What is your first reaction when you see a picture like this? Is it "It’s wonderful to see nuns in full habit having fun"? Perhaps it is "How charming!" Or maybe it’s just a smile. If these guesses are close to your first reaction, you may be surprised to hear of another gut reaction given by one Catholic:
"Dominican sisters become the last word in the decadent fashion of modern religious life."
Back in the Glory Days of the Catholic Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth century, one young nun shocked her sisters by jumping on a table and dancing while merrily clicking her castanets. What happened to this rebel sister? Was she dragged off by the Inquisition, never to be heard of again? It may surprise those shocked by the fun-loving nuns in the picture above to know that dancing nun was eventually canonized and made a Doctor of the Church.
She is known today as St. Teresa of Avila who is famous for saying "From silly devotions and sour-faced saints, good Lord deliver us."
Amen.
I took a look at the site that posted the comment. I found it interesting that that site does not allow comments. If a site is going to post this kind of statement, you might at least have enough courage to accept others comments about it.
I looked at the other pictures. They really really seemed like they were out to prove something. Instead of just being who they were. There was a certain amount of spectical to it that lead me to that idea.
The Dominican sisters I’ve seen are among the most theologically orthodox I’ve ever known. They once asked our pastor, an avid hiker, to take them white-water rafting. He did. And they all wore their habits.
Wonderful people, those sisters.
Wow! Nuns who are not ashamed to let the world know Who their Spouse is!
[i]What is your first reaction when you see a picture like this?[/i]
The NUGGLES!
What’s the source for that incident in the life of St. Theresa?
The question raised is whether there are any activities which are fine for a layperson to do, but unbecoming for a religious in religious dress to do. If all that were done in public, it might be one thing. The pictures make it look as if it were at some convention or gathering of sisters. Expectations are different when you’re with your own community. Less gravitas is required.
So . . . priests & religious can’t have senses of humor?
And here I thought they were human!
They should use that pic in the 2007 ‘Nuns Having Fun’ calendar!
I followed the links all the way back to forum on which the series was originally posted – two things struck me:
1) that there seemed to be no lay observers; and
2) that the sisters were wearing habits in every photo – even when indoor rock climbing!
As far as I’m concerned, the second point is a pretty good ‘hipshot’ litmus test for orthodoxy. The first point makes me think it was games night on a retreat.
The brides of Christ having fun. Heaven forbid. I’ve seen these photos before. They look like the sisters were entertaining each other at a conference. Unfortunately, the site that had them posted didn’t provide a link – but I guess that’s the point. If there was a reasonable explanation for the sisters doing a dragon dance, it might spoil the fun of wild speculation and snarky cultural superiority.
I got curious because the sister jamming on the red guitar looks like she may be from my country.
After looking closely at each of the photos, I noticed about 3 different languages (Chinese? Korean? Thai or Vietnamese?) beside the Latin.
To me, it looks like an international gathering of Dominican nuns from various Asian countries, and each group from each country were required to do a presentation for the enjoyment of the other groups.
With those shades, I’m surprised no one has come up with the obvious photo caption:
“The Blues Sisters…on a mission from God”
And Michelle, thanks for that bit of trivia about Teresa of Avila. Always fun to learn something new about my birthday saint. 🙂
What was the context for the photo?
If there’s something wrong with the Sisters bringing a smile to the faces of a group old folks at a nursing home I don’t see it.
I thought Michelle was going to remind us that St. Teresa de Avila was also a guitarist — which she was!
If you want to see sisters having fun, visit the Missionaries of Charity on any big day. My aunt is an MC, and well do I remember going to her final profession of vows in Washington DC and the sisters welcoming her and the other people back into the House there in the night with a dance with candles in jars that the Indian sisters had taught the others.
I also remember meeting Mother Teresa when I was seven or so and I was almost taller than her, which she joked about, and said I had a big enough smile to be a Missionary of Charity.
As long as they’re not doing this during Mass I see nothing wrong with it. If, however, this is a ‘liturgical dance’ there might be a problem.