Book Review: Looking Good: A visual guide to the nun's habit

A few weeks ago I noticed a flurry of posts on Twitter about a new book on nuns' habits. Featuring very basic illustrations, it described the habits of some 43 communities from the perspective of graphic design. The Daughters of St Paul were among the communities, so naturally I was particularly interested in the book! When they contacted me by direct message, I asked for a review copy, even a digital one. In response, they sent me a print copy of Looking Good: A visual guide to the nun's habit, along with a sweet note from one of the authors: "The nuns who taught me were its inspiration and get a thank you at the back!"

I brought the book with me on our concert tour, figuring it would be fun to leaf through while waiting at airport gates. Of course, the other sisters were also intrigued: many of them had seen the posts on Twitter--or the article in Wired about "nun fashion." (Confession: we all turned to the Daughters of St Paul pages first!)

Sample two-page spread: us!

What I found was fascinating and surprisingly accurate. (It helps that they had a Cambridge theology grad do the ecclesial stuff, including a marvelous appendix and glossary.) The text explains not just the clothing of each community but its deeper identity. That great appendix answers basic questions about religious life and the Catholic Church. (The author gets extra points for properly distinguishing between "nuns" and "sisters.")

Looking Good is published by GraphicDesign&, a UK-based publishing house that focuses on the intersection of graphic design and some other key dimension of life. Looking Good comes under the rubric of GraphicDesign & Religion. (My apologies to the publisher, but I cannot get their name to come out properly in this blog: the ampersand part of their name keeps coming out in code!) The contributors (several of whom seem to have had religious sisters as their teachers) noted in the Introduction: "Religious institutes have been using colour, shape and symbol to communicate their identity for hundreds of years.... Looking Good ... uses graphic design to present a resilient visual identity at a time when it appears to be in demise--and women's dress more broadly is under renewed scrutiny."

The rest of our write-up. Note our cross-emblem.

Communities are listed in groups according to the Rule that structures their life, with the page background corresponding to a color chosen to represent the "family" that follows a particular Rule: Franciscan (blue background), Carmelite (grey), Augustinian (plum), Benedictine (red) and "other" (green--that's where you find us). I couldn't really figure out why this order was chosen, since it is not chronological and doesn't appear to be by current numbers of members.

The full Carmelite habit was presented at the very beginning, article by article, since it has just about all the features that can be found in any religious habit. The first image is of a coifed, sandaled female form in a white shift. Page by page, the faceless form gets dressed like a paper-doll. Each successive element of clothing is identified by a little graphic (looking for all the world like the items in the periodic table of elements!); that graphic with its abbreviation (Co for "coif," Ri for "ring") corresponds to a short explanation of the item and perhaps a bit of history or some other detail. The reader becomes familiar with terms like "scapular," "mantle" and "veil" along with meatier words like "charism."

The GraphicDesign & team got creative in how they presented the habits of the various orders and congregations (yes, there is a difference; check the glossary!): the habit of a cloistered community was presented back first, indicating the "hidden" life of the sisters, with the face-forward view on the second two-page spread. The communities that are in the public eye were presented face-first on the opening page.

Four pages were devoted to each habit/community, with the write-up presenting the details of the specific habit (including any distinctive emblems or sacramentals), something of the history of the community, and any interesting or quirky information that seemed to add a bit of "colour."  While they depicted the contemporary habit of almost all the communities and noted any variations (they missed ours*), the designers couldn't resist presenting the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul in their famous "winged" cornet instead of the simple uniform designed for them by Christian Dior.

Guides to nuns' habits were once a staple for young women in discernment. I remember seeing one from the early 1960's in our late 1970's novitiate library. Each community had a full-page write-up about their life and mission, with a black-and-white photograph (when available) of a postulant, novice and professed sister. (Our novitiate group agreed that the Maryknoll Sisters had the nicest habit of them all.)

While Looking Good was conceived (at first jokingly as a "field guide" to nuns on the street) as a "visual guide" and not a discernment guide, it very well could serve discerners who would like an overview of a large and varied array of communities of women religious they might not otherwise know about.

