375th Anniversary
The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet join with our fellow Sisters of St. Joseph congregations in celebrating the 375th anniversary of our founding.
In 1650, six ordinary women, under the guidance of Jean Pierre Medaille, SJ, joined together in community under the patronage of St. Joseph in Le Puy-en-Velay, France. These six women had a common desire to grow in their love of God and serve the unmet needs of the people around them, whom they came to call their “dear neighbors.” From their humble beginnings in a small kitchen, the order grew to include communities all over the world.
As a part of our 375th Jubilee Anniversary Celebration, we’ve asked our sisters and charism partners to write blog posts reflecting on integral parts of our history and spirituality, illuminating how these symbols and traditions continue to shape our present and future.
The Habit
The habit is, without a doubt, the most recognizable, external sign of a vowed religious woman. The St. Louis Catholic Archives Collective writes that these iconic garments and women religious’ sameness of dress communicated their vocation in a way that transcended the boundaries of language and geographical distance.”
However, in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, communities of Catholic sisters re-examined the habit. The archives collective explains, “For the better part of two millennia, contemptus mundi (“contempt of the world”) was a defining feature of monastic life and nuns’ traditional habits signified their withdrawal from worldly concerns.”
For Catholic sisters engaged in active ministry, “contempt of the world” did not and does not reflect their religious identity. As a part of a call to return to foundational principles and practices, many congregations, like the Sisters of St. Joseph, made the decision to switch to more contemporary attire.
Founding of the Sisters of St. Joseph
When the “Little Design” of Father Jean Pierre Medaille, SJ began to take shape in the mid-1600s, there was only one form of religious life available to women: the cloister. Groups of women had tried to create apostolic congregations, focused on ministry and service to the people of God, but they had been shut down or shut behind the doors of a convent.
Building the foundations of what would become the Sisters of St. Joseph, Father Medaille carefully described the communities. In the Règlements, he wrote: “This association is established to provide for many young women or widows not called to the cloister or who have not the means to enter it, and who, nevertheless, wish to live chastely in the world.”
These women had no monastery but lived together in a “common life.” The Règlements instructed the women to leave their house only “to go to the churches, to visit the sick, hospitals, prisons, and to perform other exercises of charity.” This strict sounding rule left a loophole wide enough for the women to address any and every need. The women did not wear a habit but “their clothing, dress and standard of living will be appropriate to their social class and the background from which they came.” Many chose to wear widow’s black so that they could move about in public unaccompanied and minister to the poor.
Finally, in 1650, six women of the “Little Design” joined together in community under the patronage of St. Joseph in Le Puy-en-Velay, France. This religious community, without cloister or habit, devoted themselves to the needs of ordinary people, living among them and offering their lives in service to God and these dear neighbors without distinction.
Our Habit
Despite the origins of the order, by 1700, many Sisters of St. Joseph wore a habit. What changed? A single word.
In 1650, the “Little Design” community was formalized as the Sisters of St. Joseph by Bishop Henri de Maupas. His establishing speech to the sisters was recorded in the original Constitutions of 1694. It said that the bishop “gave them the rule and prescribed a [emphasis added] form of habit.” In another document, supposedly published in 1693, it says that Bishop de Maupas “gave them the rule and he prescribed the [emphasis added] kind of habit” they should wear.
Theologian and historian Sister Mary McGlone, CSJ writes, “With the change of one word, the whole idea of ‘dressing modestly’ could be changed to insist that the sisters wear a particular kind of habit which would distinguish them as women with a special status.”
Wearing the Habit
Each sister made her own habit. In the novitiate, novices would learn how to make the habit by sewing and reconstructing the parts of an unused habit. A sister’s habit had to meet detailed specifications to be up to standard.
Taken from the Manual of Customs:
“The habit of black woolen serge, nearly two yards wide when double, should not quite touch the ground. The sleeves, twelve inches wide when doubled, should reach to the tips of the fingers, and should be made with narrow rolled hem, and fitted to the waist by two plaits on the back of the shoulders.
“The waist of the habit is perfectly plain; hooked in front and covered with the front width of the skirt, which is longer than the others, and gathered into six even plaits, three and three, turned towards the center, which are held in place by a strong black tape or braid sewn on the inside and tied around the waist of the habit. It is then adjusted over the front of the waist and fastened at the upper end to the waist.
“The fronts of the under veil are made of the same material as the veil; the back shall be any black material. The veil is made with narrow rolled hem and should extend 6 inches below the waist and be 32 inches wide. The cornet is 19 inches long, 5 ½ inches wide when finished. These are folded over the top on two sides and pinned. The band is 12 inches long, 3 inches wide when finished. Tabs in the back are pinned in place.”
