This is my homily for yesterday, the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B. The readings are here. And of course, yesterday also was Father's Day.
Happy Father’s Day, dads.
“It’s as if a man were to scatter seed”. Did you notice how today’s first parable captures the wonder and mystery of parenthood? The kingdom of God, we are told, is like the seeds sown by a farmer: the farmer plants his crop at the beginning of the growing season – and then he waits. And as he waits, he’s massively dependent on forces beyond his control. A lot of things can go wrong with the crop – bad weather, infestation of pests - and there is little or nothing the farmer can do to fix those things. All the farmer can do is work hard, and wait, and trust in God. And if there is a good crop, it’s due to God.
I think it’s the same with our children: as the kids grow up they become, not who we’ve tried to make them to be, and perhaps not even who we’d hoped they would become; but instead, they become who they really, actually are. And God is at work in that process.
Even when our kids veer off the straight and narrow and get into situations and troubles that severely limit their future options – even kids who have been labeled as “bad kids” have good in them, because they’re made by God. I think Fr. Flanagan said something along the lines of, “There is no such thing as a bad boy.” I stand with Fr. Flanagan: there is no such thing as a wholly rotten boy or girl. And however our kids turn out, we should try to accept what is good in them.
I know about parents trying to mold their children in a certain direction. I love my mother, and I’m grateful to her for things beyond count. But. When I was growing up, she was a parent who tried to manage how her children would turn out. The men in her own family, her father and her brother, were quite athletic. Her dad, my grandfather, played college basketball and tennis in his time at Western Michigan. Her brother, my uncle, who is now in his seventies and has a chronic bad back, is still a low-handicap golfer – and in his younger days, he was even better. And all three of his kids, my cousins, were good enough at sports to play them in college. So it’s not surprising that my mom’s hopes and expectations for me were that I’d be in the same mold – I think she wanted a jock for a son. But that’s not who I turned out to be. I wasn’t exactly a klutz on the athletic field, but I never showed a marked aptitude or passion for any particular sport. My competitive athletic days ended sometime in middle school. After that, I found other interests. But my mom, once she has a notion in her mind, is not the kind of person to just let it go. "Perseverence" could be her middle name. When I was in high school, she’d point to other boys who were on the football team or the golf team and say, “Why don’t you go over and do that with him?” – as though my being in their vicinity would somehow allow their athletic prowess to rub off on me. She’s in her eighties now, and she’s still offering me unsolicited advice on any number of things in my life. When I was three or four years old, I probably came across as someone who needs to be taken by the hand and led somewhere; perhaps she still thinks of me that way.
For us parents, when it comes to our children, it’s hard to let go and let God.
I’d like to think that, with my own children, I haven’t been a micro-manager. My wife Therese and I tried to provide our children with a safe, stable and loving home, and we tried to set some foundational expectations: (“you will do well in school; you will go to college; you will go to church”) but we also tried to give our children room to find their own interests, be themselves, and try to become whoever it is that they are meant to be. Now: please don’t take this to mean that I’ve figured out the secret of successful parenting. At present, I’m not sure, at all, that my approach is any better than my parents’ approach was with me. And one of my kids is still in the nest with us, so by no means is child-rearing in the rearview mirror. As parents, Therese and I are still trying to work through it, still trying to figure it out.
Parenting is a mystery; we can’t really look into the future to see how our kids will turn out. All we can do is try our best, and leave the rest in God’s hands.
That parable of the man who sowed seeds isn’t about being a parent per se, but rather about the Kingdom of God. But there is a strong and profound connection between being a parent and living in the Kingdom of God.
One interesting thing about the Kingdom of God is: it doesn’t have well-defined geographic borders like earthly kingdoms do. It’s not like you can cross a river or go through a border checkpoint to get there. The Kingdom of God is growing here and there, in pockets, all around us. God’s Kingdom is planted and grows wherever people have faith in Jesus, and try to live according to his teachings, and share the Good News with one another. We hope this place, St. Edna Parish, is one of those places. If a parish like ours is doing what it’s supposed to do, it is an outpost of holiness and love and virtue, surrounded by a society which may or may not be supportive of what we do here.
