Pajama Church

[Elizabeth502]

Sid, I agree that those are vague guidelines. The way I interpret them is this:

We should acknowledge that, like Hanukkah, this day is different from “any other day.” (That’s an inside joke among Jews. ) If it’s different from just every other day, every other occasion, we dress, when possible, with some thought, some care, not as if it’s Pajama Day (an extension of my sleeping-in-on-Sundays opportunity), not Dirty Jean Day, not Fave Athletic Team day. Mass is not indistinguishable from all of my secular activities.

Sometimes this is not possible, such as I mentioned above. Better that people come directly from their day shift on Ash Wednesday wearing work clothes, especially if that’s the best or only time for them to attend without losing or jeopardizing their jobs, than to miss the beginning of Lent, i.m.o. – as long as the appropriate outward behavior is there.

One of the priests at one parish I attend likes to substitute for Holy Days of Obligation, Holy Days of Opportunity. (I know that Ash Wednesday is not a HDO; no need for the terminology police to step in here. )When we are conscious of any special opportunity, do we dress indistinguishably from every other day? Most likely, not. We dress & groom with some care. That was an aspect of the old – apparently now outdated – “Sunday Best.” For example, in Ireland long ago, Sunday was the day that girls curled their hair.

Sunday is an Opportunity, our opportunity. We’re not doing any favors to God or to the parish priest by just showing up in our Sunday Worst, not yet fully conscious from recent REM sleep, in what could be sleeping clothes. It used to be (don’t know if it still is) that priests and nuns said special prayers while vesting in habits and other daily or ceremonial clothes. That was an acknowledgment that the act of clothing ourselves has some real meaning to it, and is a potentially a “sacramental.”

Clothing, like behavior, is part and parcel of the consciousness of the special opportunity of Mass and of Christ’s presence and availability to us, that’s all.

 

[Elizabeth502]

^^(above). Meant Passover, not Hanukah.

 

[michaeldaniels]

In todays church…nothing would surprise me

What kind of church is this? I somehow doubt that any Bishop would authorize such a thing in his diocese…

 

[Tepeyac]

Why are you so obsessed with fashion? Perhaps you mean well, but you seem to think that I need a fashion lesson, when I don’t.

You made an assertion. I merely disputed your assertion and I gave examples.

You asked (perhaps rhetorically) why somebody would dress in informal attire and stated that denim is associated with manual labor and the ultra-casual. I pointed out in the present day denim has lost it’s strict association with manual labor and that at the present time (not 20 or 30 years ago) jeans have become accepted attire even in some offices.

I don’t know where you live, but I live in what is considered one of the most informal regions of the country. Jeans are not appropriate Business Casual attire in an office. I don’t care if they’re Guess Jeans. I don’t care if they’re Tommy Hilfiger. Jeans are more informal than Business Casual, universally in my very large metropolitan region, in the very offices where these parishioners work. (Not retail stores, not restaurants, not gas stations.) And if they were trying to make a fashion statement, dirty, faded, unpressed, sloppy-fitting jeans with athletic shoes, yard-work T-shirts, and the casual attitude that accompanies all that, does not cut it as a Mass fashion statement. These are not farmhands, migrant workers, or truck drivers passing through town. The reason I even brought it up is that frankly they were wearing them as if they were pajamas: they looked as if they basically just got out of bed in a Come As You Are mentality, with zero effort.

I also live in an informal region of the country. I’m not arguing that jeans fit traditional standards of office dress. I’m arguing that more and more those standards no longer apply everywhere all the time and I gave examples. As I mentioned before, if even a business magazine like Forbes is giving advice on how to wear jeans to the office then it means jeans are being allowed in more and more office environments. In that case it’s no wonder people who could afford to dress differently nonetheless wear them to church.

I didn’t say it was a good or bad thing and I hinted I might even share views similar to yours. However I think to act surprised that comfortable suburbanites wear jeans to church is like acting surprised that ladies wear trousers in public. That boat sailed long ago.

Fair question. Again, when one complements or mirrors the other, both are separately issues, actually. When the behavior is quite a contrast to the dress (whether it’s bad behavior in dressy clothes, or vice-versa), then the behavior I think should be the focus. Tonight at Mass there were various sorts of dress. Most people came from home (it was after dinner), and so were wearing typically “church clothes” (while not fancy), but many of us were coming from work. That meant I happened to be wearing a suit, while some were dressed “informally” and still others had their hospital scrubs on. For the most part, people were reverent. The thing that bothered me the most was not anyone’s clothing at all (I was too focused on the Mass as a whole experience), but I couldn’t help noticing, since I was up front, one child about 9 years old, who when receiving communion, threw the host up in the air and caught it playfully in her mouth, with a big grin, as if it was popcorn. I thought that was pretty bad.

