When we lean too far toward the unavoidable reality of liturgical material expressivism—that vestments, drapes, etc. represent someone’s preferences—we can lose the larger theological reality that 1) they shape us and 2) they direct us outside of ourselves.
Read moreI count 5 Catholics in the lot. And 11 Episcopalians/Anglicans.
Read moreAfter the initial whiplash effect of the change in liturgical style from Benedict to Francis, what is interesting about Francis’s liturgical choices is how thoroughly uninteresting they are.
Read more“The beauty of all these liturgical things is not so much about trappings and fine fabrics than about the glory of our God resplendent in his people…” – Pope Francis
Read moreA model drawn from social anthropology can shed light on the differences in papal vesture.
Read more“It will be interesting to see, in this age of instant communication, whether those bishops who have begun preaching with miter and crosier will dial it all back in imitation of Pope Francis,” someone or the other said.
Read moreTime passes, and today ecclesiastical clothes are less intelligible and point less clearly to something beyond their colors and gilt.
Read moreThe idea was, of course, Scriptural: sackcloth and ashes, the vesture of penance. The effect was a fading out of the ornate, a blending in with the surrounding stone or plasterwork. The Lenten White did not contrast as would violet; rather it simplified, made plain and austere, vesting the season in the color (or lack thereof) of its virtue.
Read moreThe devil may wear Prada, but a Sicilian bishop has set out to show Satan does not have a stranglehold on designer clothing by ordering new vestments from Giorgio Armani. ‘This is about wearing something beautiful to give glory to God,’ says Bishop Domenico Mogavero.
Read moreI have an allergy to the use of lace in albs and surplices. I have an even bigger allergy to the claim that the use of lace in vestments is somehow expressive of a “hermeneutic of continuity”.
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