Dressing for Church

I'm Ranting!

      I blame the Catholic Church.  Before the "changes" of Vatican II, going to Church was a dress up occasion.  No matter how poor you were - and we qualified - you wore your Sunday Best (that's where the expression came from) when you attended Mass or Service or whatever your particular Congregation Sunday morning Ritual was called.    In the 60s, when the Church said, women did not have to cover their heads in a Church anymore, off came the gloves - if you wear a hat, gloves are part of the ensemble - then nice shoes, slacks instead  of skirts.  It's almost a game to see how 'dressed down' a person can be in Church.
       Men and boys wore suits, or at least a white shirt and tie.  Women wore the best that we had.   What started me thinking about this was when I was in Florida recently, a family with teen aged girls walked by us  going up to receive ashes on Ash Wednesday and the young women were wearing short shorts up to the cheeks.  First of all,   the parents should have told them to go back to their rooms and change.  Note to parents:  It is okay to tell your children you don't like something they are wearing.  They get over it.  With daughters you are likely to have that thick tension filled silence but you just crank up your favorite music on the car radio and get on with life.
       Some years back, when we were starting the Trolley Tours in the City of Peoria, I attended a series of meetings at CityLink - the Bus Company.  While waiting in the lobby for a meeting to start, one morning, a very attractive woman in a silk like dress, hair and makeup perfect, said hello to me and I apologized because I didn't know who she was.  When she told me, I was shocked because she was a member of the parish and when I saw her at Church on Sunday, she was usually in jeans or Bermuda shorts and wore no makeup.   Come on people, when you attend Mass, you are going to see the King of the World - who is not Leonardo deCaprio on the front of the Titanic - but the Person who loves you so much He died for you.
        Before I go any farther, I must comment on the fact that for the most part, our Protestant Brethren still seem to dress more appropriately than we Catholics do.  Notice people attending other Churches, they can give us some pointers on Ecclesiastical Fashion.
         Okay, so I'm an old person but part of the problem in this country is we have lost pride.  Pride in how we conduct business, pride in what we achieve in education and pride in how we look and act.  You know that expression: "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" is so true.  As women, if we have pride in and take care of how we feel about ourselves first,  the rest of the family falls into place easily.
         And to those of you who say that the most important thing is going to Church, that Jesus doesn't care how we dress, you are right, Jesus loves you so much, He doesn't care.  But you should.