Part 11: Making a "Habit" of It | Porziuncola Project

CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH

Making a ‘Habit’ Out of It

I think it’s true to say that we wear on the outside what we feel or believe on the inside. We are not dualists who believe that who we are interiorly does not express itself on the exterior. This is particularly true for our present culture that identifies themselves and who they belong to by what they wear. Our clothes say and mean something to both ourselves and those around us. Go to a Yankees vs. Red Sox game and you’re sure to find out who likes the Yankees and who hates them. Unfortunately, Red Sox t-shirts are quite expressive about their hatred toward the Yankees.

We have expectations about how people should dress that goes beyond a culture. All cultures understand clothes as an expression of what one believes or to what group one belongs. What tribe, what team, what profession, what religion can be expressed without clothing? We expect a doctor to look like a doctor. We expect the pilot to wear his uniform. Their willingness to express on the outside what they know themselves to be on the inside, and their comfortability with that, gives us a certain trust in their capabilities. Not to say that the outfit is everything, by no means. But it is important.

I bring this up because we have, over the past 50 years now, witnessed priests and religious abandoning their religious habits and hanging up their collar. They believe their habits to be outdated and uncalled for. Somehow, they got the idea that the Church wanted them in secular clothing, and in some cases, to dress better than lay people. They’ll tell you that the habit is on their heart as they show you some obscure pin that is to somehow identify them with their congregation. In many ways, we can say that they have chosen a dualist approach to their religious life. They’ll vow poverty, but dress well. They’ll claim an interior consecration with no exterior witness. It is true to say that “the habit doesn’t make the religious”. However, the religious expresses themselves with the habit. The laity have finally come to read the Second Vatican Council documents on religious life, and all the past council documents, and have come to see for themselves that Vatican II NEVER told religious to take off the habit. Over the past 50 years, at least to the point of exhaustion, the Church has continually repeated that the religious habit is the exterior sign of the interior consecration. The Church, taking the “wholesome” approach, continues to reinforce the fact that religious are to be wearing a habit. I challenge anyone to find a document produced by the Church that told religious to take off the habit! Yes, I will say that in dangerous circumstances the habit could be made optional (meaning serving in communist China or Muslim countries). But nowhere is it found that religious were told to take it off, make it optional or even just to wear it for ministry.

What we will find is the Church asking religious to consider the design of their habits. Some habits of sisters were just non-functional for driving. Some even made it difficult to ride a bus. Others started using plastic headbands instead of cloth and sisters were getting terrible sores. Modify the habit? Yes! Take it off? By no means! A simple re-shaping of the religious habit was all that was called for. I would also contest that some of the modifications that were made by those communities that kept the habit went too far. Some religious habits look more like jumpers than habits. A habit that is too modified reveals a too modified life.

When we examine the “habits” of religious orders, what we find is that these habits or non-habits says everything about how they live out their charism. You will notice that a community that has kept the traditional habit, as desired by Vatican II, has kept true to their founding charism. They pray together, recreate together with joy and love their Church. Those who have modified their habits have a mitigated life. They have some semblances of their original life, but are loosely living it. For those who wear their habit now and then, here and there, are saying the same about how they view their own consecration. Frankly, those who have abandoned the habit have abandoned their religious life. They may seem to be doing well, but check it closely with the desire of their founder and you will find a real infidelity.

Does this sound strong? Well, I mean it to be so. I want you to be very careful in discerning your call to a particular community. My strong advice is to avoid any community that has either abandoned the religious habit or has modified it to such a degree that it has become a mere outfit, an occasional suit to put on, an optional attire or even liturgical garb. All of these reveal a secular mentality that is contrary to the Church’s teaching on religious life.

As we have said, and as the Church has taught, the religious habit is the exterior sign of the interior consecration. The consecration, the gift of self, must be a whole gift of self. Because it is an act of love it must be interior, and like all love, expressed exteriorly. Love is the gift of the whole person, their mind, will, heart, soul, strength and body. It’s also the consecration of one’s past, present and future. Every minute of every day the person is given to Christ. There is never a day off or a vacation from the vocation. We can compare the habit to the wedding ring. The person is always married, until the death of their spouse. For us religious, our Spouse was dead. But He is Risen and will never die again. Our consecration and our vows do not end with death. Death opens the doors to the fulfillment of our vows that shall last into eternity.

Imagine a married man who takes off his ring to go to the office. What would his wife think? Or a wife who takes off her ring to go out with her friends? Not only does it foster suspicion in the heart of their spouse, but it degrades their bond. It kind of states that they are not secure enough in their vocation to let people know they are married. Instead of proclaiming their bond of love by the symbol of the wedding band, they wait to be asked and allow people to presume there is no one in their life. No one to whom they are wedded.

