Before the Second Vatican Council, many communities had the custom of the postulant sisters wearing bridal gowns on the day of the reception of their habits. Sweetly dressed in white, each sister would process down the aisle, receive a new religious name, and then process out of the chapel, cradling a neat bundle, a habit freshly sewn. Today, this ceremony is much simpler without the taffeta and tulle but retains the same significance—here is a young woman desiring to belong exclusively to God with a heart undivided.

While our Holy Father St. Dominic chose white for the Order’s habit, it was another who fashioned the final design. According to Bl. Jordan of Saxony, our Lady, accompanied by St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Cecilia, visited a very ill Dominican friar named Bl. Reginald of Orleans in a vision and showed him the long white scapular she earnestly desired those of the Order to wear in her honor. She then cured Bl. Reginald, and he reported it all to St. Dominic, who promptly had the brethren don the white scapular. In this way, our Lady showed a particularly maternal affection for the Order of Preachers and completed the Dominican habit as we still wear it today over eight centuries later.

On the Solemnity of our Holy Father St. Dominic, our community experiences the special joy of watching our postulants kneel at the steps of our chapel’s sanctuary and with open hands and much excitement, receive the black and white habit. As she takes this next step in her formation, she begins to experience what Pope St. John Paul II in Vita Consecrata calls the “language of signs” by becoming a “clear witness…of consecration, poverty, and membership in a particular Religious family…” (#25). Like the grace of God, it is entirely a gift from the Divine Spouse and never to be taken for granted.