Nuns no longer covering. - Page 3

[TzippityDoulah]

Originally Posted by 1littlebit

you might be right it could be two separate questions. and yeah the church does leave a lot to conscience ... i wasn't sure if this applied to the way religious orders dressed or not.. since for awhile all nuns were pretty covered. i never really thought about why nuns dressed the way they did until i was reading about women covering on mdc. and then i thought maybe nuns covered for the same reasons. and then i was thinking that there were catholic women besides nuns who are still covering. and then i was thinking that it is interesting that while some catholic women believe that they are called to cover and nuns have started believing they do not need to cover. and then i was wondering why they have started to cover less.

wow. that was a lot of things in a thought process lol. does it make more sense?

FWIW I think it made complete sense and I totally understood why you asked. I didn't think you meant anything weird by it, you were merely curious, am I right? nothing wrong with curiosity.

that said (as a religious/Christian covering woman) I wonder those same things. for instance why do the fathers in the orthodox christian tradition wear robes, but none of the people attending church? I'm sure there is a great reason... I just don't know it. (other than my assumptions, and guesses fo course) but I don't know the reason for sure. the people used to wear coverings and robes... why do only the clergy now? etc... (not to get off topic, just say that I wonder those types of things too)

[carmel23]

Originally Posted by spero

Most of the nuns I know dress ... well, kind of butch. Super-short hair, no jewelry, khakis, blazers. I recently attended a retreat weekend at a Sisters of St. Joseph house ... the only sisters in habits and/or dresses/skirts seemed to be the older/retired women.



Wow, that's pretty rude.




Carmelites? I know a woman who is part of a secular Carmelite order, she wears street clothes but only brown.

A secular Carmelite is not a nun. It is a regular person (for lack of better word) that associates with the order--you take vows, and have a community where you go to meeting a few times a month, pray the divine office and pray for souls, but this is different from being a first order Carmelite--which is a clositered contemplative order (where only one or two members of the community have contact with people on the "outside" with any regularity.

I haven't read the thread, but I just wanted to point out that there is a difference between a nun and a sister. A nun is a fully professed member of a cloistered order--a nun lives in a religious community.

A sister (which is what most people see in the world and call a 'nun' mistakenly) is typically part of a community, but might not live with community members. A lot of teaching sisters or sisters who work in a parish office are these types of individuals--sisters, not nuns.

Most nuns wear habits, depending on the guidelines of their order. hth

[carmel23]

Originally Posted by HennyPenny

FWIW I think it made complete sense and I totally understood why you asked. I didn't think you meant anything weird by it, you were merely curious, am I right? nothing wrong with curiosity.

that said (as a religious/Christian covering woman) I wonder those same things. for instance why do the fathers in the orthodox christian tradition wear robes, but none of the people attending church? I'm sure there is a great reason... I just don't know it. (other than my assumptions, and guesses fo course) but I don't know the reason for sure. the people used to wear coverings and robes... why do only the clergy now? etc... (not to get off topic, just say that I wonder those types of things too)

I think it is helpful to take a particular order and research the reasons they wear a certain habit and have certain rules regulating their order. Many of the habits are based on the particular mode of dress at the time of the founding saint's life. For instance, brown is an important color to the Carmelites, and the Dominicans and Norbertines wear white. The different orders each have their special charism or divine infulence. And it isn't like a protestant kind of Christianity, where it is a relatively modern thing... the Church has its origins in the ancient world, and each order grew out of a particular time in history--frequently in opposition to a part of the church (like the Dominicans and Franciscans, in their founding days, were totally looked at as being radical because the wanted to preach outside the walls of the monastery, etc.).

Each order has its history growing out of a particular time in history, and often influenced by a single, powerful soul (a saint). So just like the clothes we wear today are infulenced by our personality and contemporaries, same with the orders.

So it is really a complex thing and not at all monolithic. Take an individual order you are interested in an look at the reasons the have habits or not.

[spero]

Originally Posted by carmel23

A secular Carmelite is not a nun. It is a regular person (for lack of better word) that associates with the order--you take vows, and have a community where you go to meeting a few times a month, pray the divine office and pray for souls, but this is different from being a first order Carmelite--which is a clositered contemplative order (where only one or two members of the community have contact with people on the "outside" with any regularity.

I know that. I never said she was a nun.

[TzippityDoulah]

Originally Posted by carmel23

So it is really a complex thing and not at all monolithic. Take an individual order you are interested in an look at the reasons the have habits or not.

yes i realize it's complex. most people who have a specific type of dress alternative to the modern style of ties to way back when. (myself included)

I was only making a point that I could understand why she (OP) asked and that I didn't think it an inappropriate question... if I have questions about cultures and beliefs, I look it up or ask someone from it. just like people do to me.

in fact someone today emailed me to ask me about MY beliefs and how it relates to other modestly dress/head covering christians. I didn't think it was weird of her to ask at all.

[applejuice]

BTW, a bit OT, but Jane Wyman, the first wife of Ronald Reagan, converted to Catholicism late in her life and became a Dominican Nun. She was buried in the habit. She was the matriarch character on "Falcon Crest". http://www.nndb.com/people/656/000022590/

Another famous woman who became a nun in modern time is Andrea Jaegar, the tennis player from the 1970s. She became a Anglican nun. http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008...mbledon.tennis

[kdabbler]

Originally Posted by applejuice

BTW, a bit OT, but Jane Wyman, the first wife of Ronald Reagan, converted to Catholicism late in her life and became a Dominican Nun. She was buried in the habit. She was the matriarch character on "Falcon Crest". http://www.nndb.com/people/656/000022590/

Another famous woman who became a nun in modern time is Andrea Jaegar, the tennis player from the 1970s. She became a Anglican nun. http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008...mbledon.tennis

I never knew that!

[chfriend]

I haven't read the thread, but I just wanted to point out that there is a difference between a nun and a sister. A nun is a fully professed member of a cloistered order--a nun lives in a religious community.

A sister (which is what most people see in the world and call a 'nun' mistakenly) is typically part of a community, but might not live with community members. A lot of teaching sisters or sisters who work in a parish office are these types of individuals--sisters, not nuns.

[/QUOTE]

I don't believe this information is correct, though I'm happy to read something correcting me. Nuns are women who have taken final vows in an order. Regardless of the kind of service the order performs. Sister is the term of address for a nun.

I can try to find a link a bit later, but we're going carolling with the neighbors!

[chfriend]

Of the blessed Mother Theresa: "While working for the Loreto sisters, Mother Teresa received what has been described as her second calling: to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. After receiving Papal permission from the Vatican to work as an "non-cloistered nun," she removed the traditional black and white habit and dawned her now widely recognized outfit: a white sari with three blue stripes. This appearance enabled her to blend with those who lived on the street and become more closely connected with them. Living with the poor, she had continuously demonstrated her love and respect for them.'

http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/prog...esa-mother.htm

[BMG580]

Originally Posted by chfriend

I don't believe this information is correct, though I'm happy to read something correcting me. Nuns are women who have taken final vows in an order. Regardless of the kind of service the order performs. Sister is the term of address for a nun.

I can try to find a link a bit later, but we're going carolling with the neighbors!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nun

[chfriend]

Wow! I ran across this, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11164a.htm which really is all you'd ever want to know about nuns!

It looks like "cloister" is what we commonly call a "convent." Not what I think of when I think of cloister! Since I'm no nun or sister and I've been in and around convents all my life, and never been in a cloister.

Cool reading and thanks for the link.

A ran across this while I was looking around. Delightful reading:

http://anunslife.org/

and a nice view into nuns as real people!