Could We Re-Learn Respect & Modesty by Covering Our Heads at Mass?

Fantine, first we have to relearn canning and um sewing before we can stop grousing about altar girls.

Fantine said:

Could we re-learn tolerance and inclusiveness and respect by ending all the grousing about altar girls?

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I'm sorry but the Mass is not about tolerance, inclusiveness, and respect. The Mass is about God. People's thoughts about altar girls - whether they are for or against them, - should be based on something to do with the Mass, reverence, or Church teaching - not whether it's tolerant or not. If we want to be "tolerant", we should have female priests, - but clearly that cannot be. Just wanted to clarify.

isabella1 said:

You did not sound argumentative to me at all. I see that you were giving your opinion and viewpoint which makes great conversation, and always helps us to see things in a different light. I thought perhaps you were thinking I was narrow minded on the subject. LOL. I see you don't think that at all as well. Have a great holiday weekend.

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no I didn't think you are narrow minded I don't think I have a holiday weekend here, but I hope you have a great one

JoabAnias said:

She is Canadian.

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yup

Now that the bishops have reinstated fish on Fridays, the tradition of wearing a head covering at Mass could also be revived

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When did the bishops reinstate fish on Fridays? In fact, when was fish mandated any time by the Church?


Jim

That was done recently in the UK, Jim - not here. I'm not sure if it has taken effect yet, though. There may be a future date for it to be effective.

JimR-OCDS said:

When did the bishops reinstate fish on Fridays? In fact, when was fish mandated any time by the Church?
Jim

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Not sure, but I seem to recall something about it being reinstated in England during this past lent which this may be referring to.

Ya ya, not "mandated" per se';

The present legislation of Canon Law is as follows:
According to the apostolic constitution of Pope Paul VI (1966), "the law of abstinence forbids the use of meat, but not of eggs, the products of milk or condiments made of animal fat. The law of fasting allows only one full meal a day, but does not prohibit taking some food in the morning and evening."

Although not strictly obligatory, the observance of fasting on all weekdays of Lent is strongly recommended by the Church. This recommendation applies to the Marian Catechists.

One statement that is new in the Code of Canon Law declares that "pastors and parents are to see to it that minors who are not bound by the law of fast (eighteenth year completed) and abstinence (fourteenth year completed) are educated in an authentic sense of penance" (Canon 1252). This provision certainly applies to Marian Catechists who are in a position to educate young people "in an authentic sense of penance."

Brief History of Lent

I thought you had quit forums.

You missed the point.

When Friday's were days of abstinence, they didn't mandate eating fish, but abstaining from meat.

You could eat a peanut butter sandwich instead of a tuna fish sandwich.

Also, reinstating it is flawed in the respect that abstinence of meat on Friday's, goes back to the end of the Crusades where the Pope placed the penance as a sacrifice by the Church in order to keep the Holy Land open to Christians.

Ironically, the Holy Land stayed open up to the 1967 when it was temporarily shut down as the Jews and Palistinians turned into a blood bath of war, just the year following Pope Paul VI lifting the penance.

To me, reinstating the mandated penance is akin to Pharisees placing yokes upon the people which Jesus rejected.


Jim

On the other hand, considering how many people ignore prohibitions on birth control, how likely are they to pay much attention to their Friday menus?

And, with the food choices available to most westerners, how penitential is giving up meat on Friday, anyway?

We eat cheese pizza on Fridays in Lent. We eat on paper plates. 1) I don't cook. 2) I don't do dishes. 3) We like cheese pizza.

How penitential is having a night off for me?

Fantine said:

On the other hand, considering how many people ignore prohibitions on birth control, how likely are they to pay much attention to their Friday menus?

And, with the food choices available to most westerners, how penitential is giving up meat on Friday, anyway?

We eat cheese pizza on Fridays in Lent. We eat on paper plates. 1) I don't cook. 2) I don't do dishes. 3) We like cheese pizza.

How penitential is having a night off for me?

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True.

I didn't eat meat on Friday but made the sacrifice of having a lobster dinner.

Jim

Brikkz said:

Fantine, first we have to relearn canning and um sewing before we can stop grousing about altar girls.

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LOL, funny. That link is obviously not for you then.

Canning, sewing, and other so called domestic activities like gardening, quilting, candle making, etc..., have actually an art to them, and unless one is schooled from a young age in them, then it may be unlikely they will develop a liking for that type of activity. But there is always room to learn at any age.