And here’s the Father’s Day point: our families should be that way, too. Our families should be little islands of holiness, sprouting shoots of the Kingdom of God, growing in the midst of our local communities. Our families should be little communities of faith, where we live according to the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, rather than in the pursuit of wealth or power or some other transient, earthly value. Our families should be where we love our neighbors, rather than being indifferent or worse toward people who are unlike us. Our families should be oases of kindness to one another, where we value unity and peace over conflict and division; where, when we hurt one another, we forgive one another. Our families should be safe harbors where, when our college-age or adult children come back from time to time, they find in our homes a place where they can refresh their spirits and rejoice because God’s love is still at the heart of what we do and what we teach.
Whether those lessons take hold in our children, such that they internalize them and live them out, is impossible to predict. So our family homes should be places where we accept one another for whom we’ve become, and who we are. None of us turns out according to someone else’s plan. But all of us have goodness in us, because all of us are made by God. Let us accept who God has helped us to become.
Good homily, Jim. In the course of some other discussions this week about trying to "mold" kids and then looking at how they seem to be moving into adulthood, somebody sent me this to chew on:
ReplyDelete"A child is a monster that adults create with their regrets." (Jean-Paul Sartre)
Yikes!
I like the idea of a family being the place you can return to to find refreshment and God's love. Not the family I was raised in, but I hope The Boy enjoys his visits here. There's free food and people he can try out ideas on who aren't going to freak out.
I think we need to know much more about the context of Sartre's observation! I guess there are situations where children can seem monstrous. I've been in the midst of them for large sections of my life so they don't (usually) seem monstrous to me. Still, I don't know how long I'd last doing what one of my kids does as a third-grade teacher.
DeleteWhen my adult kids come to visit, they invariably check in on our cats, usually before they greet me.
DeleteI don't think Sartre sees the child as the monster so much as the parent creating a nightmare for all concerned by trying to correct his own regrets thru the child or by demanding perfectionism. Though I suppose a kid who tried to live up to all that might become a monster to himself.
DeleteMy philosophy was that my job was to raise up a kid who would leave. You try to build and praise independence, confidence, and good judgment. You ask questions to get the kid to think thru problems. You challenge the more impractical ideas.
Then you sit back and bite your tongue and intervene only when if they're about to run into traffic.
Haha, check in on the cats. I've seen that a million timed. Like the cats care.
Stay cool everyone. Only 90 here, but humidity is terrible.
LOL about the cats!
DeleteYeah, it was in the 90s here too. The worst part is a brutal wind that's been blowing for two days.
Every so often I try "enrichment" games for Daisy. She sits on the round table, so I surrounded her with empty plastic cups. She gave me her 60-second deadpan stare, jumped over the cups and went away to sleep in the window. Not playing your sick head games, lady.
DeleteFlora, on the other hand, will carefully sniff each cup and then lie down in the middle of them to let all her thoughts drain out.
One of our cats, who is somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3 years old, demands to be played with, 24x7. The notion that I need to earn a living in order to pay for cat food, cat litter, cat toys et al does not compute for him. If I am tapping my fingers on the little keys and staring at the screen, the obvious interpretation is that I am inviting him to jump up on the keyboard, obstruct my view of the screen, and utilize his paws to activate obscure computer functions which I didn't previously know exist, e.g. change the primary input mode from keyboard mode to audible commands spoken in Farsi.
DeleteThe other cat, who is a senior citizen in cat years (and who fervently prays that the energetic younger cat will be let outside so a school bus can run over him), just wants to flop down somewhere by an open window and take a nap.
Is your younger cat a ginger? They have a rep for being people-oriented troublemakers.
DeleteHe's dark gray, striped, with a white shirt front. I've never quite internalized the different terms for cat colors/patterns, so don't know if there is a word for that.
DeleteSounds like you have a combination tabby (dark stripes) and tuxedo (white front and sometimes white feet), aka a tabby-tux.
DeleteI don't think coat color really affects personality. I've had more than 2 dozen cats since age 10, and their niceness, cooperativeness, and intelligence never correlated with their coat as far as I could see. Breed makes a difference in temperament, but we've never had purebreds, just alley cats who decided to park on us.
We've had a couple of female tuxedo cats, and it seems like they were a little more spunky and feisty. We also had a male that the vet described as a "tricolor saddleback". He had blue eyes and was super sweet.
