The Brother’s Habit: “ I Belong - Our Job’s Important!”

Everyday in our world we see and meet people ‘dressed for the occasion’, whether it be in the office, in ‘Colesworth’, or at a wedding. Lawyers, the military, mayors, trade workers, the list goes on: people are showing, in formal or work arenas, that they belong; that they are distinct from other groups. Similarly with the Brothers, and other religious associations in the Catholic church.

The culture of Papua New Guinea is very different to indigenous Australia, or Pakistan, or New Zealand Aotearoa. Social custom, religion, history evolve or impose rules and ways of living. And it is not solely identity, but also the job, the duty, the responsibility.

Lived Experience:  Brothers’ White Robe Wearing Today

People from a Western world background – Australia, New Zealand & (by extension) PNG -often have a more relaxed and varied dress culture. The District today, apart from Pakistan, usually has this mindset. Brothers generally wear a white “robe” to show their identity and employment for quite formal in-church liturgies and events. For more regular religious occasions – weekday Masses etc., many Brothers, now retired - wear casual dress, sometimes with a bare cross or crucifix on the lapel, or one hanging around the neck. There are no watertight rules in this regard.

Brothers teaching in schools usually wear the white robe. Street wear in the wider community can be collar/tie, or a dress suit for more formal wear. One might argue, as the Vatican has, that the power of witness to religion is diminished, without the distinctive religious habit worn in most situations.

In Pakistan, Brothers wear the white robe in the school and church, and perhaps the black robe on important church occasions. Outside the community or school, they dress in the traditional ‘shalwar kameez’.

Lived Experience of the Church:  “The Habit does not make the Monk”?

The Brothers, as part of the Catholic Church, have centuries of history and tradition. Essential to church practice is proclaiming and living the Gospel; martyrs, monks, priests, religious orders, lay associations and missionaries emerged over 2,000 years. Religious congregations quickly adopted a form of dress to distinguish them from others, and to proclaim their adherence to Jesus Christ and to their united communities. The religious habit was, and still is for the Brothers, the external sign / symbol of consecration to God, and a ‘witness’ to Christ as a professional teacher. The official garb is “the robe and white rabat” (Rule, art. 26).

In modern times, with the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), interior renewal, by returning to the founding sources, and adaptation to the world were hallmarks. To retrieve the founding spirit better, the De La Salle Brothers also reflected, adapted and engaged in revitalized ways with the world around them. Part of this were new ways of presenting the Gospel, e.g. incorporating lay teachers in “sharing the mission”, in new work for the poor etc.

Lived Experience: From Black to White

Local superiors and chapters could allow more appropriate dress. By the later 1960’s the ANZPNG District (at the time) allowed the white robe to be worn in school and the Brothers’ community, rather than the traditional black. The reason was climate, and perhaps cleanliness and convenience. It was immediately adopted in PNG. One story goes that Br Anthony (‘Bruv’) took a higher superior from Rome in his black habit on a strenuous walk in mid-afternoon in PNG. This apparently convinced the superior that a light white habit might be more sensible in the tropics. Gradually, Australian communities changed to white robes for many Brothers.

Another reason for the change may have been so as not to be confused with priests, who wore a black soutane, this at a time when Brothers saw themselves as very much lay, in status. Some may also have felt that they could communicate and engage with young people better without a very formal-looking black robe. Certainly for street wear the black ‘clerical suit’ with its celluloid ‘dog-collar’, as it was called, was standard dress for Brothers and priests, before the sixties. This author remembers in 1969, moving happily as a student Brother at university, from the clerical suit to a bone-coloured jacket and black trousers.

Lived Experience for First Brothers:   Meaning and Witness  

In the 1680’s, with 7 or 8 schools in the poor schools of Reims and surrounding towns, John Baptist knew there was “no bond between these men (the first teacher recruits) except their allegiance to him personally (and)..a certain discipline in their lives” (Battersby). In his view the purpose was not just teaching the 3 R’s, but giving a training in religion, morals and good behaviour. They needed to be good men, and qualified for the work. An assembly of 17 days of a dozen of the best masters in May 1684 agreed after some time in recollection that they would take temporary vows for one year, with obedience to a superior, and that he would be tasked with designing a religious habit that they would test out. They already wore a white collar (a ‘rabat’) and  a dark doublet.  

Because of that year’s freakish severe winter, the Mayor of Reims suggested a thick, warm mantle (the capote worn by the poor), as they had to walk through town to their schools. In John Baptist’s Memoir on the Habit (1690) he describes a sort of robe to match the mantle: “The habit of this community is a sort of soutane which reaches to the calf of the leg…fastened by hooks on the inside. (It)…is called a robe in order to distinguish it from the ecclesiastical habit”.

The new experience was far-reaching in effect: “Since the adoption of this habit no one has applied to enter with any other idea than that of joining a community, and of remaining there for the rest of his life. Salaries are unheard of, and it is esteemed a great honour to be accepted”. The shoes were big and clumsy, like those worn by the poor, and a wide-brimmed black hat, not fashionably gay and coloured.

The result for the masters: cat-calls, public mocking by shop-keepers, and for De La Salle himself, anger and shame of his friends for bringing disgrace on his family. For him, “this coarse and simple habit gives an outward air of piety and modesty*…(and that the masters) have embraced a life of perfection”.     [*great virtues in 17c. France]

It was a practical, but countrified outfit – cheap and rough-made. It was one that bespoke living together as a group, with no high status, but serving the poor. They were laymen, not priests. Without church or state recognition, it witnessed an identity, and a specific community with a definite occupation (Calcutt & Goussin).

So, the Brothers’ habit taken on, proclaimed a community for a clear purpose, a stable way of life, and a living as ordinary, poorer people, focussed on searching for God in their lives. This meaning and witness is why the habit remains a (hopefully) powerful symbol and sign for Brothers today. That clear purpose is shared in ‘association’ with lay colleagues.

Source: Br Gary Wilson FSC