While the standard habit was made of black woolen surge, some sisters wore a variation of the habit in a lighter, white material.
Sisters who worked in hospitals, such as nurses, wore the white habit while engaged in their ministry. They wore an apron on top of the habit to keep it clean. On days these sisters did not work at the hospital, they wore the standard black.
Notably, all the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in Perú wore white habits as well.
Hazardous Habits
While the habit served as a simple, external sign of a sister’s vocation, at times, it put sisters into physical danger.
One of the first Sisters of St. Joseph to travel to the United States, Sister St. Protais Déboille, kept a journal recording their 1836 trip. Upon the sisters’ arrival, Ursuline Sisters and Sisters of Charity advised them not to wear their habit in public because “people would think that some nuns had escape[d] from the convent.”
The St. Louis Catholic Archives Collective writes, “Catholics in nineteenth-century America faced considerable anti-Catholic prejudice from American Protestants. Women often bore the brunt of this prejudice, as Protestants often assumed women who entered a convent were either kidnapped or coerced.”
The habit became a beacon signaling the sisters’ foreignness, their deviation from the rest of American society and their dangerous independence. The archives collective continues, explaining, “The Sisters of St. Joseph and most women religious had to travel incognito in secular clothing while conducting their American missionary work to avoid insults and harassment that included death threats, convent burnings and bodily assaults.”
Not only did the connotation of the habit sometimes put sisters in harm’s way, but occasionally the material of the habit itself was dangerous.
When the sisters were sent to minister in Perú, their group was comprised of nurses and teachers. As was custom in the United States, the nurses brought their white habits with them. The teachers, however, brought their standard, black woolen surge habits. Quickly, they realized that black, woolen habits were untenable, especially in a Peruvian summer. The teachers decided to adopt the white habit of their nursing peers.
Returning to Our Roots
In response to the Second Vatican Council, congregations across the world took on a spirit of renewal. The 1965 council document Perfectae caritatis called religious women and men to “…both a constant return to the sources of Christian life in general and to the primitive inspirations of the institutes, and their adaption to the changed conditions of our time.” The Sisters of St. Joseph began an intensive study of the Gospels and the spirit of our founders.
Figuring Out What Fits
When the Sisters of St. Joseph reviewed their beginnings, they discovered that the original six sisters had come together in a community without a cloister or habit. The challenge of renewal was to adapt their current practice to the spirit of their origins in the modern world.
They did not immediately abandon the habit. Guided by communal discernment, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet went through a period of sartorial experimentation.
In 1967, our sisters in St. Paul used several variations of a modified habit. Instead of the head band, cornet and guimpe, the sisters wore a simple veil around their hair. They had multiple combinations of suits, skirts and dresses to choose from. The sisters in St. Paul even created a video to demonstrate these new variations on the habit.
Other sisters tried out lay clothes. Sister Rosemary O’Malley, CSJ described watching the first sister to wear lay clothes in Ica, Perú: “The day when the first Ica sister dressed in lay clothes left for school, all of us were watching from the window to see what the students’ reaction would be. They all came running toward her and they shouted ‘Hermana! Hermana! What time do we have our test?’ Ha! That’s how important the habit is, they didn’t even notice the difference!”
Through all of this, some sisters continued to wear the habit. These sisters felt that their habit was deeply connected to their vocational identity. Having spent most of their lives in the habit, they felt no need to try the experimental dress.
In the end, the Sisters of St. Joseph decided: to each her own. Today, our sisters are welcome to wear the full habit, a modified habit, a simple veil or lay clothing.
The Spirit of Our Founders
“…the Sister of St. Joseph moves always towards profound love of God and love of neighbor without distinction from whom she does not separate herself…”
Consensus Statement of Sisters of St. Joseph by Father Jean-Pierre Medaille, SJ
During the Second Vatican Council, Mother Eucharista Galvin wrote to the sisters in Perú: “It is a promising trend that in much of the recent writing, the point is being stressed that externals such as the forms of prayers, type of habit are rather unimportant. The important thing is that we try to love as Christ loved and work upon it in practical, down-to-earth situations and not in theory.”
Whether or not our sisters wear the habit, we have always and will always be motivated in all things by love, the central commandment of Jesus—a love that seeks to achieve unity of neighbor with neighbor and neighbor with God. Faithful to our heritage and to our gift of unifying love, we reach out to the dear neighbor, whoever they may be, whatever the need they might have.
As our congregation’s constitution states, we, along with our partners in mission, are called to “…use our gifts generously in embracing the command of Jesus: pray, heal, teach, love and forgive. In gentleness, peace and joy we strive to become more loving and effective instruments of Christ’s zeal, knowing he is faithful in accomplishing His mission through us.”