The same is true for religious who either don’t wear their habit or only sometimes wear it. It fosters suspicion in the hearts of people and it is a failure to proclaim the bond and consecration they have to Christ. By not wearing the sign of their consecration, they allow people to presume that there is no one in their life to whom they are bounded. If the habit is, what the Church says it is, an exterior sign of their consecration, then is removing it or wearing it sometimes an exterior act of infidelity? Just a question to be answered.

I bring this up because the first sign of a healthy community is one that always wears the full habit of its founder. I want to be clear here, because some of the “winged veils” of nuns needed to be altered a bit. However, even those habits must have some semblance of their traditional counterparts and worn at all times. If you are looking through discernment books or websites and you notice that there are orders who don’t wear the habit, my advice is, don’t waste your time. Keep looking. I have yet to meet or see one of the un-habited communities flourishing. All, without exception, have little to no vocations and are dying a quiet death.

In those communities where the habit is worn, at times and for ministry or for liturgical functions, or who take it off to travel and do recreational things, you’ll find some semblance of life. However, they too seem to be on a slow death march.

There are brief sparks of hope, but those sparks quickly burn out and are smothered by the secularism of the day. Often these communities speak of hope that they see in the new people joining them. But, soon enough the young leave disillusioned of the hope that the community will return to the life of the founder.

Notice when I am speaking of the habit I am not speaking simply of the external. I’m advising you to avoid them because of the interior reality of that community abandoning, not just the habit, but more importantly, the charism of their founder. Not wearing the habit, as it is the exterior expression of the interior consecration, reveals the lack of interior consecration.

The religious habit is such an extraordinary gift. It is “the wedding garment” it is “the cross” and it is our proclamation of love, all at the same time. The habit helps remind me of who I am. It reminds me to pick up my Cross daily and follow Christ. It calls me to step up and be that son of St. Francis that I’m called to be. Without words, it tells people that God is alive and well. The habit opens doors for people to God. It reminds them of God, even if for a brief moment. It even opens doors for evangelization. Questions like: “What are you guys? “, “Are you Jedi’s or Wizards?” (Common questions these days). Those questions just open doors to talk about Jesus.

It is true that the habit can be a bit burdensome at times. That’s the idea! We have come to “pick up our cross” and follow Jesus. He carried the burden of our sins, should I not carry the cross of penance in reparation for the sins of others? As Catholics, especially religious, we don’t run from the cross. We run to the cross. We know that all sufferings, all un-comfortabilities, all difficulties are redemptive. So long as we offer it as acts of love to Christ for the reparations of sins, all of that becomes so helpful to souls that we will not meet until Heaven.

The habit is also a great cure for envy, vanity and consumerism. Having only the habit gives such freedom to the heart. Especially as we take into consideration the clear teaching of Our Lord “Do not worry about what you are to wear…is not life more than clothing?” This simplicity of dress that takes away the anxiety of “what to wear” is also a way of “clothing oneself in Christ”. It allows us to remember that by being baptized into Christ, we have put on Christ and we are now children of our Heavenly Father. It is He upon whom we depend.

In your discernment with a community be sure to ask, “Do you wear the habit? Do you wear it all the time? Is it modest and recognizable as the traditional one of your community?” If there is a yes to all of these questions, then proceed forward with that community. If there is a “no” to any of these questions, then move on to another community.

Some of you may know Mother Angelica. She is a Poor Clare nun who founded the largest privately owned television station in the world. Having been misguided about what others said about the Council documents, Mother Angelica over modified her habit. Although, it was still recognizable as a Franciscan, it was not the habit of St. Clare. During those years of having a modified habit, Mother Angelica lived a mitigated religious life. She was a cloistered Poor Clare nun appearing on T.V. all the time and consistently out and about with the people. Although she did an insurmountable good for the Church, she was not living the cloistered life as the Church had recognized it.

Moved by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and with a firm will to live in union with the Church, Mother Angelica announced she was going back to the traditional habit. With the return to the habit came the return to the original contemplative Poor Clare life. Since that time her vocations skyrocketed and she had to build a new convent to house them all. Now, as other communities that have abandoned the habit, turned to secularism and are dying for lack of vocations, Mother Angelica’s convent is opening new foundations.

The same is true for the Colletine Poor Clare nuns who never lost their habit or their life. This is true for all the faithful few who adhered to the directions of the Council. We can’t argue with the facts. The results are in and the experiment is over. No habit equals no life. Half habit equals half-life. Full habit equals fullness of life.

Lectio for Chapter the Twelfth

John 10:1-6

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber; but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens; the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” This figure Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.