Profession II

The habit of probation that Capuchin novices wear in the United States consists of a complete First Order habit (meaning it has a hood), with a strip of fabric about as wide as the shoulders worn underneath the cowl that extends down to the cord in the front and the back called a caperone. When a novice makes his profession, the caperone is removed, thereby ceremonially investing him in the habit of the Order.

The caperone is a pain to wear. Mine was a bit longer than necessary and so it often would fall into the sink while I was washing dishes after dinner or plop squarely into the mashed potatoes during the evening meal. It would get caught up in the breeze and blow into your face and whenever you went out with professed friars (who were obviously not wearing the caperone) everyone saw the caperone and assumed that you were a member of another Order. I used to keep the front end of my caperone tucked into my cord so that it wouldn't fall in my food or in the dish water or in any other unpleasant places.

Pain though it is to wear, one gets accustomed to wearing it. It has its advantages, after all, because if you spill your soup down the front of your habit during a meal, the caperone prevents the habit itself from getting dirty. It can be a convenient hand towel to dry off your hands if there are no towels around. You can hide your hands behind it in the cold, keeping them just a little bit warmer.

This morning I woke up to go to Mass with two of my new housemates and when I went to put on my habit I instinctively reached up to adjust the caperone, which often was crooked after I put my habit on in the morning. It was then that I remembered yesterday....

The vows Mass was wonderful, albeit very hot. I was very proud of my mom, who proclaimed the first reading, and of my other family members for the level of respect they showed for the whole proceedings. I wasn't nervous (honestly!) until the procession began to form at the door of the church and the musicians began to gather themselves together. Then the organist struck the first chord and the first strains of the hymn began and the procession lurched forward. Then the nervousness kicked in. But I kept my cool and professed my vows as calmly as I was able.

My head is still spinning about the whole affair. I guess part of me thought that the skies would open up and a new revelation of God's glory would appear to me after I professed my vows, but, obviously, they didn't.

The truth is, though, is no matter how fast my head is spinning, I'm happy. Saying that means more than it might seem, not just because of my life before my conversion or even before entering the Order, but because what I mean by happiness is different than it ever has been. When I was growing up, happiness was defined by being everything I was not: I couldn't be happy as I was because what I was was undesirable and not good. I was no good, my place in life and the social hierarchy was not good. I could only be happy if I was different. I sought to be like the people I saw in movies or on TV.

My profession didn't open up the heavens, I didn't fall into ecstasy or see visions of the Blessed Mother or Francis, in many ways I stayed the same. My profession didn't change my tendency to be uncharitable, judgmental, or bossy, but what it did do was prove to me and to the world that God is love and that God works through broken, earthen vessels to make his glory known. My happiness comes from conforming myself to Christ, it comes from being more like Him and now I've promised to dedicate my life to being more like Him.

Thanks to be God who has called me to this grace. It is my sincere prayer that He who has begun His good work in me can bring it to its fulfillment.

(more to come...)


Pax.