Question on Covering

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grandfather said:
You are correct. I don’t use makeup. When I was in my late 30s I had surgery to remove the first of several cancers from my face. The wound was the size of a half dollar next to and below the outer edge of my eyebrow. When the bandage was removed immediately after the surgery my wife was in the surgeon’s office. I could not see myself, but only her reaction. She looked at me and gasped.

The surgeon said there would be a significant scar and asked if I wanted him to pull some healthy skin together to cover it. The extra cost was $1500 and I elected to forego it. It wasn’t the money, but I figured who cares if I have a scar on my face? My wife would get used to whatever I ended up looking like and I got her on the grounds of for better or worse.

Nevertheless if people have disfigurements that cause others to stare at them it is understandable that they would not want that kind of attention. I can’t imagine teasing someone in that situation, very cruel. Surely there are people who use cosmetics for this reason.

I suspect however that the vast majority of women who spend many billions of dollars annually on cosmetics are not disfigured or scarred. For some reason most women seem unhappy with how they look and want to change their looks so they apply makeup to accomplish the task. I am not sure that this makes them happy with their appearance, but they must think it is an improvement, or they would not go through the time and expense.

I was at a wedding recently. You get to see a crossection of ages. We sat in the church and watched the guests file in. Quite a few young women, friends or relatives of the bride and groom came in with their husbands and kids all dressed up.

Most of the young ladies were pretty heavily painted as expected so no surprise to an old geezer there. What was amusing though was the hair. It must have taken quite a bit of time and study to affect this new look, which I can only describe as total chaos. It looked
like they put some stiffener in their hair and went through it with a brush to make numerous swirls go in all different directions. I thought, what are they thinking? This is hideous. Where did this come from, some magazine or fashion authority no doubt.

Often when I am on an airplane or at a gate waiting to board there will be young women reading the fashion magazines, the glamor bibles. They pour over the poses and costumes and hair styles studying the “latest looks”. They don’t realize how free they would be if they ignored all this.

Again, do you think Mary would be into any of this?
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Really now. All you can do is speculate because you have no idea what her grooming ritual entailed.
 
Philotheatoo said:
On the contrary, because I went to Catholic schools and church at the time when veiling was required, it SEEMED/SEEMS more reverent to do so yet, there is only one woman in our strictly traditional Roman Catholic parish who does veil. I asked the Pastor how he felt about veiling…he said it was NOT a good thing, it usually draws MORE attention, which in turn leads to vanity. I can see his point. Although it seemed more reverent to me, I believe those are feelings left over from my school days and I surely do agree with him that it draws MORE attention. It is his parish and I choose to attend Mass there so, I do not veil. You should ask your parish priest how he feels about it.
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At two traditional parishes that I went to, they both had many women who veiled… in one, almost all women veiled. I don’t think it draws attention that way… if a woman wants to veil at the OF, she can maybe wear a hat or a scarf, or talk to her priest about wearing the veil.
 
reaganjn said:
this conversation took place when we clocked out. i work in a lab at a hospital in a secluded place in alaska. everyone is extremely relaxed there. if you dont develope friends in the lab or in the hospital and socialize, you will be a very lonely person here and face severe depression. but where i was talking about this is either here nor there…

i dont wear my parfume around her out of respect since it does make her sick, even though she thinks i drown myself in it which i do not…only one spray is good to last all day.

i am very proud of my catholic faith…i am a new catholic of only 3 years now. and everyday i have this strong urge to cover to show humility. i feel that my makeup (which is not heavy at all, it looks very natural) is not a distraction. i have gone out in public without it, even though i prefer not to, but not a big deal if i do. that was the point i was trying to make to her that i feel i should be more like Mary, not physically but spiritually. does that make sense??🤷
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I think I understand what you are saying here, and I think a woman should cover her head if she is called to. But the phrase I don’t understand is covering to “show humility”. I think you mean to act humbly before God, not to show how humble you are to others. The reason I bring that up is that is probably what the priest referred to in another post was referring to when he did not like to see women cover in his parish. Some of them actually were calling more attention to themselves than if they didn’t cover, in his view.

The part about being more like Mary does not make sense to me. Most women in the world who cover their heads don’t give a thought to Mary, and if Mary were living in our society today, she probably would dress exactly as others dress, whether veiled or unveiled. The Jewish women of her time covered their heads because it was the mode of dress in her culture, and indeed in most of the Middle East. Even the pagans covered their heads. So did the men. So did pagan men. I don’t believe you are imitating Mary spiritually by covering your head because…

Mary’s humility has more to do with doing the will of God perfectly in her life than with her mode of dress, and in imitating Mary, that is what we are called to imitate, not how she dressed. We can presume she dressed modestly, though, according to her culture and her religion. It is her obedience we strive to imitate.

