Envision a website dedicated to attracting young women to life as a nun. I look to the Nashville or Ann Arbor Dominicans as examples of flourishing and vibrant young communities leading the way. So when I visited the Catholic Nuns Today website that is what I thought I would find. I was wrong.
What I found is … this.
And that is the best part. The rest of the website is a bad acid trip down irrelevant lane. Take this pitch for instance. “Come be a nun, don’t worry it won’t get in the way of your day job.” Think I exaggerate?
Does being a Sister limit your career opportunities?
Not at all. And, our life is much more than a career. Our professional gifts are focused in service of God and of others. We use our gifts as physicians, teachers, missionaries, spiritual directors, social workers, psychologists, advocates for social justice, lawyers, counselors, ecologists, musicians, writers and artists to fulfill our vocation and our call.
Now meet Sister Linda Gibler, OP, of the Dominican Sisters of Houston. Sister is a former waitress who felt something was missing. Thank goodness she found it.
When I came to the Dominicans, I already had my BA in Sociology. I later received a Master’s in Pastoral Studies. My first jobs as a Sister were as a chaplain in a county hospital and in parish ministry. Later, when I saw the first of the pictures from the Hubble telescope, the beauty of the Universe overwhelmed me and I wanted to learn more about the relationships between philosophy, science, and religion. I went on to receive another Master’s in Philosophy & Religion. As I was studying, I investigated the “cosmocentric” aspects of Roman Catholic celebrations especially the use of water, olive oil, and fire in the sacraments. My Dominican congregation was extremely supportive of me and very encouraging throughout my eight years of discovery. I have just obtained my Doctorate in Philosophy & Religion with a concentration in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness.
Now you might have noticed that none of the nuns look like, well, nuns. That, they think, is a selling point.
Where have all the habits gone?
For many years, Sisters wore the long habits which were fashioned after the common dress of pious women in Medieval times. Even those Congregations founded in more modern times adopted similar styles of dress. The styles were handed down for generations, with only a few modifications, until the renewal of religious life following Vatican Council II in 1965. Since then Sisters have had the option of retaining the traditional habit or changing to a simple, modest contemporary style of dress. Some Sisters still prefer the traditional habit. You may recognize a Sister who does not wear a traditional habit by some small sign, a cross or pin, that is a distinctive emblem of her Congregation.
Were I doing this piece as parody, I bet some people would write in the combox that I overdid it. The future lies in growing traditional communities. Cosmocentric T-shirt Communities of 1972 like the Dominicans of Houston are the past; they just don’t seem to know it. I suppose the dinosaurs on the verge of extinction didn’t know their number was up either. Catholic Nuns Today? I don’t think so.
April 15, 2009 at 4:28 am
You may recognize a Sister who does not wear a traditional habit by some small sign, a cross or pin, that is a distinctive emblem of her Congregation, along with pastel polyester, color coordinated clothes, and that special apostacoiffure that signifies that she is more in tune with Susan Sarandon than Benedict XVI.
April 15, 2009 at 5:30 am
My friend relayed a story about the high school kids she works with where they have come up with acronyms for the various species of nuns.
They boiled it down to LPNs and RNs – “Lapel Pin Nuns” and “Real Nuns”.
April 15, 2009 at 5:44 am
Jeremy ~ I’ve worked with LPN’s and RN’s; don’t insult them. My Mom was an LPN. And not a nun of any sort. You shouldn’t insult hard working nurses that way.
Anyway, that said….
There are SOME congregations that never had the habit, even before V2, so keep that in mind before you paint with too broad a brush.
For myself, I’m looking at congregations and communities that DO wear the habit; because if I wanted to wear bad pantsuits and live in a commune I’d smoke pot, iron my hair, and do tarot and ouigi with a group of overgrown hippies in California during the Religious Conference in LA.
Sorry, was that snarky?
April 15, 2009 at 5:46 am
Adoro
Broad brushes are all I have. Besides, these broads need some brushing.
April 15, 2009 at 6:34 am
Some real nuns for you, Patrick:
http://www.sisterservants.org/
(My sister is a Sister there.)
April 15, 2009 at 6:42 am
Here’s a nice picture from the website:
http://www.catholicnunstoday.org/images/Sr-rosanne-and-pat-tn.jpg
April 15, 2009 at 7:24 am
Compare and contrast.
Here is wonderful new community in Western Australia
http://www.mg.org.au/
Please pray for them.
April 15, 2009 at 10:10 am
Oy. Here’s one:
“I found that ministry when I began organizing in San Antonio with Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS). COPS is part of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), a leadership development institute,”
Great: go into religious life so that you can work with the Alinsky-founded IAF! Isn’t that nice? They have something in common with Obama.
April 15, 2009 at 10:58 am
“. . . along with pastel polyester, color coordinated clothes,”
Hey, John, you forgot the comfortable shoes!
Thankfully our girls have excellent role models for nuns in our community. We have a congregation of Sister Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matara just down the road from us. They hold an oratory on Saturday afternoons for girls aged 5 and up and my girls absolutely love going to it each week. You can visit our congregations website here with links to the parent site: http://www.cmswr.org/member_communities/SLVM.htm
April 15, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Cosmocentrism? Does that mean they think the universe revolves around them?
April 15, 2009 at 12:36 pm
file under “social workers that don’t date.”
also file under “endangered species.”
April 15, 2009 at 12:50 pm
modern nuns are “physicians, teachers, missionaries, spiritual directors, social workers, psychologists, advocates for social justice, lawyers, counselors, ecologists, musicians, writers and artists”
wow, how middle class can you get?
April 15, 2009 at 1:27 pm
file under “social workers that don’t date.(men)”
April 15, 2009 at 2:10 pm
I’m sorry but I have to point out the obvious (living as I do in eastern MA, I have abundant experience here, believe me): they all (all!) look like the prototype lesbian. Really. Are they? Who knows. Does it matter? Well…yes, particularly if you want to recruit young women.
April 15, 2009 at 2:15 pm
“You may also recognize us in virtue of the fact that 99% of us resemble the stereotypical image of the modern American “bull dyke”…”
Seriously, I hate to point out the obvious or to use so crass a term, but the shoe seems to fit so well…the short cropped, style-less hair, the lump-shaped body, the frumpy clothes. Is there an intentional connection?
April 15, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Looks like Cathy and I were thinking the same thing…
April 15, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Ok. Enough of that please.
April 15, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Enough of what? Is it not a valid observation? It’s from their own lexicon, though they seem to have shifted the term toward “butches” now. It’s not that they don’t have self-identified archetypes, and the resemblance here is stunning.
April 15, 2009 at 2:37 pm
The photo Brendan linked is epic. Like, leather-clad-motorcycle-nun epic. Maybe her bio states she prowls the badlands… an outlaw nun hunting outlaws… a Renegade.
Seriously, I fear “Catholic Nuns Today” might make CMR’s parody pale by comparison. Stranger than fiction, indeed.
April 15, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Without getting into what I do think is derogatory language, the photos do look like the archtype, no question (it absolutey was my first impression). And that is a problem if you are trying to grow an order, unless you are deliberately seeking those members.