Nun's Habits

Lovely. Feminine, graceful, dramatic!

More

Always in the forefront of fashion...

None are my favorites. Although the nuns at my grade school wore this style.

Sr. Marie Benedict, of the Holy Cross order.

When a photographer "gets it."

The kind that flys.

The Christian burka.

Sometimes black and white do not tell the story.

The Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters of Mount Grace Convent, St. Louis, Missouri.

Commonly known as "The Pink Sisters."

The Daughters of Charity, of course!

Love the Holy Cross Sisters headgear.

I love them having been raised in the Church and educated in Cathlic school. My schoolboy photos are hilarious. I think half of us were gaylings.

What about Brothers' habits?

Don't you already know about the Brothers' habits, R12?

The Sisters of Mercy. If you are a habit queen, you will LOVE this video, especially 9:43 and beyond.

9:43

R1 and R2 images will likely give me night terrors again! Eight years of grade school taught by Dominican nuns in the 60's scarred me for life. It didn't help that in 5th grade Sister Mary Hildegard confiscated the troll doll I had being secretly showing some other students during history class. When she saw that I had written her name across the ass of the troll doll, she made my life a living hell for the next 3 years.

Love the Dominican habit. My High school chemistry teacher, Sister Anthony Marie.

I grew up across the street from a nunnery, those bitches scared the Episcopalian shit out of me

Except this one...

R9- They look like WON TONS

The Dominican Nuns had a lovely habit.

Jesus - how heavy were those things? Now, isn't the reason they wore those was because they shaved their heads? I recall my mom saying that was the case years ago.

What a ridiculous outfit. Religion really does make for some absurd creations.

Dominican Nuns

[quote] how heavy were those things? Now, isn't the reason they wore those was because they shaved their heads?

Very heavy. Layers upon layers of undergarments, serge, starched linen, veiling, etc. Watch the video above and you'll see (and she doesn't even talk about the undergarments they had to wear). And, they wore these habits every day of the year at every waking hour. Imagine how hot they would have been in the summer, dressed in black serge and linen and without ever being in air conditioning.

You ask if they wore these veils because they shaved their heads....it's the other way around. In order to wear all of this on top of their heads, they had to cut their hair really short.

R16 Did Sister Anthony Marie.get a lot of pussy?

R22 - ok, that makes sense - if you had long hair it would get tangled in all that shit.

It's amazing to me how the Catholic Church was able to convince hundreds of thousands of women to give up their lives and, among other things, teach in Catholic schools for poverty wages. Let alone all the other bullshit they did for priests and the Church. Priests certainly didn't live poorly.

Remember the very pleated linen surrounding the nuns faces in the Sound of Music? Here's how nuns would make that happen.

I like the habit they have of rapping children’s knuckles with a ruler. Or sometimes their palms, but that hurts less.

R9 = Sharon Osbourne

Buncha Lezzies!

Smoking. Especially if there is a group of them in the alley.

Second would be gambling. Nothing funnier than a nun at a slot machine.

The homo eroticism among nuns is almost as strong as that among priests. Disrobing each other must be a long and sensual precursor to multiple miracles.

What did they wear to the beach?

Same thing.

I went to Catholic school mid 60s - early 70s. During that time the nuns switched from the traditional habit to the ‘mini habit.’ They looked so much more comfortable and a lot less scary.

Sister Bertha Wasa wimple!

Closeted lesbianism.

Never forget Sister Boom Boom of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

They are all hideous. Burkas, pure and simple.

They are far nicer looking than burkas. But what you mean to say is that they are similar to the hijab, not the burka.

Great photo, R5. Yes, the photographer really understood the subject. That nun is beautiful, IMO. Looks like she's wearing makeup, but I assume she's not. Flattering lighting on her face, as if heaven is shining on her.

I'll repost the photo here.

I went to Catholic school. Teachers were probably 25% nuns, 75% woman lay teachers. Habits probably looked like in the photo, below, very simple.

My mom had a white swimming cap and I'd put that on, then would drape a towel over the cap. That was how I imitated the nun's headgear.

R5 and R39, here is what Sr. Marie Bernadette looked like later in life and out of the habit.

Carmelite Nuns

The classic Sisters of Loretto "M" veil looked so serene and mysterious, although it blocked the sisters' peripheral vision and made it hard to drive.

Today's Lorenttines are a far cry from their predecessors.

