Before you can adopt one of the the seven habits, you’ll need to accomplish a "paradigm shift"–a change in perception and interpretation of magisterial fidelity. You need to move away from polyester pantsuits with sensible shoes and a heterodox faith. Stephen R. Convent walks you through how it is that it is obedience to Christ and his Church and not the latest in social engineering or the latest fad created by university professors that make a religious order highly effective. That it is not labyrinths but liturgy, prayer not progressive’s talking points, dying to Christ not dialogue the point of which is to evangelize the Church with the culture instead of the other way around. The 7 habits of Highly Effective Religious takes you through seven case studies of growing religious orders in this time when vocations are suppose to be in decline.
The authors contention is not that the habits in and of themselves that make a religious order grow and to become effective, but the denial of the mind set where progress means dropping anything traditional and embracing anything new. This growing trend of younger people embracing traditional orders and faithfulness to the magisterial have been labeled "young fogeys’ by Fr. Andrew Greeley, but the young fogeys are revitalizing religious orders where less faithful orders are more likely to attract flies than postulants. A effective religious order is not one that is measured by success as termed by the modern world but one that follows Mother Teresa’s "I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness"
Franciscan Friars of the Renewal a new order founded by Fr. Benedict Groeschel and seven other Capuchin friars started in 1987 has been growing by leaps and bounds. This order is dedicated first to the materially poor, but also to the spiritually poor through evangelization. Where social justice is fully embraced and lived out and is not truncated by ignoring abortion. The retro habits and monks with beards makes this one of the seven effective habits.
Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist On August 22nd, 1997 Feast of the Queenship of Mary, the first new candidates were received into the community. Currently the community has 40 young women in formation. These young women come from all over the United States. The postulants and novices study theology, philosophy, scripture, sacred music, Dominican spirituality, and Church history. Faithfulness to Church teaching and a cool habit makes them another one of the seven effective habits of highly effective religious orders.
The Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration. This group is just one of the new foundations from Mother Angelica’s order which is busting at the seams.
Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles With a foundation of contemplative prayer fuel their dedication to healthcare and education. To view a group photo of this growing order would probably take an aerial shot to include them all.
The Sisters of Life is a contemplative/ active religious community of women founded in 1991 by John Cardinal O’Connor for the protection and enhancement of the sacredness of every human life. Currently occupying four convents and still growing.
Sister Servants of the Eternal Word are a new order that follows the Rule of St. Francis of Assisi with St. Dominic and St. Francis as their patrons. This order operates a retreat house that has not retreated from the Catholic faith.
Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia Congregation (also known as the Nashville Dominicans). This contemplative community does not have the progressive mission statement found for some Dominican orders but dedicates themselves to do such radical things such as "Love the Church and seek to serve her in fidelity" and "Foster a reverence for the priesthood and the Church’s Magisterium"
These seven case studies for "The 7 habits of Highly Effective Religious" are not an all inclusive list of faithful and growing orders but a cross-section of religious orders that are growing while some of their contemporaries haven’t seen a postulant since the seventies. While they have many different habits they are all grounded in faithfulness s to Christ and his Church.
The book also contains an appendix of the 7 habits of highly ineffective religious orders and what not to wear.
The Benedictine Sisters of Erie. These sisters specialize in heterodox creation-centered spirituality and whose charism is closely related to the Democratic Party. You might know there most famous member Sister Joan Chittister, OSB. It appears that there only consistent religious garb is gray hair and floppy name tags.
This appendix will be greatly useful for historians as these orders become historical footnotes.
So order the "The 7 habits of Highly Effective Religious" now and see where the Church is growing and slowing. If you ask these seven orders about a vocation problem they will tell you that sure there is a vocation problem. "We don’t have enough room for all these postulants!"
35 comments
I humbly submit these examples:
Highly effective habits – Sisters Adorers of the Royal Heart of Jesus Christ Sovereign Priest
http://www.institute-christ-king.org/AdorersRoyalHeart.htm
Highly ineffective habits – Sisters of Loretto
http://www.lorettocommunity.org/Sisters.html
I have had extensive contact with the sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist – they are an amazing presence in the Catholic community here.
I’ve seen them (of course) in Church, but also at Pro-Life rallys, Community and Catholic college campuses (continuing ed.), at Parish Life events, fundraisers, Abortion picketing, you name it – and they are always in full habit. They provide such an unspoken yet powerfull witness just doing that.
