Can a woman wear a veil if she also wears pants?

[FlowerofChrist]

I’m a 19-year-old college student and recently I feel the calling to wear a chapel veil when attending the adoration of the Eucharist and attending Mass. However, I do not know if it will not seem right if I’m just wearing the veil with jeans or sweatpants. The few ladies that I see wearing chapel veils are always wearing dresses. I’m in college and I don’t have the money to go and buy dresses because I’m on a very tight budget. I personally do not like to wear dresses and it would be hard to wear a dress during winter. I simply do not know if I have to wear a dress if I wear a chapel veil.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

It is nice that you like the idea of wearing a veil to Mass and eucharistic adoration. Two things first: One, please do not hyper-spiritualize your desire to wear a veil by equating it with a vocation. It is not a “calling” but a desire, one you are free to follow or to set aside. Two, please remember that the Church has never said that women who cover their hair must wear veils. Any appropriate headcovering, including hats, scarves, hoods, or wimples, sufficed when the Church legislated that women cover their heads in churches. Too many women these days evidently think that to wear a headcovering necessarily means to wear a veil.

As to your particular question, you are free to wear a veil with whatever you ordinarily wear to Mass, including pants. It is a good idea to dress as nicely as you can within your personal constraints, which might mean wearing slacks that are a bit dressier than jeans or sweatpants whenever possible, but there is no requirement that a woman who covers her hair in church must also wear a dress or skirt.