 - - - - -

*Most of the Pauline sisters in Europe and Latin America wear the standard uniform (not necessarily with the veil), while in French-speaking parts of Africa the sisters wear a blue printed wrap-around skirt and the typical woman's headwrap (in a blue print); in India, the sisters wear a sand-colored sari, while in Pakistan the common dress is a long blue tunic worn over pants, with a long scarf draped across the shoulders or around the head. All of us wear the emblem (which got special mention--and an illustration in Looking Good), a cross we receive on making our first vows. Also, just a bit of nit-picking: our habit does not (thankfully!) have the back pleat shown in the illustration. (Front pleats are quite enough to keep orderly!)

- - - - - 

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission (which can eventually enable me to get more books!). In addition, I received a free review copy of the book mentioned above, possibly in the hope that I would mention it on social media. I am committed to giving as honest a review as possible, as part of my community's mission of putting media at the service of the truth. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Year of Consecrated Life: Sisters and Brothers speak for themselves

Here's a great little three minutes on consecrated life, courtesy of the Archdiocese of New Orleans (home, sweet home!); Sister Tracey has the opening shot!

"I was looking for love." Learn more about the lives of #NOLAReligious in our new video on religious life in New Orleans!
Posted by Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans on Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Hawthorne Dominicans: At the Final Frontier of Evangelization

I got back from Atlanta Monday night, after a full weekend: the Atlanta Archdiocesan Eucharistic Congress (the 20th!), the Catholic New Media Conference (the 8th!), and the hospitality of the Hawthorne Dominicans. Staying on the convent side of their home for terminal cancer patients, I got to witness very briefly how timely is a mission that many might assume a relic of the past but that is instead more contemporary than ever.

Someone recently asked this sister
if she didn't get bored during the day,
watching with cancer patients and standing
at the nurse's station, alert to their needs.
"Bored?! I wish I had some boredom in my life!"

The community, founded by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne), sticks to its original 19th century mission of caring for people with incurable cancer and inadequate financial resources. They don't accept payment of any kind from their patients, family or the government: no Medicare, Medicaid or insurance. The entire 24-patient hospital (like their other homes in New York and Pennsylvania) runs entirely on Divine Providence. There are lay staff, but sister-nurses are on the floors 24/7. A sign at the entrance to the convent portion of the building reminds one to be attentive to noises, since at any time of day sisters might be resting after night duty (or resting up for night duty).

Sister keeping watch with Jesus
during Eucharistic Adoration.

Morning prayers and Mass are early (6:15 on Monday!); after the Mass, Communion is brought to the Catholics who desire to receive. A little procession (a sister ringing a tiny, clear bell announces the approach of the priest or Extraordinary Minister with the pyx) heads from chapel to the patient rooms. I assumed that this daily occurrence would be handled quickly, but I was wrong. The tiny bell was still ringing 40 minutes after Mass one day. They know what's important. A daily holy hour is part of the community's prayer, and when I arrived on a First Friday they were holding all-day adoration, with every sister (some of them elderly and infirm) taking a spot before the Blessed Sacrament. They pray Evening Prayer and Compline together, singing the familiar Gregorian melodies. Community recreations are spent together, and I was invited on those evenings I did not have outside commitments.

Mary shrine in the front gardens.

The patient rooms are large, with full windows that look out onto front or back gardens to which the patients have full access in their wheelchairs or motorized carts. Some of the patients have no family and stay for years, really becoming family. Some of them also become Catholic, and many of those who arrive as non-practicing Catholics return to the sacraments in that peaceful atmosphere. The patients, who receive a high level of palliative care from the Dominicans, are the same people who are being targeted by the various euthanasia campaigns around our country and the world. One of the sisters told me that they have begun hearing slogans about "death with dignity" from patients and their families. Why can't they just take an extra-large dose of sleeping medicine and be done with all this? The sisters' answer is to help the person experience their true dignity in death and dying. They have more than a century of experience accompanying the dying, and their input should be sought in any discussion of "death with dignity" legislation.

A lovely shrine in the front garden.

This is not the only timely dimension of the sisters' charism. How many families have been bankrupted because of medical expenses? How often do people feel they owe it to their family to depart this life quickly, in order to avoid the risk of financial ruin? This is something the sisters address with exquisite charity, not even accepting donations from patients' families.

