Good discussion. My parish requires all children wear a white robe over their clothes. It is like a graduation robe. We had to buy it in 2005 for our son. Hopefully it will fit for my girls.
My wife is not Catholic and is hriified by the mini bride/prom dress motiff. These girls are all Jon Beneted out and it is a shame.
The celebration is all about the clothes, party, gifts but very little about the Lord.
Even though the girls had to wear the same robe my son had on they were all in a white dress and tiaras too. I can’t see the point of buying a $200 dress to be worn under the robe. The parish has done this to try and force people to knock it off with the glamour but to no avail.
This is not an old idea. When I made my First Communion way back in 1965, robes were introduced, along with the Mass changes. They were rented. Boys wore white robes with midnight blue capes. Girls wore white robes with white capes. The idea was that a First Communion dress or suit was not even required. The robe was opaque enough for a girl to wear a slip under it, and a simple veil (had to have the head covering back then). The boys could wear dark blue trousers, white shirts and white ties.
Well, it didn’t work. Parents were upset because they weren’t asked, and brought on-board through reason. They were told. Period.
And while the boys did wear dark trousers, white shirts, and white ties under the robe for First Communion, many of them also had their First Communion photo taken in a sport coat of the matching jacket to the dark trousers.
The girls? Some parents actually did send them in just a slip. However, a lot of parents had already invested in a family First Communion dress for their girls, along with a veil, et al. And they weren’t going to let some nun who didn’t even dress as a nun tell them they had to send their daughters to their First Communion in a slip under a robe.
They tried it again the next year, only this time EVERYBODY wearing a white robe. Same thing. And they tried in 1967. Same thing. And in 1968, they rented robes with a big gold cloth cross down the center, that looked a lot like a deacon’s dolmation. And in 1969. Nope. No soap.
By the time my youngest sister made her First Communion in 1971, the robes were finally gone.
What to do? As painful as it is, the DRE might need to appoint dress police. I would never suggest on that day the DRE do the policing himself or herself. But, a list beforehand of what not to wear (no rotating madonna statues in a crown on the veils, along with no music boxes built into the headpiece; at least a little bolero jacket or some sort of sleeves for girls; nothing that looks as if it escaped from Hades itself for boys) might be the ticket. Then, the appointed dress police could do their thing.
It looks as if we’re going with a Simplicty pattern. In cotton.