Many parents introduce such skills to their young boys too. After all a young man needs to learn to care for himself and possibly his own family. If his future is gifted with a wife, and something happens to her (she becomes ill, or death), and he has young children, he will have to draw from his domestic training.

So don't knock being schooled in the domestic arts, until you learn, practice, and come to appreciate them.

Fantine said:

I never thought that women "learned" respect and modesty by wearing hats.

I thought that women learned respect when, as children, they saw their parents respecting other people, particularly other people who might be of different races, beliefs, or socioeconomic status. I thought they learned respect especially when their parents said something like, "We are all children of God, and all deserving of respect."

I thought they learned respect when they learned that respect wasn't something you put on every once in awhile and kept off at other times.

And, of course, modesty is an outgrowth of respecting oneself, and fathers can nurture that virtue in their daughters by letting them know how strong and capable they are, and focusing on their inner qualities rather than externals.

Any more questions?

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And we express those inner qualities by our external actions, such as dressing modestly and wearing (or not wearing, for men) headcoverings.

Brikkz said:

I won't go to TLMs because I don't own a head covering, cannot ever seem to come up with the funds to get one, do not have well behaved children, do not own hardly any dresses, etc. And from my understanding the TLM churches require women to wear dresses or at least it is preferred?

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Not every woman at my parish wears a headcovering, but most do. Not every family has well-behaved children, that's why there's a vestibule. Not every woman wears a skirt/dress, but almost all do.

We just tend to dress conservatively at church, with suits and dresses rather than shorts and tank tops.

But that should be true whether you attend the TLM or NO.

epiclesis said:

For some reason, all those families seem to have the best behaved children. Even if they're squirmy, they're at least quiet about it.

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I don't have kids so I can't comment first-hand, but I think that it's probably learned behavior. Kids learn that they should be quiet and respectful at Mass. If Mass is full of drums and guitars and people clapping, they think they should be rambunctious too. The only kids I ever hear at Mass are babies crying and most parents are respectful enough of other people to take their babies or other kids out into the vestibule if they are upset or out of control (though Father reminded us before that even if you have to go into the vestibule or outside with your kids, you are still at Mass, don't be chatting with other parents who are in the same situation).

Servus Mariae said:

At the Extraordinary Form I serve at and that my mother also attends, she does not veil.. in fact only 5-6 women do. Three elderly sisters and the others are middle-aged. There is generally a mixture of those in dresses and those in trousers (my mother usually wears her work clothing). The men are also mixed in their clothing with some in shirt and slacks and others in t-shirts and jeans.

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Are you talking about Daily Mass or Sunday Mass? Obviously, if people are going to work after Daily Mass, they often come in their work clothes rather than their Sunday best. The only thing that Father has brought up specifically was that shorts are never, ever appropriate at Mass -- even Daily Mass. But I wouldn't see a problem with women wearing slacks to Daily Mass if you wear slacks to work. Some people say that women should not wear pants at all, but I am not one of those people.

isabella1 said:

Here are some veils on line for sale. Remember when purchasing that usually only a virgin will wear a white veil, so any other color for a married or non virgin woman would be ok, including cream.

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I have heard that's not really true. I do see white among younger women and black among older women but nothing very strict. Sometimes I see women with different colors or even different forms (scarf, hat, mantilla) on different days.

Fantine said:

Could we re-learn tolerance and inclusiveness and respect by ending all the grousing about altar girls?

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I didn't know the purpose of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was to learn "tolerance" and "inclusiveness".

Fantine said:

On the other hand, considering how many people ignore prohibitions on birth control, how likely are they to pay much attention to their Friday menus?

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These are two different issues. Contraception is against God's Law, it is forbidden by God. It is not right to speak of this as a "prohibition on birth control" or a "ban on contraception" as the media likes to do. Birth control is a sin, simple as that and since God established it, it can never change. Abstinence from meat on Fridays, on the other hand, is a Church discipline and thus that can change.

And, with the food choices available to most westerners, how penitential is giving up meat on Friday, anyway?

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Some people eat meat every day. But at the very least, meat is a common celebration food (think like Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas -- even Memorial Day and Fourth of July barbecues). You should not be celebrating on a day of fasting and penance. If eating a cheese pizza is feasting to you, perhaps you should consider doing something that is actually penitential instead.