A little orthodoxy goes a long way. A lot of orthodoxy knows no bounds. 🙂 Go sisters!
Okay, this is something of a pet peeve of mine, but Franciscans and Dominicans are not “monks.” They are friars. The difference between the two terms is a cloister wall.
“What not to wear”… I love it!
Of course you would have to include the Legionaires of Christ on the list of rapidly growing young fogeys.
I promise not to peeve your pet, Father. 🙂 The cloister wall is a perfect way to keep it straight.
I hope there is reason to rejoice in the fact that there were no young women in the last photo. I don’t think I could handle another lifetime of that feminist, New Age, Buddhist, lets walk the holy labyrinth, find our centered self that we can be empowered bullcupcake.
BRILLIANT! (Also filed under sad, but true.)
The Legionarys just ordained 27 priests before Christmas (they schedule it that way so that the newly ordained’s first Mass is Christmas). Check out http://www.legionariesofchrist.org/eng/fotogaleria/foto.phtml?id=833&idf=12706
This is wonderful news, the only thing I find fault with is that other on EWTN and now on your thread, But for the past 30 years growing up in and around New York, I have never ever seen a sister dressed in habit and garb, but rather in regular clothing without even a crucifix. Whether at church, catholic school, or any minsitry. Even the diocean television station has the sisters on from Brooklyn and Long Island and they are dressed as your Aunt Sally would
I see you are trying to show the good face of the church, but I would have
Sisters of Life are in New York. Look for them. 🙂
Thanks for another post of hope.
The IVE’s are also really good.
http://www.iveamerica.org/
Unfortunately their English-language page contains some unfortunate gaffes (John Neumann is listed as a “patroness” of the IVE community) but please overlook these… 🙂
Yay! My own blood sister (and the rest of my “Sisters-in-Lord”) are in the book! Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist are an absolutely amazing order and I remember one of the critical elements to my sister joining there was the very beautiful, and traditional Dominican habit, given to St. Dominic by Our Lady herself! What a perfect witness for a religious to give, without words, they can show their commitment to their God and their community!
Up and coming order: Sisters in Jesus the Lord.
web page: http://www.cjd.cc/
They are very new so cannot wear their habits publicly yet. They are young, faithful, and WANT to wear their habits all the time. As they cannot, they instead wear frocks which look much like postulant frocks. Please pray for and support this order… they are a fine replacement for all the new age ex-Catholic orders.
I greatly respect the Legionaries and their work, they always seem to have many seminarians and ordinations, but why is it their census numbers haven’t gone up? They have hundreds of ordinations a year, yet for as long as I’ve known them they claim that they have about 3000 priests, am I missing something?
Fun times! I see some friends of mine from my college days! Woo hoo!
I would have to agree with John that New York is nearly a habit free state. In fact, I think it’s even worse upstate. I have NEVER, seen a nun in habit upstate. There probably are a few rarities in the diocese of Buffalo, but all the others, Albany, Rochester, Ogdensburg, Syracuse, I doubt you’ll find any.
My sister just professed her vows with the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary http://www.saintbenedict.com. What an exciting time in the Church!
Out here in South Orange, NJ, our sisters wear habits. It’s admittedly a fairly new thing that we have sisters at all, but our our pastor here at Our Lady of Sorrows brought nuns back into the parish four years ago, to run the adult ed programs (RCIA, baptism prep, etc.). Two years ago, we converted an old parish office building into a convent. It’s had a very positive effect on the parish.
If you go to the Archdiocese of NY building in midtown Manhattan, you’ll see sisters in full habits. I’m not sure which order they’re from though.
I have my own experience with the habit-less nuns in NY (the state, in this case). I was on vacation in Binghampton back in September and found a church near my hotel (unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to find anyone who knew enough about the area before my trip to point me in the direction of an orthodox parish, so I went with the parish closest to the hotel). I called the church to confirm the time of Mass, only to find out that information was not accurate when I arrived at church to find Mass had just ended (which left me with very dark thoughts regarding their hospitality towards visitors to their parish). There were a couple of ladies in the parking lot heading towards their car and when I explained the problem, one of them said “Don’t worry, I’m a nun. I can direct you to another church nearby where Mass is just starting.” I held my tongue, but what was going through my head was “You’re a nun? You dress like my grandmother.” No offense intended towards Grandma, but nuns should look like, well, nuns, and not my grandmother. I guess I went to the right kind of Catholic school as a child, where I didn’t have to wonder who were the nuns and who were the lay teachers.
