Catholic headcovering?

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Ok. I apologize for the Stockholm syndrome, I went too far. Please forgive.
Let us agree to disagree. Please go on wearing headcoverings, it is really none of my business.
 
There are 1 or 2 usually at masses I attend. I don’t veil, personally. My hair is pretty, but it is one head out of hundreds in the church. To me, wearing a veil would not be more humble because it would make me stand out, especially the veils which I usually see which are beautiful lacy pieces. I also don’t think it would help me focus because I am fidgety and would be constantly adjusting it or simply touching it.
If others wish to veil, go for it. I don’t feel it is necessary.
 
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Yes, I let myself be carried away. I am sorry. I still do not think that wearing veils is necessarily exactly an ideal thing, but I recognize the right of any woman to do as she pleases in this respect.
 
I am your brother in Christ 😀 and really, this is kind of battleground for me: My wife also wears head coverings and I do not exactly like it…
 
Constantin said:
this is kind of battleground for me: My wife also wears head coverings and I do not exactly like it…
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I sympathize with you. Sometimes I can also feel like the oddball out for being the only one to veil not only in my family, but in the entire church. I find it important to keep my eyes downward because it can feel embarrassing at times.

I discovered this interesting article here, you can read more about it if you like to maybe understand your wife’s perspective a bit more.


Cheers and God bless
 
This sort of question is a controversial one. I would say, personally, I believe that God would rather have women veil. It was kept as a tradition for about 1,970 years, then suddenly it was abandoned? I don’t know. It’s a woman’s choice to wear a veil, of course.
 
I love my veil. For one, it reminds me of the Seraphim who veiled their faces before God, and also the cloth that separated the high priest from the Holy of Holies. It also serves a practical purpose and cuts off my peripheral vision. It helps me to not get distracted by what’s going on around me and focus on the altar. My eyes like to wander! 😅
 
No one 😦 I’ve seen one person at another church, but never at mine.

It makes me kind of sad, because I think they are beautiful and wouldn’t hesitate to wear one, except that I don’t like to stand out. But I love them.
 
I just bought one myself, and this next Sunday I will wear it to Mass. I felt really awkward trying it on. But when I calmed down and just let the weight of the lace cover me, it was beautiful.
 
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I understand you how feel! My family is not Catholic, as I converted and fully entered the Church this past Easter Vigil…I started veiling before I was even officially Catholic and it made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I did not want to stick out since I couldn’t even receive communion at that time… but I truly felt the call to veil. Jesus was calling me veiling, and while it was the last thing I wanted to do, it was his desire for me to do so…but as long as one is doing for him then that’s all that matters <3
 
This makes sense too…this quote beautifully explains why I, personally, choose to veil.
Woman, because she was created by being drawn from man’s side, is constantly trying to return to him. She desires the original unity of one flesh and one bone. The desire for unity between man and woman is a mirror of the relationship between Christ and the soul. As woman longs for union with man in human relationships, she is also drawn to unity with God. He calls her to become one with Him: to come under His side and become flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone. This occurs during reception of Eucharist. The covering of the head with a veil symbolizes the reality of woman sheltered in the side of her Source and becoming one with Him. She becomes covered and hidden in her Divine Spouse. -“The Chapel Veil: Symbol of the Spouse of Christ” by Elizabeth Black and Emily Sparks.
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That was beautiful! Thank you for sharing that. And welcome home 🙂
 
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Constantin said:
I am not claiming head covering is not allowed. Just questioning the motives and reasoning behind all this. It´s chic in certain more trad circles, yes. But I have to inform you that for the majority of women in the church, it is no longer relevant at all…
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Well maybe it should be relevant for the majority of women. Just because we don’t have to wear head coverings doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.

What is your beef against women wearing head coverings anyway? You certainly seem to have one. And it goes beyond " questioning the motives and reasoning behind all this." You seem offended that a woman would choose to cover her head at Mass.
 
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In my parish I see an occasional woman wearing a hat in wintertime. Aside from practical uses, I don’t see the point of specifically wearing a headcovering for Mass. The obligation is no longer an obligation. In the early centuries of the Church, headcoverings were not a matter of just Church-time but for all excursions in public. Hence the headcoverings were tied to leaving the domestic hearth and had social significance (widow, single, married). The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explained that St. Paul’s injunction was a matter of “mere discipline” that is no longer valid today. I tend agree with that.

