The way I dress?

[SacredHeartFan]

I am a guy to start out with, just so we don’t get on the gender confusion issue.

I am a blue jean and t-shirt kind of guy, except at mass. But the other day, I came across a passage in the “Imitation of Christ” and also in “Story of a Soul” about not dressing with the latest fashion. This confuses me on multiple levels. First, I know alot of people today are “blue jean and t-shirt people” but would that make it popular fashion? Second, does this mean to wear like slacks or kakhis and polo shirts or button up shirts? Third, God is outside of time so therefore if I dressed as they did in the past wouldn’t that also be present and future fashion in Gods eyes? Make sense?

 

[Miles_Mariae]

Being the latest fashion per se doesn’t make a form of dress unacceptable. That would be ridiculous. The idea is that it can become fashionable to dress in a way unworthy of man, and if that should happen, then it must be avoided despite how fashionable it is.

That’s my understanding, anyway.

I understand your third point, I think, but removing fashionability as a criterion of inappropriateness solves your question without getting too metaphysical.

I can’t answer whether it’s good to wear jeans and t-shirt. It’s often my outfit at casual events. I’ll wait with you to see if anyone has good reason for considering it inappropriate.

 

[GilChrist77]

I agree with Miles. In my understanding, there is nothing wrong with wearing jeans and a t shirt. If however, the popular style is immodest or inappropriate then you should not fallow the fashions.

JMJ+
~Betsy

Totus tuus Maria!

 

[ready]

As long as you dress modestly and respectful of others you haven’t a problem with God, as I see it.

 

[RosaryCrusader]

The main concern these days is certainly modesty and dressing appropriately for the occassion (especially at Mass) but in addition to this you have to consider that in reading Imitation of Christ & Our Lady of Fatima’s warning against following the fashions and the likes that “fashion” entails more than just the issue of modesty. Being overly eager to follow the fashions of the world is a sign of a worldly spirit. The spirit of the world is opposed to the Spirit of Christ.

There is a big difference between contemporary dress and fashions. This cannot be emphasized enough. Dressing according to your state in life (in contemporary clothing) is what we’re called to do - as long as it’s modest and appropriate. Following the latest fashions, purchasing only name brand cool-dude type clothing, wearing your jeans hanging off your buttocks is what is meant by following fashion - you know, the sideways hat type goofiness that passes off as a “youth culture.”

I’m speaking as a male to a male in the above text - contemporary female dress is another topic altogether as they took some seriously wrong turns over the last 100 years. My wife has managed to dress herself, and our daughters, in nice contemporary clothing that is modest and looks good w/o the need to resort to wearing pants. Which she used to wear all the time when I met her - before she read Colleen Hammonds, Dressing with Dignity book.

 

[roanoker]

I consider dressing too informally for church to be disrespectful. By asking the question, I think you really know the anwser…

 

[rfpapcun]

Would you wear jeans and a t-shirt to personally meet the president, to a wedding, to a funeral? If not, then why would you wear them to worship the God of all creation?!

The other extreme is to be avoided too – where one is so enamored of dress that they wear clothes that are way too “dressy” – think rhinestone dresses, etc.-- that it deflects them from their worship of God.

Different ages seem to have different problems. Maybe too dressy was a problem in years past. Our problem clearly is too casual.

 

[adstrinity]

My wife has managed to dress herself, and our daughters, in nice contemporary clothing that is modest and looks good w/o the need to resort to wearing pants. Which she used to wear all the time when I met her - before she read Colleen Hammonds, Dressing with Dignity book.

“Resort to wearing pants”??? Well, I guess if one is going to use an inapropriately condescendingly patronizing phrase, “My wife has managed to dress herself…”, one could see where you would also look down on pants on women…and women.

 

[Miles_Mariae]

“Resort to wearing pants”??? Well, I guess if one is going to use an inapropriately condescendingly patronizing phrase, “My wife has managed to dress herself…”, one could see where you would also look down on pants on women…and women.

“Managed to” indeed conveys surprise at something being possible, but the rest of the sentence makes clear that the surprising event is that contemporary clothing both “modest” and “looks good” was found, with the additional qualification that such clothing was not in the form of pants. The fact that the wife was the one who found such clothing only serves to extol the virtues of the poster’s spouse; he is praising her for being able to find such clothing as to be contemporary and yet fit the poster’s aesthetic tastes.

Taking only a part of that sentence (“my wife has managed to dress herself”) and then taking offense at it is a misinterpretation. I urge you to work with the text and convince yourself whether there is a more charitable and common-sensical way to interpret the post.

An example of what I mean would be the sentence “My friend was able to find a needle in the middle of a monstrous haystack!” If you only read “My friend was able to find a needle” you might think that the speaker is being condescending regarding his friend’s ability to locate common objects. It is the rest of the sentence that will serve as context.

Again, work with the text and let me know if you arrive at the same conclusion.

 

[SacredHeartFan]

Would you wear jeans and a t-shirt to personally meet the president, to a wedding, to a funeral? If not, then why would you wear them to worship the God of all creation?!

Please read the OP. I already stated I dress nice (shirt and tie) for mass. My problem is outside mass.

 

[SacredHeartFan]

I consider dressing too informally for church to be disrespectful. By asking the question, I think you really know the anwser…

Once again, read the OP. I have already stated that I dress nice (shirt and tie) for mass. My problem is outside of mass.

 

[ready]

Once again, read the OP. I have already stated that I dress nice (shirt and tie) for mass. My problem is outside of mass.

You dress modestly and respectful of God. For the Mass you wear a shirt and tie and outside of the Mass you wear a t-shirt and jeans. As long as your t-shirts aren’t worldly with wordly logos or mottos, you would be dressing as Christ did when he was a worker growing up doing carpentry - dressed in laborers’ clothes.