Should Sisters Retake the Habit?

It’s the question I am asking in today’s column on the homepage, and I think it’s worth asking, particularly in light of the recent growth in vocations in habited communities, this study, and our own obliviousness:

[The] habit was a reminder to the community of faith, and to everyone else as well, that we are all called to simplicity and sacrifice—that for all of our Martha-instincts to work ourselves to death and carve our identities from what we “do,” we must cultivate our inner Marys as well, and embrace the challenge to simply be. Sister might correctly say that she was “nobody special,” but her habit was a witness to “being,” and it confirmed Christ’s covenanted life among us with a reassuring immediacy.

I expect to be dodging bullets all day, for this one! Go read!