The National Catholic Reporter has a new article posted by Sister Sandra Schneiders, IHM, called Discerning Ministerial Religious Life Today (September 11, 2009). In this article, Sister Sandra helps explain why it is that all nuns do not wear a habit, live in a cloister, or pray the horarium. Essentially Sister Sandra is filling a gap in people’s experience of women religious. Many people have had experience of or heard about sisters who live a monastic form of religious life and sisters who live an apostolic orministerial form of religious life. But it’s not always easy to explain how we got the two or how the two are similar and how they are dissimilar.

This essay is also a kind of continuation of a discussion on religious life by Sister Sandra in recent publications: the essay Why they stay(ed), the personal email that NCR published, We’ve given birth to a new form of religious life, and the address she gave to the IHM Congregation, God So Loved the World … Ministerial Religious Life in 2009.

In this latest piece, Sister Sandra, a member of my own IHM community, responds to the question, What is ‘apostolic Religious Life’? which, as she notes, has been answered though often times with misinformation. The question appears in various forms, often around three main questions about lifestyle:

“Is culturally conspicuous, uniform garb (habit), fixed group dwelling from which members exit only by necessity and from which non-members are excluded (enclosure, cloister), and a daily schedule including shared meals, work, and especially the oral recitation of prescribed texts and vocal prayers, e.g., divine office, litanies, at several fixed times a day (horarium) essential to Catholic Religious Life as such?” The short answer is “no.”

The article goes on to provide a longer answer contextualized within history, scripture and theology.

This is a very important piece of writing and I recommend that you take a read, especially if you are considering religious life or know someone who is. Use it as a starting point to explore some of the issues and insights that Sister Sandra has raised. Whether or not you agree with what she has written, she has done a good job at naming the significant issues that can create confusion and misinformation.

Discerning Ministerial Religious Life Today
(National Catholic Reporter, September 11, 2009)

Please read the article and then join in the conversation below. (NB: The conversation actually got started on another post here so I moved those comment over here.)

The question about the habit being the answer to vocations recruitment comes up every now and again on the blog in various forms. It’s an interesting question that is way more complex than a simple “yes” or “no” can account for. Hilary well articulates this question in a comment on Why is a nun’s habit called a “habit”? Hilary writes:

Nuns are practically invisible nowadays, even in my very Catholic area, which is probably part of the reason why more women are not becoming nuns and even do not realize that that is an option. Perhaps if more orders wore some sort of habit – not necessarily the full, traditional habit – to distinguish them, to make them visible to the public, more young people would answer a call to vocation?

A couple different ways to look at this … one would be to look at the visibility issue by looking at priests, for example, who are clearly dressed as priests during liturgical events and often in other settings. One might say they are clearly visible yet why are U.S. seminaries not overflowing?

Another way to look at this is to consider the Internet. In this day and age, it is possible to get bounds of information about any subject (provided one has access to the Internet). One can easily, “visibly” find any number of Catholic sisters, nuns, brothers, priests, monks, friars, deacons, hermits, consecrated virgins, etc. There is more information accessible to a larger number of people than ever. Yet seminaries and houses of formation are not overflowing — of course that begs the question, do they need to be? Is quantity what we are aiming for here?

What do you think? Is the habit the answer to vocations recruitment? Are there other other ways that the issue of “visibility” could be addressed?

Monday is NUNDAY! Every Monday A Nun’s Life features YOUR photos of nuns and your story in relation to those nuns. Last week we missed Nunday because we had a special guest blogger for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception — and as all good Catholics know, Holy Days of Obligation always trump the ordinary day!

Today we’ve got a great photograph from Raphael Borja, a Catholic and university student from Canada doing an exchange semester in Italy. This photo was shot in Rome (Vatican City) on All Souls Day in St. Peter’s Square, shortly after Pope Benedict’s noon address.

Writes Raphael,

“I’ll be the first to admit that I’m sometimes guilty of buying into mainstream media’s depiction of nuns as meek, quiet introverts and ruler-slapping school tyrants. Coming from a culture where men and women of the cloth are increasingly rare (and sometimes even latently taboo), it’s ever-refreshing to see flocks of priests draped in cassocks and sisters donning habits. Furthermore, to be reminded that a sister’s ministry is not always limited to cloistered halls as the stereotype projects, to see an overlooked side as she lives and fulfills her vocation among everyday people in a variety of ways, is nothing short of sweet.”