DeleteWow, male calico are pretty rare. I keep getting this story in my news feed about the male tortie kitten: https://www.newsweek.com/once-career-moment-vet-realizes-rescue-kitten-super-rare-1913592
DeleteOh, he wasn't a calico. The three colors were white background, gray tabby on his face and back, and tan.
DeleteI liked your homily, Jim. I hope our kids think of our home as a safe place where they can be themselves. I tried to listen to them when they were growing up, even if I didn't always like what I was hearing. Such as when one of them said, "Mom, you're always criticizing!" I viewed it as "teaching", but it caused me to do an examination of conscience. And I realized that I had indeed been critical. And I tried to criticize less and affirm more.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how many times I have heard a vocations homily in which parents were asked to " encourage your kids to consider the priesthood or religious life." Or to mention it to other kids in the parish who seemed likely (that always made me cringe, it seemed like way overstepping what was our business). I wanted to tell the homilists that it doesn't work that way. It didn't even work that way when we told our oldest that maybe he should consider a major with a better career path than history. He didn't listen. He is doing fine career wise. We didn't even try to talk the younger one out of being an art major. He had been on that path since kindergarten.
Yes! I agree that what we think is teaching can come off as criticizing, and the best we can do as parents is rein it in somewhat. The Boy was terrified at age 8 by a nutty vocations person. She seemed to have this idea that it was a free ticket to heaven for him because "you'll be able to stay pure," and tickets for us if we gave our only child to the Church.
DeleteI heard nothing but scorn and criticism from my parents about my "useless degrees" my entire life. Not like they paid for them. Glad they died before we went broke because I already feel crappy enough without that.
It even turns out that it's not just our kids, but even our spouses who interpret "teaching moments" as "criticism". That's a lesson that's been 30+ years (so far) in the making...
DeleteI always knew what to get my dad for Father's Day. Books. He was an avid reader. Even if you got him a clunker, he'd read it anyway, and dish about it afterwards. Dishing about clunkers was half the fun. One time I was in a bookstore in Fort Collins, browsing for a gift for Dad. The store clerk recommended "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Marquez Garcia. "Trust me, he'll love it", he said. Not so much. It was a clunker, and when I read it, I understood why. Dad and I both agreed it was a sucky book, and that the protagonist was a creep and a perv. I miss Dad. And dishing about bad books, and talking about a good one that he enjoyed, such as a Tony Hillerman mystery.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of clunker books: I see that "A Gentleman In Moscow" is now a streaming-service series or some such. I guess it wasn't really a clunker, as I stuck with it to the end, but thought it was kind of overrated. But apparently the reading public liked it better than I.
DeleteSucky is as sucky does, I guess. I didn't enjoy "Cholera" as much as some other Marquez novels. I think there are cultural elements and stylistic features of his work that aren't accessible to Americans. It's a lot of work. I like Julia Alvarez in the magical realism vein. She's from the D.R., but has lived here since age 10. She explains cultural/political stuff for the Gringos, but throws in a lot of Spanish that might be off-putting.
DeleteMy parents didn't read books, but my dad did like the collected sayings of Groucho Marx and the "Harpo Speaks" autobiography I got him one year for Xmas. The Boy is third-generation Marxist!
This is the first I have heard of anybody not loving A Gentleman in Moscow. On Amazon, 133,436 ratings, with an average of of 4.6 out of 5 stars, and on Goodreads, 558,878 ratings with an average of 4.3. Still, de gustibus non est disputandum, I guess.
DeleteI would argue, though, that calling something so immensely popular "overrated" does not strike me as a meaningful statement. The implication is that all the people who praise it are somehow wrong.
I have neither read nor seen A Gentleman in Moscow. I gather it falls into the "literary fiction" bin, but has a name that sounds like a John LeCarre or Graham Greene spy novel. Possibly disappointing to readers who like mysteries and thrillers?
DeleteDavid - I didn't love it. If "overrated" is offensive, I'll happily withdraw it. You're right: de gustibus.
DeleteI bought "A Gentleman in Moscow" on a whim on a business trip when, after a business dinner, wandered into an independent bookstore on the walk back to the hotel. I had vaguely heard of the title but had no expectations about it. The bookshop owner assured me that her readers seemed to like it. I didn't hate it but wasn't over the moon about it. I guess it wouldn't have occurred to me to describe it as "overrated" until I saw that one of the streaming services has turned it into a series (I think it is a series, anyway) and is promoting it, quite possibly targeting me with its ads because it knows, from my several-years-old credit card transaction, that I bought the book once upon a time (the data mining and advertising targeting is really a science). I didn't realize it had made such an impression on the public that it was deemed make-a-series-out-of-it-worthy.
