Sunday, August 22, 2010

On Christian Modesty

Women wearing mantillas at St. Michael's Cathedral.
Photo from internet.

The mantilla is not an obligation but it is a traditional way for women to do honour to the Blessed Sacrament. These veiled heads are also a powerful answer to the androgyny and immodesty of our age:

One cannot sufficiently deplore the blindness of so many women of every age and station. Made foolish by a desire to please, they do not see to what degree the indecency of their clothing shocks every honest man and offends God. Most of them would formerly have blushed for such apparel as for a grave fault against Christian modesty. Now it does not suffice to exhibit themselves on public thoroughfares; they do not fear to cross the threshold of churches, to assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and even to bear the seducing food of shameful passions to the Eucharistic Table, where one receives the Heavenly Author of Purity.  
                    - Pope Benedict XV, 1921.

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