Getting confirmed next month - dumb, frivolous question

[Pixie_Dust]

No: maybe it’s not a joke, because it is reasonable to look sideways at such an expenditure even though such things are relative.

But this was one of the two most important days of my life, and I had chosen a style that could (and DOES) go for decades and is good for many occasions, I’ll be buried in it, AND there’s that bit about the $15 wedding dress AND having it custom made enabled the dressmaker to salvage the dress despite the damage . . .

Well, certainly if you’re going to get THAT much use out of it, the price was well worth it. I’m sure if we tallied up the average price you might have spent for a new dress for each occasion, it would exceed what you’ve paid for that one.

 

[OutinChgoburbs]

The point isn’t whether you CAN get it out – the point is that it’s chrism and must be treated as a sacramental. (But I’m not going to look over anyone’s shoulder.)

Didn’t think you were.

I think, as a cradle Catholic who was pretty well catechized, the good sisters who prepared us for Confirmation stated that once something is no longer used or useful as a sacramental, it is no longer “potent” as it were.

Even corporals, used to wipe the Precious Blood, are not buried or burned after one-time use. There is a method to wash them, soaking them in water then dumping the water on the ground or down a sacrarium, then tossing them in a load of wash in the washing machine.

I will look up the information, but it’s my personal opinion that instead of burying a perfectly good dress because of a chrism spill, it should be cleaned.

 

[mercygate]

Didn’t think you were.

I think, as a cradle Catholic who was pretty well catechized, the good sisters who prepared us for Confirmation stated that once something is no longer used or useful as a sacramental, it is no longer “potent” as it were.

Even corporals, used to wipe the Precious Blood, are not buried or burned after one-time use. There is a method to wash them, soaking them in water then dumping the water on the ground or down a sacrarium, then tossing them in a load of wash in the washing machine.

I will look up the information, but it’s my personal opinion that instead of burying a perfectly good dress because of a chrism spill, it should be cleaned.

You are correct about the washing of purificators and such. The problem is that with non-washable fabrics, the “system” doesn’t apply. I still have my “chrismated” sleeve folded up on the dresser. You wash things that can’t be rinsed in the sacrarium and can dispose of the rinse water in an untrafficked corner of the garden.

 

[OutinChgoburbs]

I asked the DRE at our parish, and Father, and a friend who works RCIA- and none of them are on CAF to my knowledge.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having an article of clothing cleaned that has chrism accidentally spilled on it.

According to Father, priests and bishops get chrism on their vestments, even though they are careful, and vestments are expensive. The vestments are cleaned at the local dry cleaners, which offers its services in the cleaning of vestments every couple of months.

In my opinion- While of course you were all moved out of devout piety, clothes with chrism on them can be cleaned, professionally or otherwise.

If you don’t like my opinion, Pixie Dust, you are certainly free to do what the others did, and bury your Confirmation dress or have new material put in it if the chrism should spill. But you might also ask puzzleannie (a CAFer who is DRE in Texas), FrCorey (a priest- who gets bad wedding stipends sometimes ), and CameronLansing (a deacon and canon lawyer of some reknown). They should also have something more authoritative than I.