Old-fashioned trunk-centered simplicity
I admire my sisters’ tales of trunks.
Long before I entered the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration – and long before Vatican II for that matter – the common, communal practice was that every sister had to fit all of her personal property into one trunk.
Our Franciscan lifestyle is an itinerant one. As sisters we frequently move for ministry. For much of our community history, sisters moved from one ministry site to another after just a year or so. They’d move by train, and all of their possessions would move with them in the one trunk. It was an economical and practical way to do things, and such a practice permitted ease for living a simple life of Franciscan poverty.
The trunks contained three black and white habits, an extra pair of shoes, undergarments, and some prayer books. The trunk also held whatever supplies needed for…
[This is the beginning of my latest column for the online newspaper, Global Sisters Report. Continue reading here.]
Thanks Sr. Julia. I love the bridge that you create from an earlier era to these current days. And I love the kinds if questions that you ask, showing your own evolution through questions. Perhaps the simple life (with varied interpretation) is the most clear and abundant life possible. This is my experience. Thanks for stirring these (as one who also recently did some parring!).