I think you should cover your head if you are called to and don’t worry about others or your friend at work. As for the makeup, nobody is harmed by it, it’s not a big deal, there are more important things to worry about, and if someone is judging a woman because they are wearing some makeup, they have a problem spiritually, IMO. They need to look to their own thoughts and actions first.
 
grandfather said:
You are correct. I don’t use makeup. When I was in my late 30s I had surgery to remove the first of several cancers from my face. The wound was the size of a half dollar next to and below the outer edge of my eyebrow. When the bandage was removed immediately after the surgery my wife was in the surgeon’s office. I could not see myself, but only her reaction. She looked at me and gasped.

The surgeon said there would be a significant scar and asked if I wanted him to pull some healthy skin together to cover it. The extra cost was $1500 and I elected to forego it. It wasn’t the money, but I figured who cares if I have a scar on my face? My wife would get used to whatever I ended up looking like and I got her on the grounds of for better or worse.

Nevertheless if people have disfigurements that cause others to stare at them it is understandable that they would not want that kind of attention. I can’t imagine teasing someone in that situation, very cruel. Surely there are people who use cosmetics for this reason.

I suspect however that the vast majority of women who spend many billions of dollars annually on cosmetics are not disfigured or scarred. For some reason most women seem unhappy with how they look and want to change their looks so they apply makeup to accomplish the task. I am not sure that this makes them happy with their appearance, but they must think it is an improvement, or they would not go through the time and expense.

I was at a wedding recently. You get to see a crossection of ages. We sat in the church and watched the guests file in. Quite a few young women, friends or relatives of the bride and groom came in with their husbands and kids all dressed up.

Most of the young ladies were pretty heavily painted as expected so no surprise to an old geezer there. What was amusing though was the hair. It must have taken quite a bit of time and study to affect this new look, which I can only describe as total chaos. It looked like they put some stiffener in their hair and went through it with a brush to make numerous swirls go in all different directions. I thought, what are they thinking? This is hideous. Where did this come from, some magazine or fashion authority no doubt.

Often when I am on an airplane or at a gate waiting to board there will be young women reading the fashion magazines, the glamor bibles. They pour over the poses and costumes and hair styles studying the “latest looks”. They don’t realize how free they would be if they ignored all this.

Again, do you think Mary would be into any of this?
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As “TrueLight” stated, all we can do is speculate…and I speculate that Mary probably wouldn’t have been overly concerned with purchasing and using cosmetics…however****, if the women of her culture wore certain kinds of minerals on their face, then she likely followed that custom. Just as she likely wore clothing that was the custom** of her time and culture and she likely cooked food that was of the time and custom, too. Please see my following post, quoting a reply from CAF’s own JReducation’s words of wisdom, regarding “being Mary-like”.
 
I hope by posting the following, I’m not violating any CAF rules, since the thread I’m quoting this from was removed (certainly not for this wise post from JReducation, but more than likely from the argumentative people that have since been banned). Brother JR penned these wise words of counsel for women who wished to be more “Mary-like” in many aspects:

"As someone who does a lot of pastoral care, I would make several suggestions.
  1. If you wish to wear a veil or hat or other head covering at either form of the mass, that is your right. Ignore what other people wear or what they think. Most of the time, people won’t even comment on it. Those who do are busy bodies. Unless they’re paying you a compliment. In that case, they’re being kind.
  2. It is true that Our Lady is the model of virtues and the role model for all Christians. However, taking her out of her historical context has created a lot of anxiety for many people. Let’s put her back into her historical context and leave her there. It’s impossible for us to know if Our Lady would wear slacks or not, were she in another culture or another time. Let’s say that she had been from the far East. She probably would have worn pants, because it was the common way of dress for peasant women. Miriam of Nazareth was part of the lower economic class. Had she been from China or Viet Nam or Korea, she would have dressed like the poor people of those nations. Had she been a poor working girl from Europe or the Americas, that’s how she would have dressed. A wonderful example of this is Our Lady’s appearance in Mexico. She did not look like a Jewish woman or a European woman. She looked like a Aztec, even wearing the typical black band that pregnant Aztec women wore. We want to imitate her virtues, but not take her out of her historical context. To say that Catholic women in America should not wear slacks, because Our Lady did not wear slacks does not work. She was not a 20th century American woman. Had she been, she probably would have been a factory worker or a migrant worker or a farmer’s wife. Who knows? Then we would have to get all tangled up in what do migrant workers wear in the field? What do women working in factories wear? What do rural poor women wear? Can you see how this gets very complicated?
  3. The best way to imitate Our Lady is a theological approach. What does she stand for? What are her virtues? What is her relationship to her son and to his Church. Then we try to improve our life of virtue, work on our relationship to Jesus and our relationship with the Church.
Keep this in mind. When you attend mass, the focus is Christ. Train yourself to focus on him alone. Let the world around you cease to exist during that time in which you’re praying the mass. It takes practice, but it works.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF"

I loved his words of wisdom so much I forwarded his post to a friend since I couldn’t get it to link from the CAF thread after it was posted a few months ago. As I stated earlier, sadly enough the post was gone when the thread was removed due to uncharitable posts by others (that I would imagine have been banned).
 