Question from Jack …

Dear Sister Julie, Could you tell me why a Nun’s Habit is called a Habit, I cant seem to find the answer anywhere! Best wishes

I had to do a little searching for this one. First stop: Merriam-Webster.

Main Entry: hab·it archaic : clothing
Pronunciation: ˈha-bət
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin habitus condition, character, from habēre to have, hold
Date: 13th century

Next stop: Elizabeth Kuhns’ “popular history” book The Habit: A History of the Clothing of Catholic Nuns. Not much in the way of an origin or meaning of the term, however Kuhns does succinctly define the term: “Habit refers to the ensemble of clothing and accessories that make up religious dress. It can also mean specifically the robelike tunic or dress that is the main garment worn over the body.” (page 5) And a glance at the table of contents also reveals a range of terms that have been associated with the term “habit”, each of which is a whole discussion in and of itself:

• enigma
• tradition
• holiness
• conformity
• emblem
• charity
• courage
• explosion
• remnants

What I find most helpful in understanding why the habit is called a habit is to look at the symbolic meaning behind it. As M-W and Kuhns note, the word habit refers to “clothing”. Often times when persons go through a major change in life, especially in a religious context, it is symbolized by a change in clothing symbolically covering up the “old” person and expresing the “new person”. Sound familiar? It’s what we do at baptisms and funerals with the white robe or cloth which symbolizes our new life in Christ Jesus. And it’s not just Catholicism that does this. Many religions have special garb to designate a “new” personality or state in life.  There’s an interesting discussion of “religious dress” at Encyclopedia Britannica.

Other thoughts on the origin of the word “habit”?

Just found this story via my Plurk friends … “Woman is first consecrated virgin in Richmond diocese” by Steven G. Vegh (The Virginian-Pilot © July 27, 2008)

Here’s the first section of the article:

Fresh-faced and vivacious, Bernadette Snyder says she grew up in Virginia assuming Catholic girls like her either became nuns or found a man.

At 29, she is still single, and assuredly not a nun.

“I mean, do you see this in a convent?” Snyder said, glancing at her flowered skirt, peasant blouse and jewelry. “It just doesn’t happen. I mean, really!”

Instead, Snyder chose a little-known third path with a long tradition in Catholicism: She became a consecrated, perpetual virgin – the first in the 188-year history of the Richmond diocese, which includes Hampton Roads.

Wearing a white sundress and big pink earrings, Snyder knelt in May as Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo laid hands on hers in the rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity of Women Living in the World.

It’s pretty cool that there is interested in this Catholic vocation of consecrated virginity. It most definitely is not widely known which is unfortunate because people like Bernadette might find their life’s calling within that vocation. It’s important that we know more about this vocation and encourage others to consider it. Pope Benedict XVI recently spoke about the beauty of this Catholic vocation of consecrated virginity. The pope noted:

“The choice of virginal life is an allusion to the transitory nature of earthly things and an anticipation of future good. Be witnesses of vigilant and industrious hope, of joy, of the peace that belongs to those who abandon themselves to the love of God. Be present in the world, yet pilgrims on the journey to the kingdom.”

I do beg to differ, however, with the characterization of nuns in this article (I’m very protective of the image of Catholic nuns as A Nun’s Life readers probably know by now!). I know lots of nuns who wear ordinary, modest outfits which may include flowered skirts, peasant blouses, or jewelry. Why, just the other day I was donning my cycling habit — coolmax tank top, cool biker-dude sunglasses, and black spandex shorts (okay, well that’s something that no one should admit to in public, but I’m trying to make a point here ). There are a variety of styles of dress that Catholic nuns wear, among them are the “traditional” habit, the modified habit with or without veil, and dress that resembles the ordinary, modest clothing of a particular culture.

For whatever reason (intrigue, sensationalism, ignorance, cutesie-ness, etc.) the writer of this article about Bernadette chose to make dress an issue and to play it against stereotypes of nuns as women who only ever wear traditional habits and who lack personal flair. (Note: this is a false stereotype but one which surfaces again and again.)

Okay, i’m done with my nun stereotype crusade, at least for now.

Back to this amazing event … wow, a young woman becoming a consecrated virgin. Way to go, Bernadette! You’ve given many people a glimpse into a wonderful vocation within the Catholic Church. Please be assured of my prayers.

Thoughts, reactions, questions?