The question of habits is one that has been in the air to one degree or another, in many religious communities, for decades now, and I know that it is an important issue to many people who are considering a vocation to religious life. For these reasons, I thought it might be a good idea to touch upon it here.
I have been asked on more than one occasion why it is that nuns don’t dress this way anymore. Sometimes, when this question is asked of me, people seem to simply be curious about why things changed. Other times, there is a sense of loss, and a kind of nostalgic yearning for sisters to don the habit once again.
For older people, the desire to see sisters in habits may well be a desire to return to a simpler time in their lives, when everyone kind of knew the rules and societal roles were more clearly defined.
But then there are the younger people. Even though most of us who grew up here in the United States during the 70’s , 80’s and beyond have much less experience seeing sisters in habits, and yet there is still a yearning for them. Young women who are considering religious life to day often seem to want to enter communities who wear a habit, and these are the communities that are getting the most new vocations.
I have an idea of why this might be. Keep in mind that this is just one person’s idea, but I think the reason that habited (and more traditional in general) communities attract more vocations has to do with the tendency toward rapid and complex changes in our society over the last four decades or so. People who were born during or after the 1960’s know little else than the experience of a continual shifting of the ground beneath our feet, and so perhaps are drawn to things that give the appearance of simplicity, stability and staying power.
Also, our highly individualistic society can leave people feeling alienated and alone. The habit is a very tangible symbol of belonging to something bigger than ourselves.
Further, I think that the habit feeds into the romantic idealism of young people looking for a path to holiness. By this, I mean that the habit can represent a kind of austerity and sacrifice which is very appealing to many. I think for some, wearing a habit is a way to struggle against the rampant materialism we see around us today. I think this is one of the more positive aspects of simple, common dress.
Last year, I had an opportunity to speak with a young habited sister from a more traditional community at a convention for Catholic women in Boston. She told me that in her community, they sew their habits, and they do such things as arise together at 5:00am to the sound of a bell for prayer and observe daily periods of silence. I asked her why she thought she entered the community that she did, and she said, “I thought that if I was going to become a nun that I should go all the way.” For her, the habit and the traditional ways of her community meant that her sacrifice was total. When it came to being a nun, she went all the way. There was, of course, an implication that without the trappings of the habit, and the other customs, religious life is a sort of watered down, half-hearted commitment. (As a non-habited sister I of course disagree with this implication.)
Still…I am wondering what others think about this question. Why do so many young people want habits? If you were to become a nun, would you want the habit?
In my next post, I will try to look at the pros and cons of habit-wearing. So stay tuned…
Filed under: Reflections
I was born in the seventies and rarely saw a nun in habit. We miss the habits for a number of reasons:
1. They are a part of our Catholic identity. An identity that is increasingly lost in society.
2. They signify the bridal garment and the relationship of Christ to the Church. Much of the theology of the Church is lost in communication when we leave behind the symbols associated with them.
3. Uniforms create respect. Especially today when women are so often treated as objects, the dignity of woman is very important.
And in the words of our twelve year old:
4. So that the women embrace their humility and don’t seek to glorify themselves. Gee, I couldn’t have said it better myself. ((gush))
I did consider a religious vocation, and I only considered houses of habited nuns. I would hope my daughters would do the same.
Hi and thanks so much for your comment. I think that you make some good points, especially about our Catholic identity suffering in today’s society.
I was born in the 60’s and if I did ever see someone in a habit, I am sure I stared because we rarely saw this either.
[...] Why Do Young People Want Habits? [...]
Dear Sister Judy,
I found your blog by reading Sister Julie’s “A Nun’s Life,” and I thought I’d weigh in on the discussion concerning habits, as a young woman considering religious life.
First of all, I do recognize the phenomenon that you describe as part of a wider trend among young Catholics today. Although we were born well after Vatican II, there are those among us who have discovered a great love for the Latin Mass. We have great enthusiasm for the Church’s devotion to grassroots social transformation, as well as the Rosary. This dynamic is especially true among young women: we look forward to challenging, fulfilling careers in the field of our choice, while balancing those demands with the joys of raising a family.
