A decision by Myanmar’s Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions to dress in civilian clothes almost a decade ago is still not fully accepted by laypeople, the sisters have found. The Sisters, who mostly work in Pyay diocese, decided to discard their habit in favor of the traditional Myanmar longyi (sarong) and blouse in 2000 to better integrate with the people they serve.
However, their decision to wear civilian clothing is still being viewed with mixed feelings by laypeople.
Mary Ann, 65, a parishioner of St. Francis Church in Pyay diocese, said, “Although youths can accept them as nuns without the habit… I still want them to dress like nuns as they are not ordinary people. They are people who have dedicated themselves to God.”
Geraldine Zin Mar Lwin, 40, a laywoman from St. Paul’s Parish, also in Pyay diocese, agreed. “We don’t want them to dress like ordinary people as they are Religious.” She conceded, though, that it is more practical to wear civilian dress as “the weather is very hot and humid”.
Explaining her congregation’s decision, Sr Noreen Htun, 62, said that wearing local dress helps nuns integrate better with people, and makes it easier for the nuns to “approach them and work with them.”
In 1986, she started to wear a brown longyi and the traditional long-sleeve blouse while still wearing her veil. She said that when she “attended formation courses in Bangladesh and India,” she saw nuns from her own congregation “wearing their own cultural dress.”
Four years later, the longyi became the norm in her congregation, except for nuns over 60 years of age.
Another nun, Sr Rita Phyo recounted an incident in 1998 when they went to work in Rakhine State, where most of the people are Muslims. “At that time we were still using veils and some people thought we were Muslim women,” she recalled.
Soon, local superiors decided to do away with the veil “and from 2000 all our nuns began wearing the local civilian clothing - longyi and blouse,” she said.
The only item which distinguishes them as nuns is a cross they wear around their necks.
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