Donning the Liturgical Apron

My thanks to the blogosphere, which takes sufficiently little notice of me to complain when this post wasn’t published on time…three.  weeks.  ago.  Hurricane Irene came and took our internet, then Labor Day took me visiting family, and yesterday saw me still recovering from the effects of a fabulous Catholic wedding and the party which must, for sacramental validity, follow and last until silly hours.  So, here’s my post from three weeks ago, warts and all.

Want to enjoy cooking more?  Put on an apron.  Really, try it.  Like most things humans do, we’re constantly searching high and low for the biggest, baddest, newest, fastest, bestest new tool to help us complete a task.  The interior design industry continues to rollick along, currently valued at several billions, and steadily growing.  We love stuff!  Looking back through time, we find humans since creation have been striving to make the most of themselves, of their environment, of their families.  Tattoos?   Pyramids?  Babel?  Smartphones?  It’s all self-expression, and we gather these things around ourselves in an effort to feel secure, to feel totally equipped to tackle the world around us.

So.  Try putting on an apron.  Suddenly, the disaster that you’re [accidentally] wearing is part of the act, a dash of ambiance, you’re the chef.  You’re happy to be in your environment, because now you’re part of it.  No wonder, then, that bringing “the right tools” to Mass yields similar results.

Dressing up for church used to be a fabulously lush business.  The hats, the suits, the ties, the dresses, the bonnets, the shoes…a whole plethora of items were part of the every-Sunday ensemble of churchgoers (and not just the wealthy ones, either).  Pick up a book written between 1800 and 1950, and somewhere along the line you’ll find either a reference to “Sunday best,” “new church shoes,” or a laconic damsel frustrated by some damage to her “best Sunday-go-to-meeting hat!”  It used to be part of the atmosphere, an outward recognition that one’s inward disposition for worship was something special.

Gone are the days of hats and three-piece suits.  (Oh for the days when even the homeliest of men were rendered irresistible by a classy, well-cut suit.  Swoon.)  Gone, also, is some of the communal reverence and sense of the sacred that should surround any act of worship, but especially the Sacred Liturgy.  Those who know no different still manage, I know, to know and love God, despite their cutoffs or tanks.  But how much more would they get from Mass if, say, they were wearing an apron?  Or, not to mix metaphors, a dress?  Or a really nice tie?  Or (holy of holies) actual dress shoes, with socks?

Down the street from us, the Protestant chapel has a sign with their services listed by time, and in the message area it says, “Casual attire welcomed!”  I don’t know how many takers they have, but if our Catholic chapel is any indication, it might as well say “Beach and bedtime attire welcomed!”    I assume that there are many Protestant churchgoers in their flops and tanks, just as there are many Catholic.  Everybody’s doing it, to the degredation of the whole Christian family.  How sad is that?  Imagine skimming the classifieds, and you see:

SM, Son of God, seeking casual relationship with redeemed flock.  No commitments, just want to hang.

What?  No way!  God seeks a radically intimate, eternal, personal, committed relationship with each one of us.  Not something casual.  Not something careless.  And he showed it by dying on a cross.  How far have we come, that the idea of even trying to meet him halfway by dressing up, by showing reverence and attention to appearance, doesn’t even cross our minds any more?  In his Holy Thursday homily this year, Pope Benedict discussed the parable of the wedding garment, saying:

For us, the empty places at the table of the Lord’s wedding feast, whether excusable or not, are no longer a parable but a reality, in those very countries to which he had revealed his closeness in a special way.  Jesus also knew about guests who come to the banquet without being robed in the wedding garment – they come not to rejoice in his presence but merely out of habit, since their hearts are elsewhere. In one of his homilies Saint Gregory the Great asks: Who are these people who enter without the wedding garment? What is this garment and how does one acquire it? He replies that those who are invited and enter do in some way have faith. It is faith which opens the door to them. But they lack the wedding garment of love. Those who do not live their faith as love are not ready for the banquet and are cast out. Eucharistic communion requires faith, but faith requires love; otherwise, even as faith, it is dead.

Faith is a decision, an act of the will, the “internal disposition” (which charity demands we assume in others–even those who subscribe to the gospel of flops and tanks) that has risen to dizzying heights of importance in today’s society.  I feel, I believe, I want, I think…all these intangibles are given primacy of place, so that an “I’m ok, you’re ok” attitude has made its way even into the pews.  The flops and tanks are surely Faithful, so that’s all that matters.  But the Holy Father asks us to go deeper.