Michie said:

Now that the bishops have reinstated fish on Fridays, the tradition of wearing a head covering at Mass could also be revived

Having now read some of the blog posts at the (new) Association of Catholic women bloggers, I must apologise to the good lady who asked me to join it. At the time I saw it as a kind of breakaway movement from the proposed Guild of Catholic bloggers which has been discussed on the Herald blog site, and felt that we needed to be united, not divided. What I did not appreciate, in my haste to reject the proposal, is that it is not a question of ‘Either/Or’ but of ‘Both/And’. The Church is rich, diverse, and we Catholics have a multiplicity of different ways of communicating our common faith; thank God for it.

There are obvious difference between the posts on the Catholic women’s blog site and the Herald’s: the former is more personal in tone, less engaged in politics, less disputatious and argumentative, more concerned with sharing stories of conversion or ‘reversion’ and how faith is lived in family life and in adversity. In short, it points to the difference between men and women.



Continued- http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2011/05/25/could-we-re-learn-respect-and-modesty-by-covering-our-heads-at-mass/

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I agree, women could definitely re-learn respect and modesty by the veil, but sadly it was stigmatized by the modern women's movement, which effected the Church. Now we have women walking into Church with super high cut off shorts and low cut cleavage shirts.

I don't think Vatican II really did away with the veil, VII doesn't really say much anything about it. The problem happened when the veil obligation in the old book of canon law disappeared.It was written into the 1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 1262, that women must cover their heads -- "especially when they approach the holy table" ("mulieres autem, capite cooperto et modeste vestitae, maxime cum ad mensam Dominicam accedunt") .Many think it was mostly cultural pressure that caused this removal. But the old book of canon law stated that all women must veil before they approach the Eucharist.

Why Canon 1262 disappeared is really a mystery. But I believe it was cultural pressures at the time from people who wanted to stigmatize the veil in combination with liberals who infiltrated the Church who chose to ignore Canon 1262 when writing the new Code of Canon law. And canon law states that there must be definite reason why something has been abrogated from the Canon, with written official explanation, however for Canon 1262 there has been no explanation. The newer CCC says the veil was cultural, however St. Paul said that anyone who wants to dispute the veil should look at the custom of the Churches at his time, where it was fully adhered too. It definitely isn't just a custom issue, as St. Paul tells us in divine revelation that the veil has relation to things like the angels, authority, and modesty as well as the older Catechisms telling us this. As St. paul tells us, people who want to complain and be contentious should dispute it with what example of the Church at his time

[FONT=arial, helvetica, verdana, sans-serif] But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor the Church of God [i.e., if anyone want to complain about this, we have no other way of doing things, this is our practice; all the churches believe the same way]. Now this I ordain: not praising you, that you come together, not for the better, but for the worse. [/FONT]- [FONT=arial, helvetica, verdana, sans-serif]1 Corinthians 11:1-17

Here's a good quote from fisheaters:

[/FONT][FONT=arial, helvetica, verdana, sans-serif]According to St. Paul, we women veil ourselves as a sign that His glory, not ours, should be the focus at worship, and as a sign of our submission to authority. It is an outward sign of our recognizing headship, both of God and our husbands (or fathers, as the case may be), and a sign of our respecting the presence of the Holy Angels at the Divine Liturgy. In veiling, we reflect the divine invisible order and make it visible. This St. Paul presents clearly as an ordinance, one that is the practice of all the churches.

Some women, influenced by the thoughts of "Christian" feminists, believe that St. Paul was speaking as a man of his time, and that this ordinance no longer applies. They use the same arguments that homosexualists make in trying to prove their case. In this quote, homosexualist Rollan McCleary, who believes that Jesus was "gay," tries to show that Paul's admonitions against homosexuality were culturally conditioned
http://www.fisheaters.com/theveil.html

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Have not read this whole thread but it matters not to me if one is veiled or not. Love hats and mantilla's (sp?). But learning or re from wearing those? You have got to be kidding. No. What is put on or not on the head has nothing to do with modesty. Tis the proper covering of other body parts that says if one is modest or not. Wear or not whatever on your head but take care of the rest of your body which tells the real story of if one is modest or not...

I wish women would stop wearing tight jeans and even trousers to Mass.