Proper Dress and Behavior for Catholic Women

  • Thread starter Thread starter adelore
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
happymommy said:
oh dear!! How could I forget that:eek: Another thing that doesn’t look good on anyone… SPANDEX:eek:
Click to expand...
Well, my dear, as you age you might discover the value of Spandex–to be worn UNDER the clothing, of course…sort of smooths out the terrain, if you know what I mean;)
 
CB_Catholic said:
Well, my dear, as you age you might discover the value of Spandex–to be worn UNDER the clothing, of course…sort of smooths out the terrain, if you know what I mean;)
Click to expand...
under clothes, yes:thumbsup: worn as clothes NO:nope:
 
happymommy said:
:eek: was that really needed?
Click to expand...
While I would have made the argument very, very differently, it makes a valid point. If you spend any amount of time around teenage boys, they’ll find something to catch their interest no matter if the girl is wearing pants or a skirt.
 
JReducation said:
One of the most elaborate and beautiful European traditions is the mantilla. What people in the USA forget is how and by whom the mantilla was worn and why St. Teresa of Avila abhorred it.

The mantilla was worn by Spanish ladies of the aristocracy over a very elaborate coif of hair adorned with pearls or other gems and an ivory comb to prop it upon their heads. It was accompanied by an ivory fan. The fan and the mantilla were used very seductively by young women in the marriage mart who would seductively cover their faces and send signals to their male victims with their large dark eyes.

Teresa of Avila once said that this was the biggest bunch of religious nonsense she had ever seen in her life. That’s why she changed the veil of the Carmelite nuns so that it does not flow over the nun’s shoulders like the mantilla does.

The Spanish women adopted this form of veil from the Muslims who governed most of Spain from the 7th century to the 15th century. The Mantilla is really a Spanish aristocratic Catholic adaptation of an Islamic custom. Catholic women in Spain wore it not only to mass but to fiestas and other events where women went to see and be seen.

The use of the mantilla as a religious veil was brought to the United States by the Puerto Ricans in the 1950s. The Mexicans introduced its use much earlier than that, but not as a liturgical garment.

Nonetheless, it is a beautiful European Catholic custom. But it is not a universal one. This is one example of many customs and disciplines that were incorporated into Church law when the Church was predominantly European.

The code of 1983 tried to take any unnecessary European customs out of the law and express laws and disciplines that are necessary for the universal Church. In doing so, some European traditions went out, because they did little for the universal Church, even though they were beautiful and some traditions from other parts of the world were included in the revised code, because they are good for the entire Church.

Church history is very beautiful and very interesting.

Fraternally,

JR 🙂
Click to expand...
If you are “Jr.” Education, I’d really like to meet the “Sr.” some time, too. Wow. 👍
 
57classic said:
Have you considered that getting under a skirt is a lot easier than getting a pair of jeans down???
Click to expand...
Not if you wear underwear, hose or tights (or spandex bike shorts underneath the skirt, if you need to be climbing ladders).😉
 
brigid12 said:
Not if you wear underwear, hose or tights (or spandex bike shorts underneath the skirt, if you need to be climbing ladders).😉
Click to expand...
Or those leotard like leggings that were really popular in the 80’s.
 
brigid12 said:
Oh, right. I forgot Coldwater Creek.😊 Good to know they’re pricing them better now (I hope it’s not just for tax season, tho’).
Click to expand...
I think it is the excess of inventory they have to deal with. Better to get anything for them than nothing, especially if the customers “discover” other retailers in the process.
brigid12 said:
Not if you wear underwear, hose or tights (or spandex bike shorts underneath the skirt, if you need to be climbing ladders).😉
Click to expand...
I couldn’t have gotten through gradeschool without pants that can be worn under a dress!
57classic said:
Have you considered that getting under a skirt is a lot easier than getting a pair of jeans down???
Click to expand...
It isn’t unusual for rape victims to feel safer wearing pants, particularly if they were wearing a skirt or dress when attacked. If I were made a travel through a rough neighborhood where I did not feel safe, I would not wear a dress. No way. I’d have on my pants and my running shoes, too.
This conversation is beginning to remind me of a comment my brothers made for my benefit from time to time:
“If women could read minds, they’d all wear burqas.”

Another is a story, variations of which go back as far as the desert fathers. Some nuns were travellng on a road. Some monks came the other way. The monks moved to the other side of the road as they passed the women. Later, one of the women got a chance to ask why. “To guard the purity of our thoughts,” came the reply. “If your thoughts were pure in the first place,” said the nun, “You would not have noticed we were women.”

There is a degree to which dress which reminds someone we are women at all is tempting. We have to dress modestly, but there gets to be a point where the ball of temptation is in the man’s court. He’s the one ultimately responsible for his own thoughts.
 
I believe this should be about proper dress and behavior for Catholic men and women.

But is this really the big concern in the Catholic Church? I think not. I appreciate the concern on this topic but there are so many others that need conversation and action to actually help people come to Jesus - maybe we should look at things from that angle?
 
happymommy said:
:eek: was that really needed?
Click to expand...
I apologize for my bluntness. This is a subject that frustrates me greatly.
It seems those who are so inclined to limit women’s apparel and their behavior in the name of modesty also overlook the need for personal responsibility on the part of men.
For as many women who will burn in hell for tempting a man regardless of what she was wearing, there will also be parents of boys right beside her for neglecting to teach their sons self control.
How many male saints railed against women? I can think of several.
How many female saints blamed men for all the woes of the human race? Can’t think of one.
Men start all the wars! When men are the only ones in power, who can be blamed but men?
Adam did NOT have to eat that apple you know. The woman, she MADE me do it. Genesis obviously being written by a man, did not have God say, stop tattling, we are talking about what you did not what she did.
This is the only stumbling block I have in my faith. It is so out of whack that a just God would allow 1/2 of the population to blame their bad behavior on the other 1/2. But then it seems nearly all religions are like that and I won’t throw away the truth for something I just don’t understand but believe me, the second I get the chance I will ask the Lord if all those men who wrote Scripture weren’t bending His words just a bit.
I realize St Augustine and St Francis and St Facare are saints but they were not perfect.
 