CB_Catholic said:
I think I understand what you are saying here, and I think a woman should cover her head if she is called to. But the phrase I don’t understand is covering to “show humility”. I think you mean to act humbly before God, not to show how humble you are to others. The reason I bring that up is that is probably what the priest referred to in another post was referring to when he did not like to see women cover in his parish. Some of them actually were calling more attention to themselves than if they didn’t cover, in his view.

The part about being more like Mary does not make sense to me. Most women in the world who cover their heads don’t give a thought to Mary, and if Mary were living in our society today, she probably would dress exactly as others dress, whether veiled or unveiled. The Jewish women of her time covered their heads because it was the mode of dress in her culture, and indeed in most of the Middle East. Even the pagans covered their heads. So did the men. So did pagan men. I don’t believe you are imitating Mary spiritually by covering your head because…

Mary’s humility has more to do with doing the will of God perfectly in her life than with her mode of dress, and in imitating Mary, that is what we are called to imitate, not how she dressed. We can presume she dressed modestly, though, according to her culture and her religion. It is her obedience we strive to imitate.

I think you should cover your head if you are called to and don’t worry about others or your friend at work. As for the makeup, nobody is harmed by it, it’s not a big deal, there are more important things to worry about, and if someone is judging a woman because they are wearing some makeup, they have a problem spiritually, IMO. They need to look to their own thoughts and actions first.
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👍
 
I didn’t get a chance to read your entire post yet, but I saw that someone you know is undergoing chemo. I wanted to give you some info that could help your friend: have you ever heard of Cesium? It’s a natural element and during one test trial, 30 out of 30 cancer patients were all cured of their cancer after this treatment.It may be worth looking into (I have links if you’re interested).

Also, seeing that this is a religious forum, did you know that prayer has actually statistically been shown to improve the condition of cancer patients? Not just the patient praying for themselves, but other people praying for him/her. So definitely pray for your friend and encourage others to say some prayers too!
 
My face is also scarred. I guess I don’t care.

Whatever grooming holy women did in the time of Jesus we have no details. I suspect though that it is quite different from now. What we do know is the ancients had no mirrors. That alone would put a severe crimping on the primping.

The very rich had polished silver to see their reflections. Mary was not in that class.

They also did not have stores with shelves full of dozens of types of creams and liners, highlighters, moisturizers, glosses, dyes, tints, tools, and all the rest.

The Old Testament does give us God’s opinion of women who paint their eyes. If I recall He was more than slighlty unappreciative of the practice.

Mother Teresa was a wrinkled old woman. How beautiful her creased and shrivelled face was, so full of expression and light. Do you think if she fixed herself up a little, maybe put a little color on her face it would have been an improvement? Anyone remember Tammy Faye Baker?

If women think they need to do this it is where they are. They would be happier, freer if they realized they don’t need to do it. If they want to do it then do it. It is good though for us to understand the underlying reasons why we do anything that we do and sometimes that is difficult to do.
 
Monte_RCMS said:
Seems to me that instead of calling attention to ones-self … use Jesus and Mary as role models … not to wear sandals and draping robes … but to dress just like everyone else so as not to stand out.
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While I have wanted to veil, I agree that it would be calling attention to me. If we need to veil, the Bishops need to direct us to do so.
🤷
 
pollycarp said:
I third this. One whiff caused nausea.
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pollycarp you are so right around 18 years ago when i was receiving chemo for cervical cancer praise God i have been cancer free for almost 17 years now but one time when I was able to go to daily mass some women sitting in front of me had perfume on and even just a small amount will make a person doing chemo sick, well I had to leave mass plus I had to stop by the restroom on my way out I ended up laying on the couch in the vesting room with someone having to drive me home after the mass.
 
thequeen said:
pollycarp you are so right around 18 years ago when i was receiving chemo for cervical cancer praise God i have been cancer free for almost 17 years now but one time when I was able to go to daily mass some women sitting in front of me had perfume on and even just a small amount will make a person doing chemo sick, well I had to leave mass plus I had to stop by the restroom on my way out I ended up laying on the couch in the vesting room with someone having to drive me home after the mass.
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Perfume causes me trouble as well. I can not only smell it, but I can taste it. Very unpleasant, but interesting that some people’s experience is the opposite.
 
grandfather said:
My face is also scarred. I guess I don’t care.

