Sunday, October 6, 2013

The Chapel Veil. I am confused.

I was born in 1981. I was born a Lutheran.

Two strikes against me for having any understanding of the chapel veil.

Before I go any further, if this is your personal devotion and you feel it's something the Lord has called you to do, by all means go on with it and don't let me dissuade you! A call I can understand. I don't even have to know the reason 'cause that's between you and the Lord. You go rock that veil.

Confusion sets in when it goes much beyond this. I thought I had it figured out about 5 different times.

- 1 Corinthians 11. Ok, women should cover their hair. Got it. Great.
...except we don't do that anymore.

- It's to show humility before the Lord.
- It's to cover our beauty.
- It's because of the angels (yeah, don't get that one at all, but someone just said it, so ok.)

...the difficulty I have with this is the other article I read (darn it, I can't find it!) where a husband/father waxed eloquent about how beautiful his wife and daughters look at Mass because they wear chapel veils.

FAIL. maybe?

(Or perhaps I should just whisper, "I hope the angels didn't notice!")

Ohmygoodness, sorry, I couldn't resist. If I knew what that meant, I probably wouldn't say it.

Fortunately for me, if it's for the sake of covering beauty, I think my hair does that just fine - I generally wear it up in a wet mop, so um, no distractions or vanity here folks!

Today I stumbled across this great little post by a nun, The Return of the Chapel Veil.

"I contend that the Chapel Veil was born to save big hair from being squashed. I can only back that up with empirical evidence: before the Chapel Veil, we all either wore a hat or a bandanna, St. Bernadette scarf to Mass.  So we all looked like Polish cleaning ladies, except around Easter, when we all had our new hats.  When 60's big hair arrived, so did the Chapel Veil."

LOVE IT!

It makes sense:
- Women wore hats.
- Then hair got big.
- Hats squish big hair. 
-Women wore veils - or doilies. 

...but then what? Hair got long and sleek and the chapel veils slipped off? (Grasping at straws here folks).

I don't have big hair to squish (phew, dodged a couple bullets there) so I think I'd be much more inclined to wear a modest hat to Mass than a lacy veil. I'd also feel a lot less like angels were staring at me.

...except that I still don't understand why, apart from it being a private devotion. 

Thoughts?

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