L
Leeta
Guest
Catholic 90, you are showing your lack of respect for men, by your attitude that your dress is unimportant in Mass. Read in an Examination of Conscience, Scepter has a good one. It says it is sinful to distract by your dress or posture during Mass.
Obviously, if you are dressing modestly, you can say that you are being helpful, rather than a hindrance and then you can rightfully say to the man with problems with lust during Mass, “yes, exercise that will power and pray harder.” But it is simply uncharitable to say like Cain, “I’m not my brother’s keeper”, and refuse to help a brother worship God, instead of a woman’s body by not dressing modestly.
God made men to be very visual and in fact the act of looking at women lustfully causes a chemical reaction in the man’s brain which is pleasurable (endomorphins are released) and thus the beginnings of addiction are there if this is repeated.
And yes, men are at a definite spiritual disadvantage, compared to us women. And I should know, I live with 8 of them and I grew up the only girl with five brothers! I have to keep them all in line, including my husband! St. Jose Marie Escriva wrote that wives should treat their husbands like their youngest son!
Read Colleen Mast’s new book, “Dressing with Dignity” available from Tan Books. It is a real eye opener. You will be very surprised. She used to model, act and be on the Weather Channel, and almost went to the Today Show. But then she had a conversion.
You know, when I was a Protestant Fundamentalist, the way out of contradictions and conflicts about sinful actions was that, “the most important thing is what is in the heart”. The Gnostics disdained matter and the body. Protestantism has a definite overtone of it. I was a cradle Fundamentalist descended from a family on both sides which has been Protestant for the last several hundred years.
Yes, we dressed up for church. (You have to realise there is a lot of clubbiness about Protestant congregations. Most are all middle class. And there is a tremendous amount of social interaction during the service as well as afterwards). But the belief that the body and this world are bad is basic to Protestantism. (You know about Martin Luther and John Calvin’s belief that we are depraved dung covered with the white snow of grace from faith alone.)
If anyone was sick or in pain in my family, we just had to kind of grit our teeth and bear it since we were such unworthy sinners. We deserved to suffer, even if there were simple remedies available. We did not deserve to have fun or celebrate anything because we were just wretched human beings and it was all an evil distraction from the “real” life of the spirit, from what was in our hearts. Our idea of holiness was to be freed of the depraved world around us, “to worship God in (literally) spirit and in truth”.
Obviously, if you are dressing modestly, you can say that you are being helpful, rather than a hindrance and then you can rightfully say to the man with problems with lust during Mass, “yes, exercise that will power and pray harder.” But it is simply uncharitable to say like Cain, “I’m not my brother’s keeper”, and refuse to help a brother worship God, instead of a woman’s body by not dressing modestly.
God made men to be very visual and in fact the act of looking at women lustfully causes a chemical reaction in the man’s brain which is pleasurable (endomorphins are released) and thus the beginnings of addiction are there if this is repeated.
And yes, men are at a definite spiritual disadvantage, compared to us women. And I should know, I live with 8 of them and I grew up the only girl with five brothers! I have to keep them all in line, including my husband! St. Jose Marie Escriva wrote that wives should treat their husbands like their youngest son!
Read Colleen Mast’s new book, “Dressing with Dignity” available from Tan Books. It is a real eye opener. You will be very surprised. She used to model, act and be on the Weather Channel, and almost went to the Today Show. But then she had a conversion.
You know, when I was a Protestant Fundamentalist, the way out of contradictions and conflicts about sinful actions was that, “the most important thing is what is in the heart”. The Gnostics disdained matter and the body. Protestantism has a definite overtone of it. I was a cradle Fundamentalist descended from a family on both sides which has been Protestant for the last several hundred years.
Yes, we dressed up for church. (You have to realise there is a lot of clubbiness about Protestant congregations. Most are all middle class. And there is a tremendous amount of social interaction during the service as well as afterwards). But the belief that the body and this world are bad is basic to Protestantism. (You know about Martin Luther and John Calvin’s belief that we are depraved dung covered with the white snow of grace from faith alone.)
If anyone was sick or in pain in my family, we just had to kind of grit our teeth and bear it since we were such unworthy sinners. We deserved to suffer, even if there were simple remedies available. We did not deserve to have fun or celebrate anything because we were just wretched human beings and it was all an evil distraction from the “real” life of the spirit, from what was in our hearts. Our idea of holiness was to be freed of the depraved world around us, “to worship God in (literally) spirit and in truth”.