I will note that just as woman are supposed to dress modestly, both men and women are not to share immodest images, pictures, etc. with one another. :mad:

Sin can come from the man or the woman with modesty, certainly.

I haven’t noticed one sidedness on the subject of modesty on this forum so far, and on this thread if anyone thinks it is frankly I think that is a preconcieved notion you have that you need to uproot. When you start knocking the saints and you’re so far from being one you need to take a good hard look at your own self! God help you!
 
Shin said:
I will note that just as woman are supposed to dress modestly, both men and women are not to share immodest images, pictures, etc. with one another. :mad:

Sin can come from the man or the woman with modesty, certainly.

I haven’t noticed one sidedness on the subject of modesty on this forum so far, and on this thread if anyone thinks it is frankly I think that is a preconcieved notion you have that you need to uproot. When you start knocking the saints and you’re so far from being one you need to take a good hard look at your own self! God help you!
Click to expand...
How can sin come from the man or the woman with modesty? If a man or a woman is dressed modestly and behaves modestly and another person lusts for that one in their mind, how on earth did sin come from the man or woman dressed modestly?

I have taken several good hard looks at my own self and find myself lacking and am working on many areas (working out my salvation in fear and trembling). The saints are human, were not perfect, only Christ is perfect. Even the Virgin Mary was humble enough to pray God’s will in all her life. What i am saying is that even the saints had pet peeves:

He never allowed any woman to enter the enclosure of his hermitage, and Saint Fiacre extended the prohibition even to his chapel; several rather ill-natured legends profess to account for it

Now why, if God’s word is to be spread to all people would this holy man have excluded women from his chapel? Am I judging the past by today’s standards or did this saint have something against women? St Augustine delt rather harshly with the Celtic people who had women in their councils and in positions of leadership. No I can’t cite the work, I read it years ago and am wracking my brain for the title. There are male saints who while having attained their heavenly crowns did leave teachings that have been (mis)interpreted as antiwoman.
 
57classic said:
There are male saints who while having attained their heavenly crowns did leave teachings that have been (mis)interpreted as antiwoman.
Click to expand...
St Augustine was pretty anti women. As you said they were not necessarily prefect, his misspent youth colored the way he viewed women and the purpose of sex and sexuality the rest of his life. He was flat out wrong on many of the things he thought on that regard.

I think the bottom line is, in today society men have to guard their own eyes because sex is everywhere whether we like it or not. If the woman in Mass next to you is causing you temptation because you can see her elbows or bottom of her knee’s, thats his problem not hers.
 
LJN21 said:
St Augustine was pretty anti women. As you said they were not necessarily prefect, his misspent youth colored the way he viewed women and the purpose of sex and sexuality the rest of his life. He was flat out wrong on many of the things he thought on that regard.

I think the bottom line is, in today society men have to guard their own eyes because sex is everywhere whether we like it or not. If the woman in Mass next to you is causing you temptation because you can see her elbows or bottom of her knee’s, thats his problem not hers.
Click to expand...
Thank you, that was what I was trying to convey.
 
LJN21 said:
St Augustine was pretty anti women. As you said they were not necessarily prefect, his misspent youth colored the way he viewed women and the purpose of sex and sexuality the rest of his life. He was flat out wrong on many of the things he thought on that regard.

I think the bottom line is, in today society men have to guard their own eyes because sex is everywhere whether we like it or not. If the woman in Mass next to you is causing you temptation because you can see her elbows or bottom of her knee’s, thats his problem not hers.
Click to expand...
Agreed, however it is not love for your neighbor to make it harder than normal for men to achieve custody of their eyes.
 
brigid12 said:
Agreed, however it is not love for your neighbor to make it harder than normal for men to achieve custody of their eyes.
Click to expand...
I am not defending women who dress provocatively. I am addressing the attitude that women bear all the responsibility for a man’s reaction even if they dress & behave modestly.
 
If a man lusts after a woman in his heart, the Lord equated that with adultery. There wasn’t an exemption granted for her dress. A man has to do what he has to do to contend with his own temptations.

One would assume, though, that if a woman “lusts after” inappropriate attention from men, even though not “asking for” a physical expression of it, that is wrong, too.

Besides this, we should strive not to be a near occasion of sin for anyone, but should take the weakness of others into account when using our liberty.

Having said that, there is a limit to what a woman can do without giving up more than it is appropriate to give up. I am impressed by the piety of the burqa, but excepting the few called to an extraordinary degree of “being set apart”, I think it would set us apart more than the Lord intended. I take this from his willingness to talk to women alone, with them sitting at his feet, letting them touch him in intimate ways (washing his feet with the hair), and so on.

I don’t think pants are inherently masculine nor inherently provocative. This is not to say that there aren’t places in the world where I would refrain from wearing pants, because of the prevailing standard of what is and is not women’s clothing.

Certainly the artists from times well before the modern era who rendered statues of Our Lord and Our Lady and others of the Biblical era did not think that having the exact same cut of clothing renders the clothing androgynous, since the women are not always depicted with veils. From that, I think it can be fairly argued that one may hold that there may be an overlap in style between men’s and women’s clothing and still claim to have a “traditional” attitude on the subject.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top