Good Albs for Women

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ChemicalBean

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I’ve been thinking more and more about purchasing an alb for personal use, perhaps eventually for use in leading communal liturgy of the hours, or on the the unusual occasion of needing to lead SCAP or vesting as an adult server.

Obviously if I got one for personal use, I’d want it to fit me well and look good, with a cut or design more tailored to my feminine form, rather than something generically boxy, billowy, and sloppy.

Are there general style guidelines for liturgical albs in the USA?

The closest thing I’ve seen so far that I am drawn toward is this CM Almy | Woman's Dupreme Cassock-Alb

Please chime in with ideas!
 
If I may ask, what personal use would an alb give you? I’m coming up blank and I’m curiously nosey. 🙂

As for using it to lead something at your parish, I’m not sure that an alb would be right for that. In my experience, only altar servers, deacons, priests, or someone being baptized/confirmed on the Easter Vigil wear them. And at the communion services I’ve been to, the wife of a deacon that led it was in regular women’s wear. I may be missing something, but I do think an alb wouldn’t be the best choice.
 
happy cake day TWF

We don’t wear albs etc when praying communal liturgy. Monks and female religious wear habits if their order requires it. Priests, dependent on what they usually wear outside Mass. Otherwise its street clothing.

Do you pray Liturgy of the Hours now? In a community or alone?

Your link seems to be for ordained female religious of non Catholic religions? Are you asking from a Catholic standpoint or an other religion standpoint?
If its other religions , this might be better in another subforum. Titled female ministers or something
 
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ChemicalBean said:
I’ve been thinking more and more about purchasing an alb for personal use, perhaps eventually for use in leading communal liturgy of the hours, or on the the unusual occasion of needing to lead SCAP or vesting as an adult server.
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Personal use? Can you elaborate?

As for the other things listed, have you asked your priest about whether or not an alb would be appropriate? I’d hate for you to spend the money on one and then never be able to use it.
ChemicalBean said:
I’d want it to fit me well and look good, with a cut or design more tailored to my feminine form
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Liturgical wear is meant to flow over you. They aren’t meant to be fitted, attractive looking, etc…

I’d run all this by your priest and follow his direction.
 
No, this would be for use in a Catholic setting, adding solemnity to (hopefully future) communal celebrations of Liturgy of the Hours, possibly Liturgies of the Word, maybe in a rare case Exposition and Reposition of the Blessed Sacrament (without Benediction of course), and perhaps a really rare case of Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest.

I suspect there is more marketing to specifically women ministers outside of Catholicism because there would be a market for it!

Still, “An alb is an alb is an alb” because it is the baptismal of all the faithful. Common sense dictates finding proper length and that frumpiness does not glorify God. Yet, there are many styles to be found. Billowy and overhead, shoulder-closure, with or without cincture, collar roll, hood, etc.

So, are there style guidelines?

As to why one might have an alb for personal use, why not? Our church has only a couple because we don’t regularly have servers that wear them, and they are designed to be used under other vestments. They are decidedly more masculinely cut, infrequently cleaned, and therefore more masculinely sweaty.
 
Hahaha, whole hog not needed! Not a priest. Besides, the model should be wearing the stole under the chasuble. And those slippers?
 
Again, I suggest you talk to your priest about your thoughts. The liturgical garments you wear to church functions must be “approved” for lack of a better word by your priest and in some cases by your bishop. As laity, we do not get to “go it alone” in this matter.
 
Does your parish use standard albs for servers? If so, you want to get whatever they’ve selected. In my parish the children wear one standard style and the adults wear a different one. We wouldn’t have one person who stands apart.
 
ChemicalBean said:
They are decidedly more masculinely cut, infrequently cleaned, and therefore more masculinely sweaty.
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When are they generally worn in your parish? Just for altar serving? (Or a deacon assiting Mass.) Or do men wear them when leading a Communion service too?
mrsdizzyd said:
The liturgical garments you wear to church functions must be “approved” for lack of a better word by your priest and in some cases by your bishop.
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I’ll second talking to your priest especially to see if he’d be okay or not okay with it.
 
Definitely speak with your priest before making a purchase. Honestly, wearing a specially designed alb for the situations you describe in your posts is going to give the appearance that you want to be a deacon or priest.

I realize that is not your intention, but I think it would upset a good number of parishioners who saw you dressed like that.
 
Of course.

