{"id":93067,"date":"2026-02-02T13:15:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T12:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/le-comunita-francescane-locali-continuano-lantica-tradizione-di-cucire-a-mano-i-loro-abiti\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T19:08:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T18:08:39","slug":"le-comunita-francescane-locali-continuano-lantica-tradizione-di-cucire-a-mano-i-loro-abiti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/le-comunita-francescane-locali-continuano-lantica-tradizione-di-cucire-a-mano-i-loro-abiti\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Franciscan Communities Continue Ancient Tradition of Hand Sewing Their Habits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>Eight hundred thirty-four!<\/em> That is the number of habits that Conventual Franciscan Brother Augustine KELLY has made over almost fifty years of serving as a tailor for his community.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Brother Augustine, who ministers at the National Shrine of Maximilian Kolbe at Marytown in Libertyville, Illinois, USA, is part of an 800-year tradition of hand-sewing Franciscan religious habits.<br \/>\nHand-sewing habits has largely fallen by the wayside in many religious communities, so much so that Brother Augustine calls it a dying art. Even in his own community, he is one of the only people in the U.S. that makes habits by hand.<br \/>\nConventual friars around the world reach out to him, he said, adding, \u201cWe get requests from all over, especially friars passing through the country who stop by Marytown.\u201d<br \/>\nBrother Augustine is sharing his knowledge with a friar from Kenya, now on sabbatical at Marytown, who plans to make habits for his fellow friars when he returns to Africa.<br \/>\n\u201cNo friar knows how to make habits in Africa. There isn\u2019t. I have not seen,\u201d said Franciscan Father Boniface Nzioki MUIA. \u201cSo I should be the first one. I think more friars need to know how to make them.\u201d<br \/>\nBrother Augustine came to his role as tailor with some experience.<br \/>\n\u201cI was always interested in sewing and costumes and theater stuff as a kid,\u201d he said. \u201cThen when I became an altar boy, I was quite fascinated with the vestments. I was kind of self-taught.\u201d<br \/>\nWhen he entered the Order, he first taught high school. Then his Provincial asked if he could make habits. At the time, some religious women were making them for the community.<br \/>\nBrother Augustine always has other jobs in addition to tailoring, such as serving as sacristan.<br \/>\n\u201cTailoring was always my first love,\u201d said Brother Augustine, who has lived at Marytown since 1999.<br \/>\nFranciscan habits are in the shape of the cross, which is a symbol of taking on Christ\u2019s crucifixion. That hearkens back to the shape of clothing St. Francis donned after giving his life to God.<br \/>\nFrancis\u2019 original habit was very simple. That is not the case today.<br \/>\n\u201cThere are a lot of pieces to a habit,\u201d Brother Augustine said. \u201cIt takes me about 10 hours to make a habit.\u201d<br \/>\nLike many things in the life of a Franciscan, making a habit involves prayer.<br \/>\n\u201cWhen I begin a habit, I personally offer up the work and the time for all the intentions of the friar I am sewing for,\u201d Brother Augustine said. \u201cIt makes me feel like some of me goes with him in his ministry. And the friars know that.\u201d<br \/>\nWomen\u2019s religious communities have made habits for the friars in the U.S. over the years, which is probably why not many friars have learned, Brother Augustine said.<br \/>\n\u201cTo me, there is something really nice about having it made by someone in your own community. And the friars tell me that,\u201d he said.<br \/>\nWhile not required by his community, Brother Augustine wears his habit everywhere he goes.<br \/>\n\u201cI\u2019ve had very good experiences wearing the habit out in public. Sometimes people are just fascinated by it and they are drawn to you. And sometimes people will just say silly things to you because they don\u2019t know what to say and they want to break the ice so they can talk,\u201d he said.<br \/>\nLots of people ask for prayers, and he stops and prays with them on the spot. And if some people stare or get angry at him because of what his habit represents, he doesn\u2019t mind because there is a higher purpose at work.<br \/>\n\u201cIf for one brief moment someone\u2019s mind is raised, not because of me, but because of what I represent, raised out of this world to maybe something a little spiritual, that\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<br \/>\nReligious habits still hold the special meaning that they did in the time of St. Francis.<br \/>\n\u201cWe are both body and soul. What we wear certainly represents something, it speaks to something. And St. Francis wanted to wear a poor tunic to be a poor man to reflect our Lord\u2019s life that way. It\u2019s very recognizable in today\u2019s day-and-age that we belong to God.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">Excerpt from the \u2018Chicago Catholic\u2019<br \/>\nOn-Line Newspaper of the Archdiocese<br \/>\nJoyce DURIGA, Editor<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eight hundred thirty-four! That is the number of habits that Conventual Franciscan Brother Augustine KELLY has made over almost fifty years of serving as a tailor for his community. Brother Augustine, who ministers at the National Shrine of Maximilian Kolbe at Marytown in Libertyville, Illinois, USA, is part of an 800-year tradition of hand-sewing Franciscan [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":93063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,132,148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cff-en","category-federations","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93067"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93071,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93067\/revisions\/93071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}