Of course, young Catholics are also a tremendously diverse bunch, so I don’t mean to make any inaccurate generalizations. I just wanted to point out that I have observed the pendulum swinging back, if you will. The desire to wear a habit, and to lead a more “traditional” religious life in general, is most likely part and parcel of this more general trend.
Personally, I do feel a certain attraction to wearing a habit, much in the way you described in this entry. For me, it would be an outward sign of my commitment to God, and of solidarity with a particular community.
In the end however, there are many factors that one takes into account when deciding to enter a religious community. The “habit question” is merely one of them, and not even among the most important, I’d say.
When in doubt about this kind of tension between tradition and modernity, I would ask, “Does it bring you/me/us/them closer to God?” If wearing a habit brings a community and the people they serve closer to God, I’m all for it. If it only serves to isolate a community from those they serve, maybe it’s time to reconsider.
Thanks for bringing up such an interesting discussion!
The reason I am looking for a habit is, because everything in this world has become to materialistic, and/or over the top. I love the simplicity of a habit, the freedom it gives to be ones self, and not have to hide behind clothes and make up!
Dear HolyCatholic,
I think the question you raise is probably the best measuring stick we can hope for… Does it bring you/me/us/them/ closer to God?
Also, I think that you are right that there are many other factors to consider when entering a religious community. I would advise anyone to consider such things as the community’s prayer life, community life, ministry, and charism as well. The habit, or lack thereof is one consideration, but it is a trapping (an important trapping, but still a trapping) and not at the core of one’s commitment.
Thanks again for your reply.
Peace to you,
Sr.Judy
Dear Discerning Discerner,
Hi. I agree with you that we have become an enormously materialistic society. I do myself love the freedom to dress simply and not have to spend my energies on make-up, etc… There is for sure a certain freedom in that for me.
And truly, there are many wonderful communities that are habited, and my prayer for you is that you find a community where you can thrive, giving yourself fully to prayer, community, and the building up of God’s kingdom on earth.
Peace to you,
Sr. Judy
I, like hoyacatholic, have observed the pendulum swinging back. I don’t think religious life can be “linear” or it would run the risk of changing too much that it would cease to resemble itself. I wonder if the habit issue is related to the other reforms in the history of religious life. Just my musings.
Sr. Gayle,
That is interesting…the idea of looking at other changes in religious life over the centuries and seeing how the recent changes in attire compare. I wonder if anyone has done that.
Peace to you,
Sr. Judy
As a young nun, I once priced all the components of our habit. It came to a large sum, some than I had ever dreampt of spending on one outfit. Yes, we sewed our own habits, or we could blow our whole clothing allowance for a whole year and buy one ready-made. It made me think about how the habit was originally (supposed to be) identical to the clothing of the poor women of the time in which our order was founded (or the dream of some fashion-minded priest founder, a la the coronets of the Daughters of Charity founded by St. Vincent de Paul). I wondered how I could identify with the poor in my style of clothing when said clothing (habit) cost more money than they’d ever see at one time.
My Congregation has an alternative habit of simple, modest clothes in brown or beige, along with our profession crucifix and ring, I find that people still know I am a religious by witness of my life instead of by my clothes..
But I do admit, whenever I dream of my self in the convent, I find myself wearing not the haibit I was clothed in 30 yeaers ago but the traditional pre-Vatican II habit! What’s up with that??
Peace!
Pardon the typos in the above message! I took a phone call while proof-reading….