Yes, that's why many orders had what they called "driving veils"

I wonder if Portia Nelson (Sister Berthe) and Susan Lucci compared habit notes when Erica disguised herself as a nun on All My Children and head out with Mrs Gurney's sister, Olive Whalen, play by Maureen O'Sullivan.

Does anyone remember Lila Quartermaine from General Hospital?

Question: When did Anna Lee portray a nun?

The Bene Gesserit

Ellen Albertini Dow was one of the Sister Act nuns before she was the rapping grandmother in Wedding Singer and the sinful Disco Dottie in 54.

Mary Wickes and Kathleen Freeman played nuns several times. Freeman even played a nun on General Hospital.

R47, The Sound of Music

R50 wins! Yes, Anna Lee was Sister Margaretta in the Sound of Music! Great photo, R50. Now you know how they made all those pleats on their wimples.

[Quote] My mom had a white swimming cap and I'd put that on, then would drape a towel over the cap. That was how I imitated the nun's headgear.

This belongs in the gayling dialing with a pencil thread.

These Sisters of the Sacred Heart look like men. What was going on in that Order?

I would pull the arm hole of a white t-shirt through my face for that wimple effect. Then I'd hang a bath towel over my head as a veil.

My father: "We are NOT going to Costco with you dressed like that!"

Me: "Why ever not, my child? Is there something you can't face?"

I always thought how much fun it would have been to wear one of those old traditional habits out on the street.

R53, you're right! I've seen that photo before and was struck by how so many of them look exactly like men.

Are nuns allowed tweezers?

An old nun calling a noviate a cunt face will always be my favorite nun's habit...

[quote] An old nun calling a noviate a cunt face will always be my favorite nun's habit...

A "novitiate" is a building where novices are trained to become religious.

A "novice" is the person preparing to make vows.

You meant to say "An old nun calling a novice a cunt face will always be my favorite nun's habit."

My least favorite - looking the other way when priests molest/rape.

Nuns are good. They generally love gay men.

Have you seen the play or movie "Doubt?"

"Doubt"

I was taught by the School Sisters of Notre Dame. Some were nice. Sister Maureen played dodge ball with us. At least until Frank Cifelli knocked her whimple back with a well-aimed hit. We were alls shocked and a few girls screamed. Honestly, we ere afraid we'd committed a mortal sin.

Did Sr. Maureen's entire headpiece come off her head or was it just knocked off? That's a funny image— the nun was probably less shocked than the children were. I think the SSNDs had double sleeves—back close fitting sleeves covered by very wide black sleeves that got attached by buttons up around their shoulders.

I grew up Catholic but by then the nuns had stopped wearing habits altogether and just worse clothes that looked like they came from a thrift store. Interestingly however, the only orders in Catholic Religion life that are seeing a growth of vocations are the ones that still wear the traditional habits.

I'm not for telling people what they should wear, but it's pretty clear that sisters usually look better in some sort of habit then when left to their own devices, especially given that they don't have much money to spend on clothing. A simple black dress, white collar, and veil looks so much better than cheap polyester clothing in outdated patterns and sweatshirts with cats on them. Just my opinion.

My grandfather’s sister was a nun, for a small NYC based order that worked with the poor. She was a very sweet, soft spoken woman. As a small child I would get confused because her aunt name was different than her num name and the family used both randomly. Her order stopped wearing habits in the early 70s and she usually did the blouse / skirt / cross thing - no head covering. I was in catholic high school when JP2 made noises about wanting nuns to return to the traditional habits. I asked Sister what she thought about that at the next family function. She replied with the polite nun version of “The Pope can suck my dick.”

^^ “in” not “for” - Jesus is weeping.

I saw Agnes of God (movie) when it came out and remember liking the movie. Not sure how it holds up. Meg Tilly as the novice (?) nun who gets pregnant. Jane Fonda as the medical (?) professional who is supposed to get to the bottom of how, why, who, etc. Anne Bancroft as a high-ranking nun who is suspicious of the Jane Fonda character.

"What's your favorite nun's habit?"

Placing obstreperous, bratty schoolchildren in the corner wastepaper basket!

I wanted to add that my hip neighborhood had more progressive nuns in 1970, during our Holy Communion year. Sisters Cathy and Sally. They wore mini-dresses and these little contemporary habits that just came down to the length of the tops of their shoulders. Kind of like the 1969 "Change Of Habit" Elvis movie sisters'.

"We can't all of us look like that Jennifer Lopez girl, R53 and R55?!"

I must confess that I've always found the simple black cassock and clerical collar look of the priesthood very intriguing.