DeleteMy wife recently read it, too. It's a little outside her usual lane (she often reads books with female protagonists). I'll ask her what she thought of it.
I haven't read A Gentleman in Moscow,; I don't know if I would like it. But coincidentally our book club book this time is The Lincoln Highway, also by Amor Towles. I am not very far into it yet, but it seems like a 1950s coming of age story, with maybe a little "Huckleberry Finn" thrown in. I figure it has to beat our last selection, which was Dancing With the Octopus. Sounds interesting, but was filled with crazy messed up people.
DeleteI tried( three times) to read Love in the Time of Cholera and gave up each time.
ReplyDeleteStill easier than Ulysses ...
DeleteOne of my graduate school professors said that he was a convinced behaviorist until he had two children. The first was as noisy and wild as could be from day one; the second was quiet and gentle from day one. He could only slightly tame the first, and only slightly stir up some life in the second one.
ReplyDeleteWhether one believes in nature or nurture, most parents assume they have control over both. Wrong! Those genes are just a random combination of parental genes; the circumstances of life are just as random.
An operations manual for parenting should just say: assumed you have been assigned a random person to be your child and make the best of it.
I am very grateful that both of my parents began functioning as adults about as soon as they became teens and let me do the same. It worked out well for all three of us. I have no complaints about my parents, and they had none about me.
Of course, if we let people grow up when they reach thirteen, that would leave a lot of doctors, educators, and clergy left with nothing to do.
There are real obstacles to having your child become like yourself. My dad was a great mechanic; I could never match him, so I never tried. Yet once I went away to graduate school and decided that I wanted an electrically shielded cubicle for psycho-physiological research, I built one myself. When I bought a home, I still left dad do everything for me. Why do it yourself, when your dad can do it better?
The things that my parents handed onto to me where their virtues. My mother was a great listener and caregiver. My dad was very good at affirming other men, especially his fellow workers. Those virtues all showed up in my life in very different keys suitable to the mental health field. It is not like I copied what my parents did. It was more like there was a power, a mysterious force (virtue) that passed from their life into mine without my learning particular things.
As an undergraduate, my Cuban friend said to me: “Did you ever notice that you are the only one who talks about your parents; none of the other boys ever mention theirs.” It has sometimes been difficult to comprehend how much other families have to struggle.
My parents have now been dead for twenty and thirty years I don’t really miss them because I still feel they live on in me. A lot of times when faced with a situation I simply ask: “What would dad or mom have done?”
Always enjoy your perspectives about your parents. I think "assume you have been assigned a random person" is good advice.
DeleteBut I also think it's pretty common for parents to look for family traits in their offspring, which can be good or bad. It may also be common for kids to consciously model themselves after a family member. Pretty early on, I knew I didn't want to be like my parents, so I took one of my grandmothers as a pattern, with certain modifications. I drew the line at playing golf and voting for George Wallace.
Jean,
DeleteYou asked a few posts back how the garden was doing. I am in heat wave conditions. I go to bed at 9pm so that I can get up and get all my gardening done before 9am. Much of that has been watering. Fortunately, yesterday we had a cloudburst of about an inch. That means I don't have to water them for a few days. We have very sandy soil which does not retain much water. I bury leaves under where I plan to grow tomatoes; that seems to help in water retention.
Betty composes our vegetable food. We transplant our larger tomatoes (Rutgers and Beefsteak) into pots about four inches round and deep which are filled of a mixture of soil, peat and compost. That helps giving them a strong root system before planting them into the garden.
We had hoped to plant corn (Silver Queen) but we had too many other things to do. Maybe next year. Our peas did not turn out so well this year. We have yet to plant cucumbers, zucchini and pole beans.
Betty got her annual flower garden in early this and that is growing fine.
Sounds like a good project! Did the heat get to the peas? I think they dislike intense heat. I have also been getting up early to weed and water, which doesn't take too long. Then I have 45 minutes or so to watch the critters and enjoy some quiet time. Lavender is in peak bloom, so lots of bees and butterflies on that.
