Lay sister
Lay sister (lat. Soror laicale , donata or conversa ) was a form of life for religious sisters within a religious community . In contrast to the choir sisters, who were also active as teachers or during their studies in some orders, the lay sisters were responsible for the simple, mostly physically strenuous work in the house and garden or looked after the gate or ran errands in orders with a so-called papal cloister .
The distinction between choir and lay sisters only existed in the monastic and some active orders . It was originally based on the fact that the choir sisters were often noble and could read, while the lay sisters often could not and were usually less educated. The choir sisters had more extensive prayer obligations and prayed the great choir prayer in Latin, the lay sisters, on the other hand, prayed an hourly prayer, reduced in scope and effort, in the national language or, in some places, instead of the daily hours of the hourly prayers in German Our Father or the Rosary . In contrast to the choir sisters, lay sisters often only made simple vows instead of solemn vows.
The lay sisters also differed from the choir sisters in a different costume . In some religious orders they had no right to vote in the chapter .
In the course of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council , the religious orders were asked by the Holy See to increasingly turn to their origins and to renew their constitutions . Therefore, the distinction between choir and lay sisters was abolished. Today all members of a convent with solemn profession in the chapter are entitled to vote, have the same rights and prayer obligations.
Individual evidence
- ^ Kohl, Wilhelm (ed.)., Germania sacra, the dioceses of the church province of Cologne , Vol. 1 De Gruyter, 2009, p. 138
- ↑ Pius XII. Apostolic Constitution Sponsa Christi , 1950, nos. 28-29
- ↑ Pius XII. Apostolic Constitution Sponsa Christi , 1950, nos. 28-29
- ^ Philip Hofmeister, Reform of Vows of the Order , In: Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift , Vol. 4, No. 3, 1953