I am an RN of 30+years,and I think that the habit issue is very similar to the attire issue in nursing. When I was in nursing school we had capping,and you were proud to get your cap,and pin from your school. When I went to work after graduation,and passing the state board all nurses wore white uniforms,and their caps at work.Now we wear anytype uniform we want,no cap,and some patients especially elderly pts. think there are no nurses for them at the hospital We do have name badges with RN on them,but people still have trouble picking out the nurse vs housekeepers or nurse aides.Personally I like wearing any type scrubs I want,but can understand pts difficulty figuring out who-who.The caps though they never should have been used,I shudder when I think of the germs they have to have carried. For a sister I think she should have the right to decide if she wants to wear a habit or not. As it isn’t the cap or uniform that makes the nurse,it’s not the habit that makes the sister.Just an example I wanted to share,thanks…….
Dear Susan,
Hi an d thank you for sharing. That is an interesting comparison you make between religious Sisters and nurses. I have to admit that I always thought that nurses looked so elegant in those white dresses and nurse’s caps with their white stockings and white shoes. I guess because of the association of that clothing with nurses, I see them as warm and gentle.
Practically speaking, you are right too that it makes it easier when there are uniforms to decipher who is who and that it isn’t a habit or a uniform of any type that makes a person who they are. The identity of a Sister, or a nurse, or anyone must flow from within.
Thank you very much for your thoughtful comment.
Peace to you,
Sr. Judy
Are you ashamed of being a nun? Wear at leat a viel.! KEEP THE VOCATIONS ALIVE.mOST GIRLS THINK NUNS ARE GONE FOR EVER ! VATICAN 11 SAID TO MODIFY OR CHANGE NOT PITCH OUT YOUR RELIGIOUS GARB.
Dear Fr. Tony,
I definitely want to include all views here. I guess I can only say that to answer your question, no, I am not at all ashamed of being a religious Sister.
Peace to you,
Judy
I am looking at IHM as an inquirer and I don’t like the habit. Here is why: I think you can relate better to the people you serve when you don’t have too many barriers. A habit is a barrier in some ways. After Vatican II, when it was decided that all people were called to prayer and all people were called in different ways to serve God, I think taking the habit away allowed the lay people and the religious to work together more. This is what society needs. It doesn’t take away from the spirit of the nuns. They still love and care for all people and want to do what is best for the church and social justice and the earth.
Dear Melissa,
Congratulations on your decision to consider religious life. I agree with you that there are situations when the habit can be a barrier, although there are upsides to it as well. I also agree with you that wearing secular clothes does not take away anyone’s spirit. The Spirit of God moves where it will, and I can’t imagine that anyone who desires to be of service to the Kingdom will be denied that Spirit.
Thanks much for your comment! Blessings on you in your discernment.
Peace to you,
Sr. Judy
I am considering a religious vocation, either to a contemplative Benedictine convent or as a consecrated hermit. I’m 41 years old, and the feeling of vocation has resurfaced for the third time in my life. I have always preferred the habit, though I’m not crazy about the veil.
My reasons for preferring the habit:
1. Even though it’s beautiful, it is not a statement of fashion or personal style. Women’s clothing in our culture is such a loaded issue, in so many ways. What a woman chooses to wear projects messages about her sexuality, profession, material success, style and taste, and her attitude about whatever event she’s dressing for. The habit projects one simple message: I’m all about God. I’m consecrated to Him. All that other mess becomes irrelevant.
2. It looks to be comfortable and practical, full of pockets, loose, flatters every body type, easily accommodating all my monthly weight fluctuations … like a farmer’s overalls. I am all about practical and comfortable! Why do women’s business clothes so seldom have serious pockets?? They even put fake pocket flaps on, but no pocket underneath. Drives me nuts.
One nice thing if I end up taking vows as a hermit, I can design or adapt my own habit however I like (subject to the Bishop’s approval, of course). If the traditional habit is too hot or impractical or uncomfortable in some way, I can modify it. No starched veil, just a scarf tied around my head (the veil is the one part of the traditional habit that really does not look comfortable to me).
Anyway … my two cents.
Dear Regina,
I think it’s great that you are considering life a contemplative life or even the life of a consecrated hermit.
I like a lot of pockets too and I am for practicality and comfort, but also for visibility in the community.
I wish you many blessings on your discernment!!