While the sisters do have some vocations (and they accept "delayed vocations"), they have still had to consolidate homes over the past number of years as their median age rises and sisters have to withdraw from active nursing ("The hardest thing I ever had to do," Sister Mary Martha admitted to me). They have a website and a Facebook page, but social media is not their thing (the Facebook page was last updated on May 30). They are too busy taking care of their patients, all the way to Heaven.

Certified: the largest black
oak in the State of Georgia.
See how it towers over the home!

Even the largest black oak in the State
is subject to the whimsical touch of the local superior!

Blessed James Alberione and "The Joy of the Gospel"

How fitting it is that on this feast of Blessed James Alberione, founder of the worldwide evangelizing network known as the Pauline Family, we receive Pope Francis' new document, "The Joy of the Gospel"! The document is the Pope's way of concluding the last Synod of Bishops (o the New Evangelization); is it also the first stage of the next assembly--the Extraordinary Synod on proclaiming the Gospel in the face of extreme challenges facing family life today?

When Father James Alberione was beatified (2003), the Paulines received this message* from then-Cardinal Bergoglio, who was well acquainted with the Paulines of Argentina:

"When I returned from Rome I joyfully received your note telling me that you were celebrating the
beatification of Father James Alberione, founder of the Pauline Family, that will take place on the 27th of this month. I warmly thank you for your kindness and I unite myself with all my heart to this significant ecclesial event. As I already told you in the audience that we had, now we count on a new model and intercessor of singular virtues who has contributed so much to announcing the Gospel with the means of communication. I avail myself on this occasion to thank you and all the members of Blessed Alberione family, for the efficient and dedicated pastoral work that you do for the good of the Church, particularly in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, Argentina."

*Translated from Spanish by Sr. Mary Stephen and Sr. Mary Thecla

Why discernment has to take so long

It's no secret that one of the challenges in religious life in recent decades has been the "vocation crisis." In one way, it's not so much a lack of vocations (God doesn't stop calling men and women to a life of special consecration and mission) as it is a crisis of correspondence. But you could also say it is a crisis of discernment.

Thankfully, among Catholic young adults, "discernment" is the spiritual buzzword du jour. It is becoming a recognizable aspect of Catholic spiritual development. "I'm in discernment," someone will say, and the proper response is encouragement and prayer.

But discernment is a two-way street. Not only does a young person (or in some cases not-so-young) need to discern their particular call from God, the communities that work with them also have to exercise great discernment before allowing a person to enter candidacy or postulancy (much less novitiate or first vows). When someone is attracted to religious life, or to a ministry, or to a particular community, the process of discernment can seem to plod along at a purgatorial pace. (I heard once that on a vocational chatroom, one complaint was, "It's really hard to get into the Daughters"!)

At times, though, you'll hear of a young person entering a community after a discernment of only three to six months. Those stories give me the willies. The young person may be clear about their vocational desires, but has the community itself made a discernment? Or do they expect all that to come after the person has left "home, brothers, sisters and property"?

A tragic item in the news this week highlights this responsibility. When I first saw a hint of it on Twitter yesterday, I immediately replied to the reporter that such a thing just didn't ring true; religious communities have safeguards in place! We practice discernment! But after a bit (the reporter was good enough to engage me in conversation), I had to face the facts. Clearly, for whatever reason, the sisters failed in vocational discernment.  The particular case, extreme as it is, involved deceit (or at least dissembling) on the part of the prospective candidate; but somehow the community did not really know the candidate.

I am praying very much for the community involved; for their sisters who had been in vocational contact with the young woman; for the postulants and formation directress forced into an experience so foreign to every expectation. All this, because of a lack of true discernment. Perhaps it was from an excess of enthusiasm; perhaps a bit of impatience; cultural differences may have played a huge role.

But I am not giving up on vocational discernment! In fact, if you know a young woman who could possibly find her fullest joy in a life of consecration and mission, please encourage her to "enter a discernment process"; and maybe you could forward our vocational e-zine!

The Lord bless these comings and these goings...

