Lay Sisters
Lay sisters were found in most of the orders of women, and their origin, like that of the lay brothers, is to be found in the necessity of providing the choir nuns with more time for the Office and study. Often, they served as the "extern sister" of the community: the sister with the task of greeting visitors and handling relations between the cloistered nuns and the outside world. They, too, were distinguished by their different habit from the choir sisters, and their Office consists of the Little Office of Our Lady or a certain number of Paters, etc. They seem to have been instituted earlier than the lay brothers, being first mentioned in a life of St. Denis written in the 9th century. In the early medieval period we even hear of lay brothers attached to convents of women and of lay sisters attached to monasteries. In each case, of course the two sexes occupied distinct buildings. This curious arrangement has long been abolished.
Read more about this topic: Lay Brother
Famous quotes containing the words lay and/or sisters:
“We have not the motive to prepare ourselves for a “life-work” of teaching, of social work—we know that we would lay it down with hallelujah in the height of our success, to make a home for the right man. And all the time in the background of our consciousness rings the warning that perhaps the right man will never come. A great love is given to very few. Perhaps this make-shift time filler of a job is our life work after all.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“The miller quickly drew the dam,
An’ there he found a drown’d woman.
You cou’dna see her yallow hair
For gold and pearle that were so rare.”
—Unknown. The Twa Sisters (l. 32–35)