Peace,
Sr. Judy
Sr. Judy,
I too find value in the visibility the habit gives you in the community.
Last year I left my job, where I had worked for 19 years. The organization where I worked is secular but most of the people are Catholic (being mostly Latin American). There is a priest who comes and says Mass in a conference room once a month. When I left, I was sure I was going to enter the convent, and I was very excited because I felt like I had finally found the religious community I had been wishing for for some 20 years. The priest mentioned my vocation in the last Mass before I left the job, and it was really touching and humbling to see the effect it had on some people. People I hardly knew reached out to me in those last few weeks, and let me see their own deep frustrated longing for a more meaningful spiritual life. Obviously it didn’t have that effect on everyone, but there were maybe a dozen people who let me see this fire in their souls that they usually keep hidden among all the materialistic, cynical co-workers. It made me feel that a person visibly consecrated to life with God can encourage some others to say “yes” to Him when He calls them out of their inertia and conformity.
Dear Regina,
Hi. That really is a very touching experience. I wish you all of God’s blessings on your discernment.
Peace,
Judy
Hi Sister Judy,
Sister, have you read of the news reports from the 1970’s and the 1980’s about private revelations in the US and in other countries of the appearance of Jesus and Mary to ordinary men and women?
Apparently Jesus said something to the effect, “have you ever seen My Mother dressed in a dress with her legs and knees showing or with short sleeves?”
Indicating that it was very displeasing to Jesus for consecrated women/virgins to wear short skirts. ..etc….because they are to imitate the Blessed Virgin Mary closely. Implied is that the very nature of the modesty is Divine and has Divine standards…
I suppose you might remember that in God’s eyes…My Ways are not your ways…etc..
In other of these private revelations, Jesus vowed that the religious orders that do not wear traditional habits/veils would be devoid of vocations.
Scripture says:Leave it alone… if it is not from God,
it will die of itself and if it is from God
you cannot destroy it
because you will be fighting against God Himself.
Now Sister, these private revelations occurred some 30 to 40 years ago and they are proving to be true..
In the Old Testament, God revealed: that the way to tell whether a Prophet was true or false was to see if what he or she predicts will come true or not
Before Vat 2, in the US, there were 3 women religious (and young ones at that) to every man priest or religious.
Now in the extremely progressive religious orders (that do not wear religious habit/veil) there are very few teachers and, who, there are an insignificant number of new vocations, and these religious orders will surely die out if they don’t see the light and return to the traditional rule of their founders.,
In the meantime millions of Catholic students in the US will never experience being witnessed to by consecrated women and men both young and old. Sure it is a tragedy far greater than any others suffered thus far in the US.
Many of these feminist nuns change the words of the responses at Mass to conform to their female view of God.
As in professional football, to become a winner again, you have to go back to the basics, so too, the progressive religious orders must do the same, so that can fulfill the Divine Plan for their respective community.
In JMJ,
Jose Luis
Hi Sr. Judy,
I just want to take this opportunity to reply to Jose Luis.
I’m choosing to respect your beliefs because I think you mean no harm. But let me ask you, as a man, are you dressing in the same manner that Jesus, Our Lord, did? If not, why not? Do you believe only women need to adher that old fashioned code of dress?
I not only agree that “in God’s eyes…My Ways are not your ways”, I expect that to be true even without having to be told He said that. God stands for all that is good and holy….we, as humans, don’t. In what you might perhaps call my uneducated mind, I don’t believe God worries himself over trivial details like whether or not my elbows are exposed.
So, if we’re going to quote the Good Lord, then remember, Jesus also said, “Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?”
I believe that a woman’s vocation is real regardless of what she’s wearing. It’s what she does with her vocation that counts, not what she wears.
Sorry, Sr. Judy. I know you’re open to all opinions, and you aren’t looking for this to turn into an argument, but I don’t believe that how anyone dresses is going to impact whether or not they are truly a spiritual person. Thanks for letting me add my opinions. Without discussion, there is no resolution.
Peace to all.