Whatever grooming holy women did in the time of Jesus we have no details. I suspect though that it is quite different from now. What we do know is the ancients had no mirrors. That alone would put a severe crimping on the primping.

The very rich had polished silver to see their reflections. Mary was not in that class.

They also did not have stores with shelves full of dozens of types of creams and liners, highlighters, moisturizers, glosses, dyes, tints, tools, and all the rest.

The Old Testament does give us God’s opinion of women who paint their eyes. If I recall He was more than slighlty unappreciative of the practice.

Mother Teresa was a wrinkled old woman. How beautiful her creased and shrivelled face was, so full of expression and light. Do you think if she fixed herself up a little, maybe put a little color on her face it would have been an improvement? Anyone remember Tammy Faye Baker?

If women think they need to do this it is where they are. They would be happier, freer if they realized they don’t need to do it. If they want to do it then do it. It is good though for us to understand the underlying reasons why we do anything that we do and sometimes that is difficult to do.
Click to expand...
I agree that the cosmetics industry puts a horrible amount of pressure (as does secular society) on the outer appearance. Most make-up brands (save those from the health food store) are full of nasty chemcials made from some pretty scary sources. However, not all women are obsessed with wearing make-up (in fact, it’s obvious from photos that even the lovely St Gianna Beretta Molla wore tasteful make-up). Sure Mother Teresa didn’t wear make-up…she was a nun! But that’s not to say that even the most devout traditional nun in our day might not powder her nose. Most Catholic women see the use of light, tasteful make-up as a grooming thing…like using deodorant/antiperspirant or styling their hair.
 
Actually, the ancients had mirrors, typically polished brass. St. Paul references this in his Epistle. The poor probably couldn’t afford any, but even these groomed them selves and we have at least some idea what they did. They washed them selves, and they anoited them selves with oil (an early deoderant?).

They didn’t exactly do what we did, no… But they at least tried to make themselves presentable.
 
LightBound said:
I agree that the cosmetics industry puts a horrible amount of pressure (as does secular society) on the outer appearance. Most make-up brands (save those from the health food store) are full of nasty chemcials made from some pretty scary sources. However, not all women are obsessed with wearing make-up (in fact, it’s obvious from photos that even the lovely St Gianna Beretta Molla wore tasteful make-up). Sure Mother Teresa didn’t wear make-up…she was a nun! But that’s not to say that even the most devout traditional nun in our day might not powder her nose. Most Catholic women see the use of light, tasteful make-up as a grooming thing…like using deodorant/antiperspirant or styling their hair.
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…and speaking of nuns…I have heard that Mother Angelica once said that for some women, wearing make-up was an act of charity towards others! 😉
 
LightBound said:
…and speaking of nuns…I have heard that Mother Angelica once said that for some women, wearing make-up was an act of charity towards others! 😉
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I have to agree with her on that, I know its an act of charity towards others when I have some make up as I look washed out & stuff first thing in the morning!
 
I’m not a female as you may have guessed, but working women really must wear makeup in order to compete in the work force. I’ve been in an office for many years, and it is amazing that all women are equal but some are more equal than others when they make special efforts to look better. First impressions go a long way.

Church may be a different matter. But if dressing up for the Lord, than that is good too.

Just a bad opinion.
 
fred_conty said:
I’m not a female as you may have guessed, but working women really must wear makeup in order to compete in the work force. I’ve been in an office for many years, and it is amazing that all women are equal but some are more equal than others when they make special efforts to look better. First impressions go a long way.

Church may be a different matter. But if dressing up for the Lord, than that is good too.

Just a bad opinion.
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I don’t wear makeup to work on weekends as we dress down, and the customers I talk to cannot see me so I could be sitting at home in my pajamas for it they know with bed head hair. No one in my work place has ever said that make up is required for all women, and there are some who simply do not wear it for any reason.

I do wear some makeup to Mass to look nice as I wear nice & modest clothes to Mass too, and it completes the overall look for me.
 
fred_conty said:
I’m not a female as you may have guessed, but working women really must wear makeup in order to compete in the work force. I’ve been in an office for many years, and it is amazing that all women are equal but some are more equal than others when they make special efforts to look better. First impressions go a long way.

Church may be a different matter. But if dressing up for the Lord, than that is good too.

Just a bad opinion.
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I am glad I never worked for you.
 
I wanted to show this article on head covering. It’s very beautifully written. It counters everything anyone (liberal feminists or ignorant people) will ever try to say to you that says you are “less than a man” wearing a covering.

fisheaters.com/theveil.html
 
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