And I never knew that Joan Chittister was from Erie – although considering the liturical abuses I’ve seen there, I can’t say I’m too surprised (my parents live in Erie, which is Dad’s hometown). At a family reunion a couple of years ago, a group of us went to Mass together that Sunday morning in the small town where the reunion was held in PA. One of my cousins lives in Philly and she practically had her head in her hands throughout the Mass, muttering “The Cardinal wouldn’t approve”, that’s how blatant the liturgical abuses were. And I kept thinking “What the heck are they doing?”, and I’ll be the first to admit that Dallas is far from the most orthodox diocese (although there have been small strides in the right direction in recent years and we’ve had recent luck with very orthodox priests in my specific parish). As we were leaving Mass, the cousin from Philly was asking what diocese we were in and my dad and grandmother chimed in (kind of sheepishly) “Well, they mentioned ‘our bishop Donald’ during the Mass, so it appears they are a part of the Erie diocese.” Yikes!
My wife and I attended my sister in law son baptism which was at a traditional parish. It had to be close to 90 degrees that day and there were a bunch of nuns all in black garb and habits. My wife and I started talking to them and they were the nicest down to earth people I have ever met, and we asked them dont they get hot all in black in the sun, etc. And her answer stuck with me to this day. She said “Jesus died for us, and suffered so much for our sins, this is the least we can do for him, this is nothing as compared to what he must have felt born without sin”.
That is what is missing from the church today, no one wants to sacrifice anything, from the clergy on down to the laity, it has become a “feel good” religion, with sin and expiation replaced by Love and hand holding
If you go to the Archdiocese of NY building in midtown Manhattan, you’ll see sisters in full habits. I’m not sure which order they’re from though.
Sisters of Life. Note my previous comments about seeing the Sisters of Life in habits in NY. They run the “Family Life / Respect Life Office” for the Archdiocese of New York. They’re amazing…
I’ve had a lot of encounters with the various habited and non-habited nuns over the years. While I’m generally in agreement with your sentiments, I think two cautions are in order.
1. The new communities, because they are young, have not made their share of mistakes yet. I think that some “wait and see” and less “rah rah rah” is called for.
2. I’ve met some women religious, more like the Erie type than like the young communities, who have a depth of charity that astounds me. I was utterly flabbergasted to hear firsthand that a very progressive community had taken into their own retirement facilities, wholesale, the elderly sisters of a cloistered convent.
the sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist: amazing the vocations they get despite the boggingest postulant’s dresses, eh? Is it some Dominican thing to make sure that even if you are attracted by the habit, your persistence will nevertheless not be worn down by the horror you are made to wear before you get the habit?
http://www.cjd.cc
Someone should tell them that Vladivostok is not a country.
Far as the habit-less nuns in upstate NY, I’m not surprised. The Rochester Dioceses (which includes Rochester, Binghamton, Elmira, Corning etc.) is a very liberal dioceses clergy-wise. Our pastoral administrator is a nun (SSJ) and she NEVER wears her habit or her orders colors. She also is in the habit of preaching during mass, inclusive language, etc. Bishop Clark doesn’t see anything wrong with it and I guess we pew Catholics shouldn’t either (judging from his diocesian columns).
Far as the new orders go:
1. The fact that these new orders wear the traditional dress of nuns is to be commended, not belittled. It isn’t just “rah-rah.” The style of dress DOES affect the person’s deportment, and, it effects the way people treat them. I’ve seen this in my business interactions, the military, and in the Church to be ABSOLUTELY be true. It also marks them as being counter-cultural to the current orders. This also is working to attract young people to the religous life…It certainly has worked better than all the “do your own thing” stuff we’ve had this last 40 years.
2. Any mistakes they can make due to youth or inexperience cannot be compared to the damage the much older and “wiser” orders that have in many cases gone completely dissadent or feminist in their rhetoric. At least the new orders mistakes will be honest mistakes from youth, as opposed to the those older orders that do or teach things that are dissident from the Church.
Curmudgeon Tom, you make one good point and one not-so-good. The habits are very important and I’m glad to see them back too. As Walker Percy said, “Don’t they realize that they look better in nun clothes than in pant suits from JCPenney?”
