Nuns With Habits Vs. Nuns Without

[cmotherofpirl]

I was taught by the Sisters of Mercy before and after they had habits. THey have turned into social workers who want to be ordained. Bah.

Edited February 2, 2004 by cmotherofpirl

[BLAZEr]

M. Sigga, the Carmelites in this country, the Discalced Carmelites, are doing just fine vocationaly. Cloistered sisters are always doing fine vocationally. And as far as the orders here who are also in other countries, its a funny thing, but all of the orders in Third World countries tend to wear habits.

The "getting rid of the habit" thing is an almost exclusively a Western 1st world phenomenon.

And on a side note, the Church did not tell religious orders that they could get rid of their habits. In fact, it never said any such thing. It said that they should try to go back to their founding principles. The Church meant for Orders to stop doing 500,000 things and start doing, once again, what they were founded to do.

The first order to get rid of the habit are the Lorettine sisters (who taught my aunts). Sr. Mary Luke Tobin (now called "Luke") was the first to argue that they should get rid of the habit (she was Superior General in 67 when the getting rid of habits started). Her argument was that their founders used the common dress of the day and they should too. That bad little myth has been debunked more times than Sr. Mary Luke has prayed for the ordination of women.

Suffice it to say this: Not wearing a habit has ZERO to do with being Orthodox. Most religious orders today suffer from heterdoxy and lack of a decisive mission (In other words they do everything from teaching to hospital work to prison minstry to yoga to transcendental meditation to new age stuff). Those that don't suffer from these plagues do so specifically becasue they try NOT to become this way. They also tend to wear habits. The Institute of Religous Life has a lot of information about living out Pope John Paul II's encyclical "Vita Consecrata" where, among other things, he specifically asks for religious to begin again wearing "distinctive dress." I don't think he had bad 70's clothes in mind.

And no, women are not always called to a religious order because of an identity with the Founders work. They go for all sorts of reasons: to get an education. because they like the habits, because they want to be a saint, because some nuns were nice to them once. But mainly, they go because they are trying to follow Jesus as his bride in a marked way through the consecration of their lives.

The founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph was Fr. Pierre Medaille. He foudned the order to do the Corporal Works of Mercy as much as "woman was capable of". Sr. Helen lives out that charism beautifully in visiting the imprisoned.

[cmotherofpirl]

Institutes That Live the Gospel Still Get Vocations, Says Official

Vatican Secretary Tells What Draws Young People

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 2, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Institutes of consecrated life that give special importance to prayer and the radical nature of the Gospel continue to inspire vocations, says a Vatican official.

"The institutes of consecrated life that are most faithful to prayer, austerity, detachment from consumerism, attract many young people," Archbishop Silvano Nesti, the secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, told Vatican Radio.

"Many cloistered convents for nuns also attract young women who joyfully embrace this lifestyle," he said today. His comments came on the occasion of the Day of Consecrated Life being observed by the Church.

While some religious congregations have seen their ranks drop steadily since the 1960s, other congregations have arisen and thrived.

According to Archbishop Nesti, religious by their lives are "a witness of the highest human and Christian values, through the practice of the evangelical counsels" -- poverty, chastity and obedience -- "and of a community life that welcomes brothers and sisters who joyfully live that charism, even if they come from other nations, cultures or ethnic groups."

He noted that while the number of religious has decreased, that of consecrated lay people has increased.

"These persons wish to live their consecration to God in the world through the profession of the evangelical counsels in the context of temporal structures, in order to be leaven of wisdom and witness of grace within cultural, economic and political life," the archbishop said.

"They seek," he added, "to introduce in society the new energies of the Kingdom of Christ, trying to transfigure the world from within, with the force of the beatitudes."

ZE04020203

[Donna]

Blazer, would you (sincerely) explain what you meant by this?

"Even the ones that did the liturgical dancing at the Mahoney Temple festival are really orthodox, they just do silly liturgical stuff."

T'anks.

PS: Flowery, your NBA explanation is perfect!

[M.SIGGA]

Blazer, would you (sincerely) explain what you meant by this?

"Even the ones that did the liturgical dancing at the Mahoney Temple festival are really orthodox, they just do silly liturgical stuff."

T'anks.

PS: Flowery, your NBA explanation is perfect!

I think he's talking about Cardinal Mahoney's activities at Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral. If you don't know much about the Cardinal, it's his mission to rid American Catholicism from what he calls it's European roots and traditions, soo dancing guitar nuns with birkenstocks would be a must at any of his events.

PS I really like guitar nuns!

[littleflower+JMJ]

hey thanks donna.

i think i come up with the weirdest analogies. :unsure:

[Carrie]

I've always wanted to name a girl Tamar...it was my mother's mother's mother's name. She converted from Judaism to Lutheranism in thhe 1870's.

I used to work with a girl named Tamar

[Donna]

Thanks, Sigga. I know who the Cardinal is, and what he does (muwhahahhaha).

What I wish explained is really orthodox and silly liturgical stuff being of the same cloth.

[BLAZEr]

Well, they are orthodox theologically. But they are also very influenced by the Eastern (as in Asian) cultures that they are from and work in. They do things like liturgical dance, which might be appropriate in certain cultural settings, but seems very wierd at mass.

I guess it's like this. I would say that some people are Orthodox except for their position on "outside the Church there is no salvation." The same way I could say about someone "They are orthodox, they are just into liturgical dance."

It might be wrong. But that's how I meant it.