DeleteOff topic - I am very happy to see that Vigano is being charged in the Vatican with being in schism. ( is that how it’s described - in schism? Schismatic? Fomenting schism? ) anyway glad that Francis isn’t putting up with it an6more.
ReplyDelete.
That guy is a piece of work.
DeleteThe guy has had six years to clean up his act. If he wanted to. Instead he's going full magilla crazy. Rejects Vatican II, basically said Pope Francis is the anti-pope. Seems to have gone down a Q-Anon type of rabbit hole. I could feel sorry for a person with obvious mental health issues. But he is an archbishop (of an archaeological site!) and has a social media megaphone. He's dragging other people down with him. Pope Francis couldn't and shouldn't let it slide.
DeleteI am also remembering that Vigano pulled this stunt on Pope Francis when he visited the US:
Deletehttps://www.ncronline.org/vatican/vigano-vatican-spokesmen-dispute-facts-pope-meeting-kim-davis#:~:text=Archbishop%20Vigano%2C%20then%20the%20nuncio%20to%20the%20United,ruled%20gay%20couples%20have%20a%20right%20to%20marry.
Popularity and adulation are a temptation for anyone who is given a pulpit (figuratively or literally). I don't doubt that both Strickland and Vigano succumbed.
DeleteI also think the temptation is more pronounced when the social bubble we affiliate with is peopled by people animated by identity and grievance - as right-wing Catholics are. This is why I am, on the whole, opposed to Catholic parish leaders who seek to redefine their parish to identify with a particular ideological subset - e.g. to remake themselves to be a "conservative parish" or a "progressive parish". Parishes are better-served by simply being open to any/all people in their territory, and not seeking to give themselves an ideological identity.
Canon 214 says that Christ's faithful have right to worship God according to their own rite, and to follow their own form of spiritual life, provided it is in accord with church teaching.
DeleteThe commentary on this canon by the canon law society of Great Britian and Ireland says that a parish or local religious community cannot be forced to accept a particular spirituality because the pastor or local religious superior considers it to be the most appropriate form of spirituality.
I think this means not only that a parish should not remake itself into a "social justice parish" or a "right to life parish" excluding other spiritualities but that groups promoting these aspects of Catholic life have a right to exist in the parish (i.e. the pastor may not impose a vanilla spirituality).
The groups have an obligation not to present themselves as the preferred spirituality for all Catholics, but only as a legitimate way of living Catholic life. They have an obligation NOT to denigrate the spiritualities of other people in the parish.
Perhaps of relevance here is Canon 220 which says that we have rights to a good reputation and privacy and Canon 222 that we have the right to vindicate and defend our rights before the competent ecclesial forum.
We do today have many lay people who are competent canon lawyers around the country. A lay person could employ a canon lawyer from another diocese to begin the process of reining in a pastor, pastoral staff, or group in a parish. The canon law process starts with good faith efforts to resolve the issue by local discussions, but if pastors, pastoral staff and groups dig in their heels, the canon lawyer can put the bishop into the position that he has to deal with the violations of the rights of the faithful that are occurring in his diocese.
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DeleteNot much to say here as I have no understanding of institutional wrangles with Vigano and other players. I do appreciate Jim's and Jack's comments about various flavors of parish life in view of the local priest's regime. I don't know if he is merely trying to strengthen Catholic identity by resurrecting surface customs like the St Michael prayer, wearing head coverings, and receiving on the tongue. Or whether he is trying to weed out people who are rattled by the old-timey practices and frequent sermons on Protestant heresies. A lot of this looks very familiar to the days when the Episcopalians were struggling with women and homosexual clergy, and the response of the trads was to tighten things up and institute litmus tests.
DeleteReceiving on the tongue or in the hand should be two equally available options at the discretion of the communicant. I was particularly impressed by the bishop's handling of this issue, i.e. actually allowing the piety of each lay person to make the best choice.
DeleteIt is one thing to promote receiving on the tongue as a legitimate option quite another to say it is the best option and people should not receive on the hand.
Jack, many thanks - I am entirely in accord with your views.