Then why be so upset at the suburbanites in jeans? Two different groups (students and suburbanites) wearing the same type of clothing. You describe the first group as reverent and the second as not. What was it about the suburbanites, besides their clothing, that makes you think they had poor attitudes at Mass?

Another good question, to which I might have an answer: the students are very serious about this Mass. It does not attract anyone who wants a rapid in-n-out experience. They’re not attending out of “obligation,” but as a choice; thus, their attitude reflects that. There’s no grudging, “Gee, it’s my day off; why should I ‘have’ to go to Mass? To demonstrate my passive aggression, I’ll dress sloppily to indicate that I deserve actually to be doing something else.”

If this is how you view the parishioners at the suburban parish doesn’t this run close to judging peoples motives or do you observe those attitudes expressed in other ways?

 

[Elizabeth502]

What was it about the suburbanites, besides their clothing, that makes you think they had poor attitudes at Mass?

Their behavior. I covered that. The clothing, combined with the behavior, spoke volumes.

If this is how you view the parishioners at the suburban parish doesn’t this run close to judging peoples motives or do you observe those attitudes expressed in other ways?

I don’t know what their “motives” are. Passive-aggressiveness is something visually and orally observable; it’s behavior, not “motives.” Therefore it falls into the realm of a justifiable conclusion. (For example, if someone agrees to introduce you to a friend of his, but then couches that oral introduction with demeaning remarks about you, he is behaving in a passive-aggressive fashion. There’s no [inappropriate] “judgment” involved. You are within the moral sphere to conclude that he resented introducing you to his friend, especially if he had made no oral objection to doing so, but pretended willingness to do it.) Same for Mass.

As to the jeans, again you seem hung-up on this. Jeans are not appropriate attire in business offices in my region, no matter how “dressy” they are. Business Casual is defined as pants, but not denim. It wouldn’t be an issue with a congregation that didn’t possess, or couldn’t afford, Business Casual clothes. This congregation does and can.
Doesn’t mean I get nothing out of Mass there; I do. I just notice the great disparity between the paired dress/behavior there and the paired dress/behavior other places, including among a population with less income than that congregation.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I think to act surprised that comfortable suburbanites wear jeans to church is like acting surprised that ladies wear trousers in public. That boat sailed long ago.

Jumping to conclusions not based on anything I wrote. (Not “surprised.” Disappointed.)

It would be helpful if you didn’t read too much into what’s on the page. I can understand that you might have believed that I didn’t anticipate your “being on my side” (with regard to appropriate dress), but thrice now you have vigorously defended denim. (Who knew?)

 

[sidbrown]

You made an assertion. I merely disputed your assertion and I gave examples.

You asked (perhaps rhetorically) why somebody would dress in informal attire and stated that denim is associated with manual labor and the ultra-casual. I pointed out in the present day denim has lost it’s strict association with manual labor and that at the present time (not 20 or 30 years ago) jeans have become accepted attire even in some offices.

I also live in an informal region of the country. I’m not arguing that jeans fit traditional standards of office dress. I’m arguing that more and more those standards no longer apply everywhere all the time and I gave examples. As I mentioned before, if even a business magazine like Forbes is giving advice on how to wear jeans to the office then it means jeans are being allowed in more and more office environments. In that case it’s no wonder people who could afford to dress differently nonetheless wear them to church.

I didn’t say it was a good or bad thing and I hinted I might even share views similar to yours. However I think to act surprised that comfortable suburbanites wear jeans to church is like acting surprised that ladies wear trousers in public. That boat sailed long ago.

Then why be so upset at the suburbanites in jeans? Two different groups (students and suburbanites) wearing the same type of clothing. You describe the first group as reverent and the second as not. What was it about the suburbanites, besides their clothing, that makes you think they had poor attitudes at Mass?

If this is how you view the parishioners at the suburban parish doesn’t this run close to judging peoples motives or do you observe those attitudes expressed in other ways?

My observation is that in the Eastern Orthodox Churches in this local area, the faithful are dressed up in their Sunday best for the Liturgy. On the other hand, the Catholics, including those serving at the altar as readers, are very sloppily dressed and very casual about everything, including taking a few slugs of water from their water bottles at the altar at Mass.