Wednesday, September 14, 2011

The Long Answer

The question has been asked: "What's with the mantilla?"  I've offered short answers, but here's the long one, at long last.

The notion of covering my head in worship settings has been with me since I was in Jr. High School.  That was when I first encountered St. Paul's letters on my own -- apart from the topical use of them in sermons and Bible studies I had attended to that point.  I remember being particularly interested in his "propriety in worship" teachings.  Someone had remarked once to me that the church I attended at the time reminded her of "kids playing church," and it had bothered me.  I felt a need to understand why we did things the way we did, and to understand why it didn't seem "real" to some.  I won't say it was an obsession, but it was certainly the beginning of a long journey to understand my faith and the way I practiced it, and the way I wanted to practice it.  Maybe it was my age, maybe it was the voice of the Holy Spirit already pulling me toward Catholicism, (probably both), but where I noticed things that the Bible directed that were not in practice in my church, I really dug to figure out why.

First Corinthians 11 was one of "those passages." But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved. For if a woman does not have her head veiled, she may as well have her hair cut off. But if it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should wear a veil...if a woman has long hair it is her glory, because long hair has been given [her] for a covering."  I had never even SEEN a woman with her head covered in church.  Imagine the fuss this discovery set off in my mind!  German Baptists, Mennonites, and Amish women (who traditionally cover their heads all the time) were a rare sight where I grew up.  There were plenty of unaffiliated Pentecostals around who all wore long hair, but none who covered.  I wrestled with the point with all the wisdom I could muster at 13, and decided that WE didn't cover at church (or anywhere else) because we weren't "long-hair" Pentecostals.  I made an uneasy peace with the explanation that Paul's words were a product of their time and culture and that they didn't really apply in our society.

Now, fast forward about 20 years. I hadn't set foot in a protestant service in 12 years or more, but that whole long hair/covered head thing was still with me.  I even had a little secret wish in the back of my mind when I saw women with their heads covered in church:  that I had always worn a veil so that I wouldn't have to figure out a way to start, or to explain myself if I did.  I saw those women as "grandfathered (grandmothered?) in" to the veil-wearing club before Vatican II changed the whole world.  Then one night, I was in the adoration chapel.  It was late (my hour was 1-2 am), and I was alone with Jesus.  It was winter, so the basement chapel was quite chilly.  I had a wrap over my shoulders to keep me warm, and I was overwhelmed by the urge to cover my head.  I pulled my wrap over my head, and something changed in me. I wrote to a Mennonite friend about it then:

I was immediately swept with a sense of rightness, and that passage of scripture came back into my mind. I was raised by some bull-headed, girl-power, no-man's-gonna-rule-me women, and so finding my right place in marriage and in faith has always had a taste of that rebellion in it. That night at the chapel, though, it was gone. I felt as much like a woman as I ever have. Not in a girly-girl kind of way, but in a truly, Godly-ordered kind of way. It was right and seemly, and I haven't cut my hair since. What's the point, after all, if it is covered? It has ceased to be a point of vanity because it is always up when I leave the house.

It took a few more years after that night, but I now cover my head at Mass and in the presence of the Most Blessed Sacrament.  It is my testimony to what I believe about the True Presence, and about a woman's  proper response to that presence.  That bit of cloth is the difference between me coming boldly before the throne of grace and coming brazenly.  I still struggle with being the woman I am to be before God, and I was worried about what others might say about my motivation in wearing a veil.  Here's the thing, though: we do not wait to do things until we have mastered them; we master them by doing.  From the time we are children until we leave this world, we practice to get things right, and then keep practicing to make them perfect and to sustain what we have achieved.  I wear a veil, fully aware of what it symbolizes: humility, submission, reverence, and being set apart in a uniquely feminine way.  I pray that by God's grace I will come more fully into those virtues, better living as Christ has called me to live.

1 comment:

Abigail said...

Hi! This is Abigail, one of your former voice students. I love reading your blog. I knew you were musically talented, but I didn't know you were such a gifted writer. Please feel free to give my own blog a try at www.treblereeler.blogspot.com