Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1890-03-19
DEAD TO THE WORLD.

DEAD 70 THE WORLD.
Nanneries which Arc Closed Even 70
SIR .5l. Priests and Bishops.
a severe order near enough to Brook
lyn to have It's workings observed by
visitors is the Sisters of st. Dominic, Of
the converts at Newark, N. j., and
Hunts Point, N. Y. &,rse ~z .s
This order is one of the strictest in
the church and the Hunts Point House
Will De branch Of the convent estab-
lished In Newark, N. j., by Archbishop
Corr1gan when he was Bishop of that
see. The sisters are strictly cloistered
ana see visitors through double grill,
there being at least q foot and half
space between the two lattices, and they
keep their faces vailed while talking.
Their dress consists of q white flannel
habit and black vail. They wear the
habit day and night. They sleep in q
narrow cell, the furniture 'of which
consists of wooden bed with husk
mattress and pillow, wooden table, q
large crucifix and statue of the Blessed
Virgin ind q wooden washbowl They
60 to bed at $3.50 o'clock and rise at mid
night to sing the mathis of the Office, in
Latin, until two a. M; then they go
back to bed until $40 a. M, when they
attend mass and sing another part of
the office until eight o'clock. Break
fast Is next served. 1t consists of a cup
OF black coffee and y piece of bread.
This disposed of they retire to their
cells until $40 O'clock, when they as"
semble in the community-room to work
until 1880. A dinner of vegetables, fish
or eggs, and bread is next eaten. They
never use meat. The table furniture is
of wood-both forks and spoons. Every
thing they eat must be begged by the
lay sisters. From one to two p.
M, they keep silence, and then work
and the chanting of the office take up
the rest of the afternoon. After supper
they sing vespers and then go to bed at
half-past eight o'clock. No outsiders,
not even the lay sisters, are allowed in
side the cloister, and the Bishop can
enter only once year. The doors all
have double locks, one on the inside
and the other on the outside Of the in
closure. Any Catholic who enters the
cloister without permission incurs ex-
communication. The chaplain or priest
can not enter the part Of the chapel
where the nuns are. Even the Bishop
when the inmates are electing their SUI
perior must take the votes at the grill.
In case of sickness, when it is necessary
to call priest or doctor to the cell, they
have to be accompanied by two Of the
elder sisters. Otherwise no one ever
crosses the line of the cloister. The
visitation nuns of the Clinton avenue
convent in this city observe these strict
prohibitions of the cloister in a modi-
fed manner, so as to be able to teach.
The Dominican nuns keep up perpet-
ual alteration of the Blessed Sacrament
in their chapel, two of them kneeling
before the altar in prayer day and night
This takes thirty't1ve sisters. In addi-
ton to this perpetual prayer the work
these nuns do consist in embroidering
vestmentsand making altar linen. They
wear a peculiar kind of shoe made OF
hemp, which they manufacture them
selves.
As in dress and objects of the several
orders their methods of receiving postu-
lants also differ, but they are essential
features common to all. The cutting of
the hair is done in all orders, and in q
most ancient custom. From the primi-
tive times when virgin consecrated
herself to God, her hair was cut off.
This ceremony is mentioned in the lives
of St. Syncletica Fourth century, and
st. Gertrude of Nivelle Seventh cent
ury). Nuns take solemn vows binding
for life, but members of the modern
communities, like the Sisters of Char
ity, St. Joseph, ETC., take VOWS only for
a year and renew them annually on
some special day. In the ceremony OF
profession the novice is covered with a
pail to signify her death to the world,
while the choir and attending nuns
chant the De Profundis and TIE Deum.
That is what probably gave rise to the
question about the coffin. In Rome
there is contemplative order so strict
" cloistered that they are called Sep
ulta Viva-the buried alive-so dead
are they to every. thing in the outside
world,-Brooklyn Eagle.