Personally, I don’t care whether a woman chooses to wear a headcovering or not. But it bothers me when men/women try to encourage women to wear headcoverings ONLY in Church (when the tradition was anytime a woman stepped out the front door) for pseud-traditional reasons. Other than St. Paul’s injunction, there are NO traditional reasons for wearing a headcovering that people are alleging today.
  1. headcoverings/veils were never worn to show that men and women are different. That is a modern explanation. The traditional explanation was to show submission not difference.
  2. headcoverings/veils were never worn to show that “women are sacred”. This is a modern explanation used to justify the practice of women wearing headcoverings in Church. Men and Women have the exact same dignity or sacredness given in baptism. If the sacredness of being God’s children is what is being celebrated and the only way of showing that is the veil or headcovering, then men and women should wear both a headcovering constantly thanks to their baptism.
  3. headcoverings/veils show that women are brides of Christ. Nope. Sorry. Not a traditional explanation and, actually, such an explanation demeans those who become the Brides of Christ through the consecration imparted by their bishops. Are women supposed to wear cassocks to show that we are priests of Christ by baptism? And men wear headcoverings/veils to show we are brides of Christ by baptism? Of course not! Baptism is the same for both men and women. It does not make a woman more of a bride of Christ than man or vice versa. There are articles floating in the internet that pretend that there are solemn blessings in the Pontifical of veils for the so-called practice of “veiling”… But these articles are incorrect. They make a critical mistake in that the solemn consecration in the Roman Pontifical is not over a veil but of a woman being veiled as a Bride of Christ in the solemn ritual of the Consecration of Virgins! It’s like saying baptized men need to wear cassocks because all of us are priests quoting words of conferring the cassock on someone from an ordination ceremony!
  4. vanity is served by associating “veiling” with the practice of “headcovering”. Particularly when people associate mantillas As “traditional”. This was not traditional. The early Church Fathers were talking about opaque veils for women that covered not just the hair, but often the shoulders and even face.
 
Would you mind posting the sources for your assertions? (I don’t mean this in a confrontational way, I’m really sincerely interested.)
 
That was what I saw when I was researching about it too. Most reasons used today are, like what you said, modern.

The biblical explanation points to submission but I am interested in the general practice of veiling (in Jewish cultures or the ones near them). I found that it was for modesty purposes as well as keeping dirt/sand out of people’s hair. I’m guessing all of this has an influence, but I’m not sure.
 
Alright. I have read a good deal of the Fathers of the Church and commentaries on law and liturgy throughout the Church’s history. I have never seen, up until the 1950’s or later, any commentary about headcoverings from serious theologians that used any reason beyond Paul’s exhoratation or the Patristic writings supporting Paul, to justify this practice. Most of the Fathers who wrote about wearing headcoverings talked a great deal about it being required for social reasons (e.g. women should wear to Church what they ought to wear out in public; if you are a widow don’t dress and wear headcoverings that suggest virginity and vice versa).
  1. I do not recall any writings until recent times (last 100 years) that remotely suggested that women wear headcoverings to SHOW they are women. That men are men and women are women was already taken for granted. In today’s world, it seems a bit bizzare to me that any rightly thinking woman would want to prove her sex by placing something on her head when her very being is a woman.
  2. A baptized non-consecrated woman is equal to a baptized non-consecrated, non-ordained man. There is nothing about the baptism of woman which confers a “sacredness” unique to woman which makes her instantly superior to men and therefore needing a headcovering. Far from it, the Fathers of the Church often viewed women as temptresses and seductresses and the headcovering was to help keep men from being tempted not because a woman was deemed “sacred”! Again, I challenge anyone to find serious theological works by reputable authoritative authors - in any language - before 1900 that speak of woman being by her nature sacred and thus needing to have a headcovering. You won’t.
  3. The veil given to Brides of Christ … the flammeum was given to sacred virgins of the Ordo Virginum on their day of consecration. Its specific meaning was to recall the bride-veil of Roman brides who had the conferatio marriage ceremony in memory of the high priest of Jupiter’s marriage. The high priest of Jupiter was not permitted at that time to divorce. Hence, the flame colored veil was worn for the day by the holy Bride of Christ for her wedding day to symbolize her indissoluble spousal union with the Lord, and then put that veil aside for the normal veil of her time which was worn 24/7, not just in Church because that was society back then. Someone, in the past century, somehow dug up the Pontifical Rite for consecrated Brides of Christ and
 
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