Love is a decision, but (most importantly), love is an act.  Love is action, an external indicator of how our insides are functioning.  Love is putting out the trash, putting on a tie, wiping noses, keeping an opinion to oneself.  Faith brings us into the feast, and with relative ease.  After all, the flops and tanks in the pews are fundamentally good people and their Faith is sincere.  But the effort of love, the time or trouble it takes to put on the dress or tie, that’s tough.  That’s a departure from comfort for the sake of the Beloved.

Which brings us back to the apron.  Going to get the apron takes time, takes trouble.  Where is it?  When was the last time I had it?  Is it even clean?  (Gross, I know.  Don’t judge me.)  But once we’ve got it, once we’re over the bump of making the effort and leaving our comfy place, we discover the joy of love, the magic of sacrifice.  We are happy in the apron.  Cooking is fun.  Work is pleasant.  Worshipping our Lord and King is easy, because we’re properly equipped for the job.

(photo credit)

Jennifer Mazzara

Jennifer Mazzara

Jennifer Mazzara has been a Catholic for 26 years, and a blogger for 6. She is a mother of two beautiful little men and shares her daytime with them playing with trains or just watching the world go by outside our door. Her big man is in the United States Marine Corps, and her family's life in the the military couldn't be more blessed. She blogs at Midnight Radio.

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7 thoughts on “Donning the Liturgical Apron”

  1. “Gone are the days of hats and three-piece suits. (Oh for the days when even the homeliest of men were rendered irresistible by a classy, well-cut suit. Swoon.) Gone, also, is some of the communal reverence and sense of the sacred that should surround any act of worship, but especially the Sacred Liturgy. Those who know no different still manage, I know, to know and love God, despite their cutoffs or tanks. But how much more would they get from Mass if, say, they were wearing an apron? Or, not to mix metaphors, a dress? Or a really nice tie? Or (holy of holies) actual dress shoes, with socks?”

    I used to wear a jacket and tie to Mass on the weekends, but then the summer hit, and we never saw a day under 100 again. I still rock the hat and bow-tie, though, but I will say that there is a bit of inconvenience to having the hat (where to put it when actually in the church?). Still, I agree that we get more out of Mass when we actually spend some time preparing for it beforehand, which in a sense begins at home when picking out what to wear. It may not call for a tie (bow, bolo, or otherwise), but a button-up shirt (or polo) and some kakis/slacks for men and a modestly cut dress/skirt-blouse or dress-shirt/slacks for women would go a long way in showing that we take God more seriously. And thanks to nice second-hand stores like Goodwill, dressing classy shouldn’t be a problem for many but the poorest.

  2. Ah, JC, but even your dressed-down summer tie wasn’t worn over a Hurley t-shirt and some board shorts…was it? 🙂 Honestly, people dress more nicely for a date (polo/slacks, skirt/blouse) than for Mass. Oh well.

    Funny you mention where to put the hat–in the ancient parish “back home,” each pew still sported little spring clips on the back side, for men to hang their hats during Mass. Further proof that the Church will, no matter what, try to meet us where we’re at.

  3. “Funny you mention where to put the hat–in the ancient parish “back home,” each pew still sported little spring clips on the back side”

    I’m not thinking that would necessarily help, since two of the hats in my rotation are a top-hat and a fez. It’d certainly be nice for most weekends, though.

    “Ah, JC, but even your dressed-down summer tie wasn’t worn over a Hurley t-shirt and some board shorts…was it?”

    Now there’s an interesting idea. Throw in some big red clown shoes to go with it? I’m not sure my wife would let me leave the house if I tried that one. She’s learned to tolerate a bit of clash, but yeah, this would be pretty over the top. Then again, she has to leave before I do…

  4. I’m spending a semester in Athens, Greece at the moment. All of the churches here (they’re mostly Greek Orthodox, I admit) have signs before the entrances saying: “This is a holy place: proper attire is required” often followed by a short list of what is *not* allowed. I wish we used this in the States.

  5. @ Thom Willis,

    If we had signs like that, then we’d hurt someone’s feelings. We can’t do that, now can we? The price of inclusiveness is a recognizable standard of behavior, dress, etc.

  6. It’s worse when they dress provocatively. One of my friends tells the story of the school trip to France–her roommate for the trip tried to get away with showing up to Easter Mass at Notre Dame dressed for going clubbing. The teacher chaperone made her turn around and change for Mass, declaring the slinky little dress to be utterly unacceptable.

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