Sunday, May 1, 2011

What we have lost IV - The chapel veil


No, I am not a stuffy ultra conservative type. Actually I prefer the Novus Ordo mass Ad Orientem with chant as the only music. Actually the Church has stated officially that the organ is the preferred instrument, chant is the preferred liturgical accompaniment and Latin is the be given pride of place.


I am not actually interested in my own preferences and opinions but rather I STRIVE to care about God's opinion. Therefore we ought to set aside our petty opinions to which was are so attached and study what God reveals to us through His Holy Catholic Church.


But I digress....we have thrown away and simply cast off so much of the beauty, formality of the Mass and along with it reverence and piety. Hot on the heels of this we've lost belief in the Truths of our Catholic Faith. The way I see it - we restore the Mass we restore belief.


Sacred Scripture presents several reasons for wearing the chapel veil. St. Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians (11:1-16) that Christian women must cover their heads because it is a Sacred Tradition commanded by our Lord Himself and entrusted to Paul: "The things I am writing to you are the Lord's commandments" (1 Cor. 14:37). "That is why a woman ought to have a veil on her head, because of the angels" wrote St. Paul (1 Cor. 11:10).


A veil or head covering, is both a symbol and a mystical sacrifice that invites the woman wearing it to ascend the ladder of sanctity. When a woman covers her head in the Catholic Church it symbolizes her dignity and humility before God. It should not surprise us why so many modern women have so easily abandoned the tradition of the chapel veil (head covering) when the greatest meaning of the veil is modesty. It is purely an anti-Catholic culture that frowns on modesty.


6 comments:

  1. When at Easter Vigil I saw a relatively young woman put on her veil after the procession with candles into the parish.

    I also noticed a woman sitting right behind her (in her sixties, dignified, perfectly sculpted hair, well dressed) subtly shaking her head in disagreement as she watched the younger woman put on the mantilla.

    Quite a reversal! Used to be that older people set the examples.

    In the last year or so I have observed more and more women, including young girls, wear the veil during Mass.

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  2. I guess you could say the older woman with the perfectly sculpted hair wouldn't dare cover her head in humility, since it probably cost her a pretty penny to get it that way. Also most of the people in their early sixties today were the one's that welcomed the changes in the Church with open arms. Since they were a part of the generation that wanted things to change. The younger people 40's and down never knew the true traditions of the Church and are now slowly beginning to find them like true treasures that they are and also why the Church gaurded such traditions (not superstition) with such viginlance until everything was tossed aside. Change for the sake of Change.
    I went to a Latin Mass in Savannah, Ga at the Basilica of St. John the Baptist and out of nearly 100 people, 67% where under the age of 45. They never knew this mass. But, having found it, they really prayed with the reverence that isn't apparant anymore.

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  3. This series has been wonderful!

    So glad to have found the TLM and my Nana's veil.

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  4. Found this site today, very pleased to have done so, thankyou! My prayers for you and for the Church.
    Valerie.

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  5. I wear a mantilla or a hat to my NO Mass, always. The thing that surprises me, is that on the occasions that we have a visiting priest offer the Tridentine Mass, the ladies who go and wear their mantillas, do not wear their mantillas for the NO Mass. Worried about public opinion, I guess.

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  6. I an the only one who wears a chapel veil to Mass (I'm not really a cardinal didn't you know. He's just a character of mine.) and I get strange looks all the time. I agree perfectly with you about the Mass. Novus Ordo with ad orientem and Latin Chant is the ideal Mass and it is the Mass that was intended by Vatican II. Pray we will begin to see it more in parishes.

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