We don’t have mass servers, and we don’t have a deacon. We have more recently had a couple of lay men wear these albs while exposing/reposing the Blessed Sacrament. I thought back to when I also wore one of them to lead a communion service, and thought “gross…we could do better”! It has been suggested that in the more distant past we have had more regular communal celebrations of Evening Prayer (like for Advent or Lent) with a lay leader (is hebdomidarian the cool cat word for that?) vested in alb, with organized music/choir, with practiced readers, with incense and candles.

As one who has committed herself to praying the Liturgy of the Hours and would ideally love to see the parish church pray it regularly, I would be willing to step up, organize, and lead. But, I would also want it to be done in accord with the ways in which our parish has (presumably) conducted it in the past as described above.

So, in visioning this, with anticipation of a lifetime of service in sacred liturgy, a future with fewer priests and more parish clustering and closures, and greater need for lay leaders of worship, I thought I’d ask the CAF if they knew of norms or guidelines for albs for Catholic use in the USA.

I’m not seeing any, other than “consult your priest”, who may or may not have time for such trivia.

I suppose it is just a love for liturgical life and an expression of spiritual motherhood to step up and do my bit for the good of the Church.

The institutional church is in a mess. As several social media evangelists have said, I choose to stay and fight.
 
OP, I think you have good intentions, but this seems to smack of (unintentional) clericalization of lay people…
I’d lean towards finding a nice, modest outfit of some kind that you like (Comparable to a suit and tie for a man) and using that
 
ChemicalBean said:
We have more recently had a couple of lay men wear these albs while exposing/reposing the Blessed Sacrament. I thought back to when I also wore one of them to lead a communion service, and thought “gross…we could do better”!
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Thank your for that piece if background knowledge. It really helps to put your desire for an alb into context. I know that when I read the first post, my thoughts were that you were thinking of initiating something out of character for your parish. But knowing that it, from what you said now, is common for laity to wear an alb at your parish for services, it’s much clearer why you’re thinking about this.

And since it’s common from you’ve said (unless I’ve misunderstood again), I’d assume your priest already knows laity are wearing albs in those roles. The suggestion I’d have then would be to at least ask your parish’s office about getting an alb more suited for women. That way you’d probably save some money and if you ever leave the parish or another woman comes and also was going to be taking up some leadership roles, it’d be there for any woman that was going to wear an alb.
 
Thanks! Yes, we always hear about how the parish budget is tight this year, but that’s a reasonable suggestion to try for first.

So whether the parish would agree to that purchase, I take it there are no universal alb norms?
 
Since albs have not been worn by women historically, there probably simply isn’t a market to make them.

Almy, the company you linked, also makes vesture for Anglicans, who have women clerics. That’s why they sell them.

When leading the Divine Office, only a cleric sits on the presidential chair - laity leading the Hours simply sit in the nave with everyone else, in the first pew. This is simply a subtle reminder of the difference of a priest or deacon presiding over the liturgical prayer and a layperson leading other lay people in praying the Office together.

I do not have a copy of the SCAP here at home, so I’m not sure what it says about the person who leads, if they need to be vested or not.

I do share your thoughts on sweat-stained vestments, though. Some of our clergy simply drench the dalmatic, even with an amice and alb on.

I remain a sinner,
Deacon Christopher
 
Apart from servers at Mass, should lay-people be wearing vestments at all? Does this not run the risk of clericalising lay-people? Does it not also run the risk of setting some lay people up above others by appearing to show them in a semi-clerical role distinct from the rest of the laity?
 
Diaconia said:
I do not have a copy of the SCAP here at home, so I’m not sure what it says about the person who leads, if they need to be vested or not.
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I have my SCAP here at home, and in Appendix IV it says:

“38. When a Deacon presides at the celebration, he acts in accord with his ministry in regards to the greetings, the prayers, the Gospel reading and Homily, the giving of Holy Communion, and the dismissal and blessing. He wears the vestments proper to his ministry, that is, the alb with stole, and as circumstances suggest, the dalmatic. He uses a chair other than the Priest’s as a symbol that the community awaits the presence of a Priest.
  1. The lay leader wears vesture that is suitable for his or her function or the vesture prescribed by the Bishop. …”
As far a vesture that is suitable, item 30 notes that in the absence of both a Priest snd Deacon, those eho have been duly instituted for the service of the altar and of the word of God, (lectors and acolytes) are to be chosen first.
 
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