difference between religious brother & lay brother

[fin]

anyone knows? i've read that ST. Gerard was a lay brother.

[LilyM]

Well, 'laity' can be used in two senses. One sense is people who haven't received the sacrament of Holy Orders. So in terms of celebrating Mass, the ordained priests and deacons are the clergy, everyone else (nuns and monks and friars included) are laity.

In the second sense, 'lay' or 'laity' refers to people who are neither ordained NOR professed religious like monks and nuns. 'Lay Franciscans' or 'Lay Carmelites', for example, of the Third Orders of St Francis and Mount Carmel, are those who are neither ordained nor nuns and brothers.

In St Gerard's case it would appear that he WAS a religious, as is stated here, just not a priest.

[BarbaraTherese]

Monastic life used to be divided into two 'classes'. The choir nuns were fully enclosed and sung the Divine Office in choir. Lay nuns could go outside the enclosure for whatever purpose (authorized by their superior) and were often engaged in the manual and menial tasks within the Order. They were fully relgious as the choir nuns.
I am unsure if this division may have existed in the contemplative male orders also, it may well have.
Often the lay sisters were not of the educational standard of the choir nuns. I am unsure of what applies in all orders nowadays, certainly some contemplative orders have abandoned the distinction.



http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04340c.htm


In most of the older contemplative orders the choir nuns are bound to rthe whole Divine Office in choir. In only a very few of the English convents, e.g. Cistercians, Dominicans, and Poor Clares, do the nuns rise in the night for Matins and Lauds; in the others these Offices are generally said in the evening "by anticipation". In some there are other additional offices recited daily; thus the Cistercians and the Poor Clares say the Office of Our Lady and that of the Dead every day, and the Brigittines say the latter thrice in the week, as well as an Office of the Holy Ghost. Almost all the active orders, both enclosed and unenclosed, use the Office of Our Lady, but some, like the Sisters of Charity, are not bound to the recitation of any Office at all.

LAY SISTERS

In most orders the nuns are divided into choir sisters and lay sisters. The latter are usually employed in the household duties and other manual work. They take the usual vows and are as truly religious as the choir nuns, but they are not bound to the choir Office, though they often attend the choir at the time of Office and recite certain prayers in the vernacular. There is always a distinction between their habit and that of the choir nuns, sometimes very slight and sometimes strongly marked. In some orders where the choir sisters are enclosed the lay sisters are not; but in others they are as strictly enclosed as the choir nuns. Several orders have, by their rule, no lay sisters, among them being the Sisters of Notre Dame, the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Bon Secours, the Little Sisters of the Poor, and the Poor Servants of the Mother of God.

[fin]

I'm reading threads here. In one of them I read that a Catholic website was ran by a lay Carmelite nun.
How can a nun be a layperson?

[BarbaraTherese]

Originally Posted by fin

I'm reading threads here. In one of them I read that a Catholic website was ran by a lay Carmelite nun.
How can a nun be a layperson?

Hi Fin............The Carmelites here in Adelaide have lay nuns. The following quotation came from New Advent - and from my Post which precedes yours which explains all:
LAY SISTERS

In most orders the nuns are divided into choir sisters and lay sisters. The latter are usually employed in the household duties and other manual work. They take the usual vows and are as truly religious as the choir nuns, but they are not bound to the choir Office, though they often attend the choir at the time of Office and recite certain prayers in the vernacular. There is always a distinction between their habit and that of the choir nuns, sometimes very slight and sometimes strongly marked. In some orders where the choir sisters are enclosed the lay sisters are not; but in others they are as strictly enclosed as the choir nuns. Several orders have, by their rule, no lay sisters, among them being the Sisters of Notre Dame, the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Bon Secours, the Little Sisters of the Poor, and the Poor Servants of the Mother of God.