Habit
The Rule of St. Benedict does not stipulate a particular colour for the monastic habit, and the habit of unbleached, undyed, wool has not been unknown among Benedictines. However, the colour most associated with the Benedictine tradition is black, (hence the name "black monk" used to refer to a Benedictine monk), and that is the colour currently worn by Orthodox Benedictines.
The first layer of the habit is the tunic, which is secured in place by a belt. This is the form of habit worn by oblates during their period of novitiate. The next layer is the monastic scapular, which is a tabard-like garment worn over the tunic. The tunic, belt, and scapular, (with a head-veil for women), form the complete habit worn by oblates while in the monastic enclosure and by monastics during the nNovitiate. Outside of the monastery, the oblates simply wear a reduced scapular and the Saint Benedict Medal under civilian clothing. When the monastic makes his solemn profession, he is tonsured and invested with the cowl.
Monastics and oblates alike, upon their repose, are buried in the habit proper to their order.
Read more about this topic: Order Of Saint Benedict (Orthodox)
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—Barbara Tuchman (19121989)
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Sweet, quiver-soft, irrelevant. Not essential.
Only a habit would cry if she should die....”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“Public morning diversions were the last dissipating habit she obtained; but when that was accomplished, her time was squandered away, the power of reflection was lost, [and] her ideas were all centered in dress, drums, routs, operas, masquerades, and every kind of public diversion. Visionary schemes of pleasure were continually present to her imagination, and her brain was whirled about by such a dizziness that she might properly be said to labor under the distemper called the vertigo.”
—Sarah Fielding (17101768)