Barb
I think it is somewhat important to wear a habit beause if you take a vocation to think, breathe, live, serve God 24/7 wearing lay clothes can be distracting for s few reasons.
1. Obviously you will be looking for clothes that look good on you and therefore becomes a vanity.
2.Instead of waking up to prayer, You wake up thinking “what to wear?”
3.You take time away from the monestary or your vocation to buy clothes.
4. You are no longer seen as an instrument of God, but a typical Lay person
5. It is somewhat distractiong to lay people, regardless of what we all think, we do judge by appearences, there fore, a nun in lay clothes is judged as an indivdual, not as a religious.
for example, I once saw a young nun in a spaghetti strap and and this can give then impression she is more concerened with how she looks and outer approvval than with taking her vows seriously.
Dont get me wrong, I have no quarrel any one who dresses how they want, just dont do one thing and dress another.
What ever happend to Jesus saying ” Think not ye shall and and what shall we wear? For the Body is more than raiment…” something along those lines and “the lilies of the field, the spin nor toil not.”
Our Lord said you can judge a tree by its fruits.Look at the fruits of the “reform of religious life” that followed Vatican II.Priests monks and nuns abandoned their vocations by the thousands.Is it any surprise that religious congregations that have abandoned the habit and the traditional way of life are dying fast.Young people are seeking the truth and they are finding it in religious congregations that are faithful to the traditions of their founders.So I say Sr Judy,be brave and put that habit on!You may be surprised at the results!Merry Christmas,Ryan in NYC
The young need to see and to be taught tradition, just as we had to do as children, or all traditions shall vanish, along with the thousands of years it took to establish them. Billions of lives over these many millenniums have suffered and died to create your past which makes you who you are today, so you can carry on in their stead. We have no right to just forget the past lives lived, just because we wish to be selfish, or forget from whence we came, maybe to bow to another man’s ways. For they surely won’t let go of “their” past and would be glad that you abandoned yours.
Wearing habits was for a reason. It showed love, obedience to God, and to one’s faith and commitment to vows. When habits were abolished and nuns were kept from sight there was none to be seen and thus there was shown little or no interest in the church. Habits were made to be seen and when seen they were, for the most part, respected and revered. Those in the media and in the entertainment fields, who are against the church, created strong propaganda which is embedded in the minds of the young and old alike to embarrass and condemn it. We need to ’see’ nuns! We need people to know that there ‘are’ good people in the church and not sex maniacs and perverts, like they falsely claim! Though there may have been very few, there were ‘not’ many! These are being and have been removed. The habit should be worn with pride, for it is not easily obtained. One must sacrifice so much that many wouldn’t dream of to be worthy of wearing it. Those in the know respect it and the personage within.
The young want the same traditions our ancestors created for them. It’s ‘their’ heritage too! Not to be taken from them, because some do not believe.
*PS / I wish someone would start an Order of Nuns to wear the Daughters of Charity habits of St Vincent de Paul again. I and so many others miss them terribly.
I think the attitude is summed up in a comment from a friend:
“Why would I want to be a social worker who doesn’t date?”
Implicit in that quip is the idea that the habit, congregate living and daily congregate prayer are an inseparable part of the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and the underlying charism of the particular order.
1. The habit is a public open statement of commitment which the non-habited do not make
2. Congregate living is a means of inter-personal support in the daily life of all those in the convent that those who live separately do not have.
3. Daily congregate prayer is the very pillar to support the charism of the order and the commitment of the sister to the chosen life differentiating it from being a good and helpful layman.
4. The vows of poverty, chastity and obedience commit one to service, humility and God and His Church. Too often it appears that the non-habited reject poverty, chastity and most especially obedience by their indistinguishable look, life and practice compared the the rest of society.
5. Finally, the anti-Catholic undercurrent of so many orders naturally drives away devout women who want to dedicate their lives in a vowed life. The very disdain for the habit screams a sort of self-loathing of Catholicism. Why would anyone want to join a dissident organization that is the sine qua non of so many orders?