Does He Drop the Habit?

Brother Augustine Marie Reisenauer, O.P.

Brother Vito Martinez is a Capuchin friar studying to be a priest.  Sometimes he wears his habit to his college classes, and sometimes he doesn't.  He noticed that people act differently around him when he's in habit.  So he questions whether the habit is a  bridge or a barrier.

Some people like them, others look at the religious in habit like they're from Mars. I don't know where to stand on this, because like Bro. Vito, I can see where people scatter when you wear it, but others go over and say how much they like to see religious in habit.

My experience, unfortunately, has been negative.  I've brought religious in habit out to eat and people look at us like we're the KGB.  One time I brought a student Dominican friar out to a restaurant.  I saw a lot of people I knew from work there.  The next day, one of my co-workers asked me who the sheik was.  You see, their habits are white, like you see Arab sheiks.  So those people who think that wearing a habit is giving good witness had better ask, witness to what.  The Dominican brother was giving witness as a Muslim in his "sheik robes."

Yes, I did have the opportunity to explain who Brother was and what he represented, but that was ONE person.  No one else asked.  Did they think he was really a sheik?

Even Brother Vito notices that it was when he didn't wear his habit, that his classmates approached him and asked him about it.  But in habit they stayed away from him.

So I guess you have to wear it half the time, like Brother Vito.