DeleteA nearby parish has been cultivating an identity as a "conservative parish". They have had a couple of pastors in a row now who lean in this direction. It is more than just a personal preference on the part of the pastor; it includes items such as whom they hire on their parish staff (preferring people who share their ideological proclivities, who they bring in as guest speakers for parish missions, which activities they choose to promote in the parish, etc.). The parish had a pretty vibrant lay-led theological speaker series; the pastor has said it can't be at their parish anymore (as the guest speakers apparently aren't toeing whatever lines this pastor wants toed). The group came to our pastor and asked if they could use our church for the series, and our pastor agreed. And other parishioners have come to us, not because they were banned from the other parish, but because they didn't feel they were in accord with the spirituality being promoted.
I'd like to think we're not very ideological at our parish, although perhaps we are and I'm just not seeing it; it's entirely possible that, when I preach, I'm perceived as promoting an ideology that some others don't find congenial. That's not my intent, but maybe it happens somewhat naturally.
Katherine, thanks to the link to that old NCR article about the Kim Davis affair. I had forgotten about that.
DeleteUnfortunately, the state of our society today (and I think this transcends politics, although our politics certainly are its primary symptom) is such that one big group of Catholics who pay attention to the story will believe Francis's version, whereas another big group (perhaps not as big as the first group, but still with some cumulative weight) will believe Vigano's version.
Good heavens, Jim. Two groups of Catholics? One believing Vigano and one believing Francis? False equivalency I think. Vigano is the ringleader of those who accuse Francis of heresy. That’s not ordinary criticism. After all, doesn’t the Catholic Church teach that the papacy is pretty much sacrosanct? Vigano should have been hauled in long ago. He went far beyond ordinary criticism of a pope. In the good old days of papal power he probably would have been thrown in prison.Or burned at the stake.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ncronline.org/news/quick-reads/letter-signed-more-1500-accuses-pope-francis-canonical-derelict-heresy
Jim, I wish you would collect some of these thoughts about pastoring in divisive times. I find them interesting. I always feel you offer a fair amount of illumination about that.
ReplyDeleteAccording to what I read online most Catholics now self select parishes. A few years ago a lot of the “ conservatives”, especially Trads, would complain online about having to drive miles, , an hour away, to go to mass because they didn’t have a “ good” parish near them. Now I’m reading the same thing from the “ progressives” who say they’ve been driven out of their parishes by the Uber- conservative pastors and the new members of their congregations who now go to their parishes to have a conservative priest and congregation. Sounds like Jeans parish. Many just leave active participation in a Catholic parish completely and become “nones” who pray on their own or with close friends and family. Kind of like the early church so maybe not all bad except that they are no longer tossing money into collection baskets. So the bishops don’t like it.
ReplyDeleteI wish you and other clerics who want to have balance a lot of luck. It seems you may be fighting a losing battle though.
Raber has strong feelings against shopping parishes. He has the idea that you should be loyal to "your people." I understand the sentiment, even admire it somewhat. In some ways, the priest has revitalized the parish with many more young families, though it looks like they're LARPing their notion of a large preV2 Catholic family.
ReplyDelete100% agree with Jim when he said he was "...opposed to Catholic parish leaders who seek to redefine their parish to identify with a particular ideological subset - e.g. to remake themselves to be a "conservative parish" or a "progressive parish". And also with Jack' comment along the same lines.
ReplyDeleteI feel that our parish manages to avoid the " boutique parish" pitfall fairly well. We have a few people who kneel or receive on the tongue for Communion, or wear chapel veils, but they aren't trying to remake the parish to their own preferences. (I think it is kind of funny though that one of the girls wears a fancy mantilla with jeans and a t-shirt.)
I credit Archbishop Lucas for being a good leader and trying to steer parishes away from ideological subsets. He just turned 75 though, and they have to turn in a letter of resignation. I hope we get someone as good next time. They usually stay in office, though, until a successor is found. I believe the papal nuncio gets some say in suggesting candidates. I'm just glad the nuncio is Cardinal Christophe Pierre now and not Archbishop Vigano.
It’s interesting to me that these young women with their mantillas don’t seem to know the misogynist philosophy that mandates head coverings for women in Islam, Orthodox Judaism, and, once upon a time, before Vatican II, Roman Catholicism. At least the girl mentioned has enough spunk not to dress like an Amish woman.