But I repeat both that the young communities are untested and have plenty of potential for trials and scandals of their own, and that some of the apparently most impossibly out-of-touch older sisters have a good deal more to them than some people–myself included–often give them credit for.
Not to mention that in many of these communities it is probable that some of the individual sisters have very reluctantly accepted their superiors’ decisions to abandon the forms of religious life. Imagine the suffering these individual sisters have undergone as they have clung to their vocations over the last decades.
I would have to echo Margaret–although I’m admittedly biased, since I’m preparing to enter the seminary for the IVE (aka Institute of the Incarnate Word). They wear their cassocks, and ordained 24 new priests last month, which brings them up to almost 300 priests in 20 years! Also, they have an order of religious sisters called the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matara (with a very distinctive habit)–they founded it in 1988 and at last count they had 710 sisters! Now tell me that isn’t pretty amazing!
Well, I’m from Dallas, just moved to Edmonton in Aug ’04, and at least in Dallas it’s still the norm to kneel at the Eucharistic Prayer. What I’ve always said about Dallas is that, while very few liturgies are ever really good in a liturgical or artistic or a following-the-GIRM sense, neither are there ever many *really* bad ones, even at the “heterodox” parishes (only a coupla those parishes anyway). Liturgically, Dallas muddles along in the middle, which is irritating, until you travel and see how much WORSE it can be!
How people from Philly cope with leaving the Archdiocese, though, I’m sure I can’t understand. The Archdiocese ought to give people moving away a packet on “What Catholicism is like in the rest of the U.S. – the ugly truth”.
I find it quite amazing that at this day and age where one must dress a certain way whether in the military, school, or at work, the Catholic church after Vatican II decides to leave it up to whomever and whatever to decide how to dress, how to act, not to kneel, to receive our Lord in the hand, to permit lay ministers distribute, on and on, etc etc
So much for reverence and uniformity
I also reccomend the Mary Immaculate Federation of Poor Clares. They are WONDERFUL….and they are probably most famous for Mother Mary Francis, who has written some wonderful books about Poor Clare spirituality, such as “Right to be Merry,” “Anima Christi,” etc.
Their most famous monastery is in Roswell, NM. They also have a WONDERFUL monastery in Barhamsville, VA, which is where I might enter.
I also reccomend the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, based in Mishawaka, IN. You can read about them on my blog. Check it out!
Kathy,
Your point is well taken. I can imagine and have read about the spiritual pain that devout women have suffered in the orders that have abandon the ways of faith. Maybe they can affect change in their orders or join one of these new orders. It would certainly help to have the experience you point out the new orders need. I will add them to my prayers.
Additionally, not all of the orders are entirely new, I am pretty sure the orders that were started by John Cardinal O’Conner in New York were started with nuns from other orders, and there is an order out in CA (whose name escapes me) that was a sister order to another that threw off the habit and norms.
Thanks for your note, Curmudgeon Tom. We certainly have a lot to pray for, and I really am rooting for the young communities.
By the way, I am wondering if there might be any data being collected on the new orders and homeschooling. From the homeschooled kids I knew in San Diego, it seems that they would be the likeliest candidates for the young communities–and the first wave is just finishing college.
At the parish I attend RCIA, Our Lady of Peace in Santa Clara, CA, we have sisters from The Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matar�. They’re part of the Institute of the Incarnate Word religious family. 🙂
Our Lady of Peace parish is known for being pretty orthodox. 🙂
As far as orthodox groups, what about the Benedictines of Clear Creek Monastery in Oklahoma? It’s my understanding that they strictly follow the Rule of St. Benedict, and that they offer the Mass in Latin and wear their habits at all times.
By the Grace of God, I’ve been accepted to enter the Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist in 2007. I too, wouldn’t enter any community that wasn’t entirely faithful to the Magisterium and didn’t wear the full habit. Christ called us to be radical and to transform the culture through our witness, not vice versa (hence the beauty of the habit). I also have friends who have entered the Nashville Dominicans, the Sisters of Life, the L.A. Carmelites, and the CFRs in the last several years.
Why all these vocations? The key is preaching the truth. Help usher in the “new springtime”! Don’t give up and become involved in CCD programs in your parish. Use the Vatican, EWTN, Catholic Answers, and Relevant Radio for resources (supply them in bulk at your parish -encourage your pastor!!) and PLEASE PRAY!
Pax Christi and continued blessings!
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