would have been accepted as either a lay or extern sister instead of a choir nun?

This is less true in the US than you might think; universal education, at least through 8th grade, was the case from the mid-19th century onward, for women and men. As for Catholic education, because it was largely sex-segregated, and there were FAR more teaching sisters than brothers, Catholic women were more educated than Catholic men, as a whole (See J. Burns' work, dating from about 1909). That is why so few communities had lay sisters (though there were definitely "housekeeping" sisters in other congregations). By the turn of the 20th century, any sister who entered with a high school education, or with the capability of earning one, was educated for active ministry. 

[Lucy MVGG]

As had been shared already, each community is quite different. I took my books, day to day clothes for postulancy, guitar and lots of hankies.