DeleteI guess in orthodox Judaism the men cover their heads too. With the younger people who seem to want to turn the clock back to the 1950s, they don't remember that a lot of the time women's head covering in church was hats rather than veils. I can remember my mom and my grandmas wearing fancy hats on Sunday. Dad wore a hat, too, but not in church. There was some wooden lattice work in the back of church and Dad always parked his Sunday felt Stetson hat there. It wasn't common to see non-Latina women with the mantillas until Jackie Kennedy made them popular.
DeleteIn a lot of older churches you'll see some metal clips on the backs of the pews. They were for the men to hang their hats on.
Delete"... metal clips on the backs of the pews. They were for the men to hang their hats on."
DeleteThanks for solving that mystery! An endless temptation for wiggly little boys to fool with.
Katherine, they don’t remember Kleenex head coverings either. Women and men used to wear hats pretty much all the time when they went out in public - not just to church. But Catholic men took hats off in church, as you note. Hats were a fashion accessory that could be worn to meet the rule that women had to cover their hair. In Reform and Conservative temples men wear a kippah. As do Catholic cardinals. Very often there is a bowl with them at the entrance for men who forget theirs or for non zJewish visitors like my husband. The women in the conservative and Reform temples don’t cover their hair. Orthodox women who are married co dr their hair when outside their homes. Some wear scarves, but some wear wigs, which seems a bit of subversion.womens hair is a part of her sexual appeal to men in Orthodox Judaism and conservative Islam. So covering the natural hair with a wig sort of defeats the purpose. When women’s religious orders started they chose clothing styles that were the same as other women’s clothing. Sometimes that included a head covering. Mother Cabrini nuns in Italy did not have head coverings as part of their daily “ habit” until she came to America to work with the Italian immigrants. Apparently American bishops forced her to mandate head coverings for the nuns who worked here.
DeleteI have never seen the metal clips on pews, even in the very old churches I have visited.
This is what the hat clips look like:
Deletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/bmt90s/these_spring_loaded_clips_on_the_back_of_the
I think Protestant men took off their hats in church too. I don't know if they had the clips or not.
We have had such a windy spring I was almost wishing for one of those chiffon scarves we used to wear to keep our hair nice.
DeleteOn the east coast I’ve been to multiple very old Congregational and Episcopal churches, 17 th century on. We visited the oldest Congregational church in Chatham MA on Cape Cod because one of my husbands ancestors had been the minister there in the 1700s. I never saw the clips. Maybe they were removed at some point.
DeleteHappy St Aethelthryth's Day! She is one of the Big Three 7th century English abbesses of double monastic houses, along with St Hild in the north and St Werburh in the West. Their abbeys served as anchors of Christian peace, literacy, and learning amidst a chaotic and violent time. They tamped down tribal feuds, trained up many bishops, and supplied holy manuscripts that were prized thru'out northern Europe. Without them, Alfred would never have been able to conceive of a peaceful, united England two centuries later.
ReplyDeleteWe could use a few Abbesses now it seems.
DeleteThey certainly knew how to get stuff done because they were endlessly flexible and creative thinkers.
DeleteMost of the nuns I had as professors in college would be great abbesses - or bishops !
Delete"They certainly knew how to get stuff done because they were endlessly flexible and creative thinkers."
DeleteThey had to be because both male religious orders leaders and bishops didn't want to deal with them. Male religious said they were the bishops' responsibility, bishops said they should be the male religious order's responsibility. That gave the women possibilities to be flexible.
They often got support from temporal rulers who wanted their prayers. But that made them wealthy and then both bishops and males religious orders became interested. So, it was the abbesses playing the bishops, the male religious orders, and aristocracy against one another.
Jack, what you describe came a bit later. The three abbesses I mentioned were running double houses of men and women. As such, the abbesses had a lot of influence getting men they personally trained installed as bishops. No fewer than five bishops owed their positions to Hild. The women were also members of royal families, Aethelthryth and Werburh having been married to kings at one point, and the law allowed them to own their own land and money. (This continued to the time of the Conquest. My favorite royal intriguer, Aelfgiu, owned an astonishing number of estates recorded in Domesday.) So the abbesses were very self-directed. Hild established her own order, so there was no order leader she had to kowtow to. Once the Roman church was declared the official ecclesiastical authority in all English kingdoms and the Danes started destroying monasteries, things changed very quickly along the lines you outlined.
DeleteReally interesting history.I learn so much from those here - everyone with expertise and knowledge in different areas.
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