Last Christmas I took this photo of three Dominican Sisters together with some Filipinas. The picture was taken after the Mass in the makeshift church since renovations started in the main church. Today, after six months of adaptation here in Sihanoukville, I once again took their photo with the same Filipinas (with some additionals) this time in front of the newly-renovated church right after we finished the Mass. Can you spot the difference?
The religious habit is actually the symbol for poverty. During the middle ages (when most of the mendicant orders started) the habit being the same for all in a particular monastery or convent saw to it that no one was richer or poorer than the other brothers or sisters. Ironically, to have a religious habit made today costs more than the average man's clothes. Anyway, habit or no habit, Don Bosco once said: "It is not the habit that makes one a religious but virtue."