But that's a detour for another time.

I love the episodes in "The Flying Nun" when Sally Fields does her '60s dancing in full nun habit. I think they're in the later episodes.

Keep it simple

r51 Peggy Wood was too old to sing, Marni Dixon dubbed her voice. Most of her singing was done in a shadow.

Nuns out of habit are a bore and don't command respect.

Great Movie Nuns: Audrey Hepburn. Beautiful. Angelic. Serene.

[quote] It's amazing to me how the Catholic Church was able to convince hundreds of thousands of women to give up their lives and, among other things, teach in Catholic schools for poverty wages.

An aunt of my father was a nun.. My mother's aunt is also a nun. Everyone here (provincial Northern Italy) had an "aunt nun". It was common in generations at the turn of the world wars. It was an economic choice, they had too many children, too little money, a daughter in a convent was "one less mouth to feed". I always wondered how they picked the daughter to send to the convent....

R78, also, it was very common in super religious large Catholic familes to donate a child to Jesus. They were a gift to Him as a gesture of thanks for dying for our sins and blessing us with health and prosperity, etc. My cousin and his wife were rearing one of their four sons for the priesthood since his birth. Said he was their gift to God. That plan died the day the son hit puberty, met a girl, and decided he liked girls too much to become a priest.

The sexually repressed nuns of "Black Narcissus" are also fascinating, plus the extremely sexy Sabu covered in jewels.

Nun's Habits-

ONE of their habits was

LICKING each others PUSSIES

Handmaid’s Tale precursor...

R82 again. Link didn’t post.

[quote]Marni Dixon

1. Her name was NIXON, not Dixon. And she actually appeared in the movie as one of the nuns (Sr. Sophia.)

2. Peggy wood was dubbed by MARGERY MCKAY.

And it's Sally FIELD not FIELDS.

A bit off topic - but it looks like the women of Malta used to all wear a sort of nun's habit.

A bit off topic, but it looks like the women of Malta used to ALL wear a sort of nun's habit.

OP, you are talking about our nuns as if they disapeared. They are still there in Paris in another churchs while Notre Dame is under repair.

I want to know why women have to cover their heads? Muslims, nuns, Orthodox Jews...

R88, really? This is what I wrote:

[quote] What's your favorite nun's habit? I love the habit that used to be worn by the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

Do you think this sounds like my saying that nuns have disappeared? [note spelling]

Also, what on earth does Notre Dame have to do with nuns? There are lots of women religious in the world still. But the traditional habits have all but gone away.

You're post makes no sense.

R89, because women were instructed to do so in the Scriptures and it was mandated by early Christians. The custom came from earlier Jewish practices and passed on to the other Abrahamic religions.

How I miss seeing nuns walking around in those big traditional lovely habits. They were graceful and their faces were beautifully framed by starched white linen. Such a good look.

The one and only Mother Angelica.

"It's amazing to me how the Catholic Church was able to convince hundreds of thousands of women to give up their lives and, among other things, teach in Catholic schools for poverty wages. Let alone all the other bullshit they did for priests and the Church. Priests certainly didn't live poorly."

R24 the Church screwed over the nuns horribly. They didn't make payments to social security/medicare on behalf of the nuns and starting in the 1980's, nuns were retiring in large numbers and had no income or healthcare. Eventually the Church made back payments.

That photo of Mother Angelica points out that traditional nuns habits make nuns appear younger. You can't see gray hair, their faces are framed in pristine looking white linen, they are not wearing polyester from discount stores, and the older nuns are dressed exactly like the nuns in their twenties. It creates a sort of ageless appearance.

[quote] "It's amazing to me how the Catholic Church was able to convince hundreds of thousands of women to give up their lives and, among other things, teach in Catholic schools for poverty wages. Let alone all the other bullshit they did for priests and the Church. Priests certainly didn't live poorly."

The Church certainly is guilty of not treating women religious well and not being prepared to support them financially in retirement. However, back in earlier generations, entering a convent was, for some women, a way out of a life marked by a different type of drudgery. Many came from immigrant families and probably saw how their mothers were forced to stay home and cook, clean, and have babies and they didn't want that. Entering a convent meant, for some young women, getting a good education, having a career, and not being under the control of a man. Women religious were founding colleges and universities, opening and being presidents of hospitals, running shelters for the poor, etc. at a time when women did not typically have such doors open to them. Seen in this light, becoming a nun was a way out of a repressive home life for certain women.