Saturday, September 3, 2011

Still Wearing the Habit Since 1938

This photograph, taken in 1938, is of Sr. Margherita Marchione, PhD.

Since that day of her investiture she has continued to wear her sacred habit each and every day of her life.

In 1935, on the day of her Confirmation, she heard the call to become a sister and she decided that day to follow the call and to never look back.

Be inspired.

The Lord reward her for being open to His grace.

5 comments:

  1. She is a wonderful nun, truely a saint, and a hero of the Church.

    The habit of the Religious Teachers Fillipini was not very attractive in the classic sense, and their modified habit is really nothing more than a short black skirt with a small black hat, yet it is still a noble thing to wear the habit...even if the unattractive modern modified ones....better than none at all.

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  2. Yes she has worn a very streamlined version of that habit.

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  4. Sadly, the sisters no longer wear the rosary.

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  5. I feel badly when the really classic nuns habits are discarded. There was no reason for any of them to have been discarded. Some Orders (and only a half dozen world wide or so), needed to modify their headpieces in light of travel in the cars of today (elaborate headpieces can still be accomodated on trains and planes, but not in cars). But there was no where in Vatican II to demand the wholesale streamlining and then discarding of traditional habits.
    Pius XII once or twince made some very light, mild "suggestions" that some modifications were called for....and practically no Orders paid any attention.
    It was only after Vatican II, in a fad that I think was begun in Europe, and quickly spread to the USA and elsewhere to drastically modify, and then by the early 1970's start to actually discard the habits entirely.

    As a side note, there are 2 Americans Orders (both tiny), which are or have gone back to their original habits.
    One is the clostered Handmaids of the Precious Blood which wear wine-red habits and white veils, and the other is the Franciscan Sisters of Peoria, Ill. (only about 35 members), which have opted to restore the long habit, Franciscan cord, and long veil after years of wearing a rather ridiculous looking just below the knee black habit, belt, short veil and white collar. They have always managed to attract 1-2 candidates per year since Vatican II although they have declined overall substantially.

    I would bet that there will be a vocations surge to this wonderful Order now. Other Orders in the USA should follow suit.
    Does anyone know of any Italian or European Orders of nuns which have returned back to traditional religious habits? I am sure there are at least a few.

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