It's not hard to imagine that after almost three months away, I would find some changes in Chicago. It's just that ... there are some real changes going on right now! Sister Helena is officially transferred to Toronto, but she has so many commitments in Chicagoland, she is already back (and packing more books and a/v equipment for the trip back). We'll see her again in a few weeks.

Sister Edward Marie arrived on Monday. This is her first "little house" in twenty years. She had been stationed at the motherhouse, serving for the most part in the publishing house business office. To celebrate, Sister Frances put her interior design skills to work--not only repainting Sister Helena's old rooms with Sister Edward's favorite colors (including an "accent wall") but adding some spiffy bookshelves and an Ikea dresser. (Sister Helena had a system of boxes that is not really transferrable.)

Sister Gemma was transferred from Korea to the United States, and is stationed now in Chicago. She has been working among the Korean communities in the States for about 8, maybe 10 years, but is now officially a part of our province. She's taking time to perfect her English skills, and hopes to do some theology studies after many, many years as a missionary (including 8 years in Pakistan). Sister Gemma brings with her a world-class, turbo-charged rice cooker with multiple settings, and a sweet voice that makes cheerful announcements in Korean. I am presuming the announcements are about the rice and not world news, but Korean technology is so advanced, this may actually be a multi-platform device.

Sister Frances started back to school today, working toward her degree in Construction and Interior Design at the Art Institute. We have plenty for her to do with those skills (besides painting tiny rooms in complementary colors): her first big project will hopefully involve the expansion of our bookstore chapel!

Rendering of the
project around the
corner (73 E Lake).

Sister Lusia spent two months in Samoa, visiting and consoling her mother after the unexpected deaths in the family. She was supposed to be enjoying her time in the islands, but when people realized she knew how to drive, she ended up getting a lot of requests for chauffeuring services and spent more time in the car than on the beach.

And I just got back, too--but not for long. On Saturday I head back to Boston for three more weeks (including the Catholic New Media Conference!). That means I'll only be in Chicago for a month before I ... hit the road again for the Christmas concert series (are you near any of this year's locations?).

Meanwhile, the building is shaking again (construction next door and around the corner), and for the first time in a long time, the chapel is full!

Sr Helena and "Imagine Sisters"

In case you missed the broadcast last week, our very own Sister Helena Burns and seminarian Dan Rogers were on EWTN's "Life on the Rock" Thursday, talking about the "Imagine Sisters" movement. Dan is one of the "founders" of this social media vocational promotion fellowship. Since the broadcast, they've gotten hundreds and hundreds of new Facebook "likes" and one lucky individual even won a copy of Sister Helena's book (which is ideal for discerners)!

I watched it live, and live-tweeted about it, too. Other than the terrible make-up job on Sr Helena ("Malibu Barbie meets Sister Act"), I am bursting with pride over how well she did. Hopefully, that's not the last time Sister Helena will be called to Irondale, AL

Just one rose...

If you're a young woman who is clearly into your faith (the "YOUCAT" in your backpack might be one sign), don't be surprised if someone hands you a rose on the feast of St. Therese and tells you they think you'd make a good nun. (If you get more than one rose on October 1, you are probably heading for a discernment program anyway.)

Here's what's going on:

Inside Look at Convent Life

Checked my stats today and found that I was included in an interesting conversation going on about nuns in today's world. Since someone linked to my blog, I had a huge uptick of hits yesterday while I was enjoying those oysters with Mom. (Sushi today with Mom and my sister, along with her son and her granddaughter.) So for those visitors, I thought it would be helpful to post a few links so they can see some of those "nuns in today's world" that they were talking about.

For example, here am I, here's Sr Julia (from when she was in Chicago last year), here is a group of sisters talking about books they were reading at the time (over a year ago). Here's Sr Tracey telling the story of her call. Remember when we were recording "In Paradisum"? (It's on sale now, don't forget, or download it!)

For more video, see our various online presences. Here are a few to start with (lots more in my sidebar links list):
SingingSisters (that's the YouTube channel I manage); on Twitter I am nunblogger
Sr Tracey's YouTube channel
Sr Helena's channel and blog (lots of movie reviews); don't forget her Twitter feed!
Sr Marie Paul's blog (beautiful and reflective)

Come back around in mid-August and watch us on the "choir cam" while we record a new album.







!)