In my early days as pastor at Blessed Sacrament Parish, I came across an old parish bulletin with a small reflection from my predecessor, Msgr. Tom Duffy. That reflection was on a somewhat touchy subject – dressing for Sunday Mass.
The short article talked about men wearing a jacket and adding a tie on special occasions. It talked about women wearing dresses or slacks. As I read it, I wondered how parishioners had reacted to it. At the conclusion of the reflection, Msgr. Duffy wrote:
“That is the dress code for the dining room at Kenwood Country Club. Just saying.”
It really made the reader stop and think, which I am sure was Msgr. Duffy’s intention. There are rules of dress and conduct at country clubs, restaurants, and other places – like wearing tennis whites, collared shirts on the golf course, no jeans (in many cases), replacing divots, and so on.
While we do not have a prescribed dress code for church, it is still important. On some level, I think we all have a pretty good idea of what is appropriate and what is not, so the question is more whether we are giving it enough thought and making enough of an effort to do what we think is right. Do we consider what is acceptable dress for participating with our community in honoring the Lord and experiencing his presence?
In the 10 Commandments, God tells us to remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy. Thinking back many years, stores and restaurants used to be closed on Sundays. This has completely changed, of course, as many people now use Sundays as a day of shopping and dining out. Setting those specifics aside, I do worry that Sundays have lost some of their specialness, and one way to recover some Sabbath luster is to treat Mass as the special and important encounter that it is – the source and summit of Christian life – and to dress accordingly.
I would certainly not fall on my sword as to what is and is not appropriate for church. I recognize that it is an individual decision. The most important choice is to attend Mass. If worrying about what to wear keeps you from church, I would rather you just come. Even so, most of us have enough clothes in our closets – unlike the homeless that I work with – to also give some thought to what we wear.
Dressing in at least a somewhat special way for Mass is also good for us. It enhances our preparation for sacred time with the Lord. It helps “hallow” – or set apart for holy use – what we are about to do. It elevates Mass beyond another item on our to do list with grocery shopping, yardwork, going to the pool, or any number of activities. How we dress can be a statement to ourselves and to others before we even arrive that we want to be at church, that it is important, special, and unique, and that we desire to receive God fully with all our being.
I once heard purgatory described with the story of a priest who dropped in unexpectedly on one of his parishioners, who was out working in the garden. “Father, I didn’t expect you,” the parishioner said. “Let me go inside and change clothes and get cleaned up and we can visit.” Purgatory “cleans us up” from our sins and their effects to be in God’s presence forever. Being presentable for the Lord in our appearance and with the openness of our heart at Mass can help make the Sabbath more holy here on Earth.
