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Being a nun
Topic Started: Monday, 30. August 2010, 10:41 (468 Views)
Anne-Marie

I'm watching 'The Nun's Story' on ITV3.
I guess things have changed since the 1930s - or perhaps not!
The 'humility' that is required of a nun strikes me (as someone who would probably be a great deal more like Maria in 'The Sound of Music'!!) as an absurd form of inverted humility - in other words, as anything BUT humble!

Our Church tells us we are 'Made in the Image of God'. Are we now to believe that Jesus (who was and is God) never laughed, enjoyed a joke, played with friends... as well, of course, as speaking earnestly and sincerely and suffering greatly for us?
Don't married people, the widowed and all the rest of us have suffering to endure, which some of us manage in love?
How can throwing away God's gifts to us for no better reason than proving we have humility have anything to do with serving God or our neighbour?
How does 'grovelling' on the floor to confess that we spoke when we shouldn't, that we remembered family, that we have a skill we can see someone needs... How can any of that have anything at all to do with serving God???
Yes, of course there are times to hold our tongues - most of us learn that the hard way! But there are also times to speak out, to contradict, to challenge!

Jesus told us to love others as we love ourselves: Are we to humiliate others as we apparently have to in a convent?
Should we not first respect and, yes, love ourselves, before we can respect and love others?
Is there anyone in here who can explain what all that 'nonsense' - as I perceive it - is (or was) about in convents?
Two of my aunts were nuns, I spent much of my childhood surrounded by nuns... but their way of life remains utterly alien, and even bizarre, to me.
Anne-Marie
FIAT VOLUNTAS DEI
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Clare
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Putting the "Fun Dame" into Fundamentalist
Never seen it. Is it a true story?
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Gerard

Anne Marie,

That is why we needed the Second Vatican Council.
Nuns nowadays are far more balanced human beings.

Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Clare
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Gerard
Monday, 30. August 2010, 10:55
Anne Marie,

That is why we needed the Second Vatican Council.
Nuns nowadays are far more balanced human beings.

Gerry
Are you listening, St Therese of Lisieux??
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Gerard

I dont know enough about Carmelite convent life.
Did they whip themselves?
Was humiliation used as a punishment for talking at the wrong time?

These things were routine in other orders that I do know about.

Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Mairtin
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Clare
Monday, 30. August 2010, 10:47
Never seen it. Is it a true story?
Are you sure, Clare? I thought The Nun's Story was one of those films that just about everybody has seen.

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi966984985/

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Clare
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Mairtin
Monday, 30. August 2010, 11:12
Clare
Monday, 30. August 2010, 10:47
Never seen it. Is it a true story?
Are you sure, Clare? I thought The Nun's Story was one of those films that just about everybody has seen.
There are lots of films that everyone has seen except me.

I've never seen Casablanca or Gone With The Wind, or The Sound Of Music right through.

And I'm pretty sure I haven't seen The Nun's Story at all.
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Clare
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Gerard
Monday, 30. August 2010, 11:03
I dont know enough about Carmelite convent life.
Did they whip themselves?
Was humiliation used as a punishment for talking at the wrong time?

These things were routine in other orders that I do know about.
I dunno, Gerry. I imagine women joined such orders knowing what was in store, and could leave.

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Gerard

Not according my sources Claire - leaving was next to impossible and "escape" (over the wall, as some did) meant excommunication.

Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Clare
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Gerard
Monday, 30. August 2010, 11:20
Not according my sources Claire...
And your sources are?

Maria Monk?
Chiniquy?
Jack Chick?
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Anne-Marie

Clare
Monday, 30. August 2010, 12:25
Gerard
Monday, 30. August 2010, 11:20
Not according my sources Claire...
And your sources are?

Maria Monk?
Chiniquy?
Jack Chick?
I was trying to stimulate a serious and adult discussion about nuns, not descend to juvenile comments like this!

PLEASE: :topicbaack:
Anne-Marie
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Gerard

Clare,

My sources are nuns in good standing with their orders. I will not volunteer names and addresses for them. Never the less you may not count them as nuns - they dont wear habits.

Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Clare
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Anne-Marie
Monday, 30. August 2010, 12:38
I was trying to stimulate a serious and adult discussion about nuns, not descend to juvenile comments like this!

PLEASE: :topicbaack:
Pot kettle!

Flat earth, Anne-Marie. :wh:
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Gerard

Maria,

I am able to see the attraction in the life of a nun - particularly after the nonsence you describe has been stripped away. However, that still leaves the problem of celibacy and the loss of family life which I think puts more off from joining today.

I think the movements are, to some extent, todays answer.

Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Clare
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Anne-Marie
Monday, 30. August 2010, 12:38
I was trying to stimulate a serious and adult discussion about nuns, not descend to juvenile comments like this!

PLEASE: :topicbaack:
Pot kettle!

Flat earth, Anne-Marie. :wh:
S.A.G.

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