Churchified...only for the brave!

“The way we dress in the church environment or elsewhere doesn't make God love us more than He already does, but it exhibits our personality and spiritual maturity in a very profound way. It shows who we are within, when others look at us, they watch how we dress and learn something about us.” - Edyta Tehrani

One of the craziest things I’ve ever witnessed, with respect to modesty, is when girls go to church, Mass, etc., and they’re dressed like they’re going to head out to the clubs as soon as it’s over. I’m not talking about women coming to Mass with sleeveless tops and without a mantilla on their head. Even though I personally won’t bare my shoulders in a church atmosphere, I know that there are people who would criticize me that I don’t cover my head there either! So, those are details that tend to distract from the more pertinent issue at hand, a true understanding of how a woman should dress at Mass. (Sorry, I’m Catholic, so when I say Mass, I mean church in general, and I use the two words interchangeably) Is there an “unsaid” dress code that should be followed? Or does it really even matter at all?

First of all, I want to say that I’m not endorsing the idea of being careful about the way you dress in church, but not out of it. On the other hand, I DO believe that a girl needs to take EXTRA care in how she dresses in church. Why? Well first of all, it sets an example to everyone watching. “Sure, sure,” you might think, “people shouldn’t judge me for what I wear.” But the thing is that people don’t JUDGE you on what you wear...they SEE you. I’m not just talking about visually seeing you, but actually seeing into your soul and what you represent. The clothes that you wear are actually a part of how you present your “self” to the world. When you put your clothes on in the morning, you may not consciously think this, but your sub-conscience is telling you that this is how you’re going to communicate your identity to the world today. It’s for this reason that you,as a young woman, both need to be careful about what image you’re portraying to the world, ESPECIALLY at Mass.

Another reason to care about what you wear to Mass is the fact that it can actually be a distraction to the guys there. Over this summer, I was at the shooting for a TV series with Fr. Tom Morrow (no kidding, that’s his name!), the author of Christian Courtship in an Oversexed World: A Guide for Young Catholics, and he told me and the other few young people who were there a story about a young man whom he had once spoken with. This young man went to Sunday Mass one day at his local parish, as he always did, but this particular Sunday he happened to sit down to a beautiful young woman whom he didn’t know. Now this woman happened to be wearing a very low cut, cleavage baring top, and throughout the entire Mass the man struggled with his thoughts until finally he felt that he couldn’t even go up to receive Holy Communion because his thoughts were becoming adamantly more lustful as time went on. After Mass, the young man politely tapped the young woman on the shoulder and when she turned around, said to her, “Excuse me ma’am, but I felt that you might want to know this. I wasn’t able to receive Communion today because of what you’re wearing.”

I don’t know what that young woman did after that. Maybe she ran to the nearest burkha store and never showed any skin again, or maybe lost all hope and headed straight to the street corner. Although I doubt that either of those are true, I would assume that she took her brother in Christ’s simple comment as a charitable hint to think more carefully about what she wore and how it influenced those around her. The point I’m trying to make is this, as women, we have a very powerful gift in our sexuality, and when we are immodestly dressed we can unknowingly lead our brothers into sin. We want to try and help prevent this as much as we can, ESPECIALLY when we are in the very presence of the Holy Sacrament, or just in church in general. It's just common sense girls!