At The Free Press there is a piece about the fact of the increase in the number of young women wear chapel veils or mantillas in church.
I’d be interested in your thoughts on the article and on the topic in general. A great deal has been written about chapel veils for women in church. Here are a few of my thoughts. I am especially interested in the business about the angels. If you don’t know about that part, you will in a moment. In what follows, I have cobbled together some notes collected over the years. I lack some references for some of the moves that will come up. It isn’t my intention to step on toes. Sometimes I can’t remember where I got something I heard or read and jotted down in haste.
Declaration: This chapel veil increase trend is a good thing. Whatever promotes a sense of the sacred in church is a good thing.
While it was once a matter of Church law that women should cover their heads in church (CIC 1917), the 1983 Code dropped that prescription. It is not obligatory by canon law for women to wear head coverings in church in the Latin Church.
That said, strong argument for women wearing veils in church is that in 1969 NOW was against it. If feminists hated it, it’s probably good. And for good measure, if you can stand a trip to the fever-swamp that is the Fishwrap (aka National Schismatic Reporter), and do a site search* on “veil” you’ll see how the left masks their terror by condescension and analogies with those muslim things. All the more reason to like chapel veils.
The basis for women wearing chapel veils or hats was the prescription from 1 Cor 11:2-16 by Paul that women should cover their heads when praying and men should not.
2 I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you. 3 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. 4 Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, 5 but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled dishonors her head—it is the same as if her head were shaven. 6 For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her wear a veil. 7 For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. 8 (For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.) 10 That is why a woman ought to have a veil [GREEK: exousía – “power”] on her head, because of the angels. 11 (Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; 12 for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.) 13 Judge for yourselves; is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not nature itself teach you that for a man to wear long hair is degrading to him, 15 but if a woman has long hair, it is her pride? For her hair is given to her for a covering. 16 If any one is disposed to be contentious, we recognize no other practice, nor do the churches of God.
Some points:
- Tradition is very much present in this.
- God the Father is the head of Christ, Christ is the head of every man, husbands are the head of their wives
- A man who prays with head covered dishonors his head.
- A woman who prays with head uncovered dishonors her head.
- A woman who doesn’t cover her head should cut off her hair.
- Man should not cover his head (when he prays), because he is the image and glory of God.
- Woman is the glory of man because she was made from man.
- Women should cover their heads because of the angels.
- Now there is interdependence of men and women because of childbirth.
- It is of nature that long hair degrades a man.
- Long hair is a woman’s pride.
- A woman’s hair is for a covering.
Paul is dealing in 1 Corinthians with the moral problems of the community. He warns them about Hell and the gravity of sin. In this context he presents a theology the masculine and feminine. There is a nuptial relationship between Christ and the Church and the Christ and the soul. We receive a garment of glory in heaven and the veil is a sign of that. However, the veil is more.
Some women in Corinth are praying without a veil and men are praying with their heads covered. The problem is liturgical.
Before I go on, some gender-bending woke modernist deconstructors could burble: “But Father…. not… no, I can’t say it again ’cause its racist… no.. sexist and against the rights of persons of all 387 genders to be the f-word if they want, or not, whatever… you must really hate what darkened society used to call women, even though that’s now a term we can’t use because, you know, who really knows what that/they/them/xrnwl are? You are such a hater for bringing this up because clearly Vatican II got rid of 1 Corinthians… er… um… cause that says “ought” not “must”. And… YOU HATE VATICAN II!”
The RSV says “For a man ought not to cover his head… That is why a woman ought to have a veil”. The Greek is present active of opheílo, “to owe that which is due”. It is pretty strong, as in, “a man is bound not to wear a covering… a woman has the obligation to wear a covering”. In Matthew 18 in the parable of the wicked servant, what the fellow servant owed was a matter for being cast into prison till he paid the debt. So if “ought” isn’t strict “must” with no wiggle room, it is forceful.
I think the key to unwrapping this is the spiritual meaning of maleness and femaleness. Masculine and feminine means something else.
Paul is NOT saying that women aren’t the image of God. He would reject Genesis. By nature, in our essence we both image God. However, in our relationship to each other man images God and woman images man. What does that mean? Maleness reveals how God relates to humanity and femaleness reveals how humanity relates to God. This is an ancient understanding of maleness and femaleness that sounds foreign to modern(ist) ears.
Here’s one way to see it. Maleness images transcendence (distance) and femaleness images immanence (closeness). Even in our relationships men in general can separate more easily and women can more easily connect. The Jews always used masculine terms for God. Only the Jews had male only priesthood. This is because of God’s transcendence. Priesthood offers sacrifice as mediator representing God mediating to man. On the other hand, pagan religions had priestesses.
In the first creation account, man and woman are described as created together, in equal dignity. In the second creation account, in Genesis 2, Adam is created first and Eve is created from Adam’s side. This difference in origin suggests different roles. In their essence, they are both images of God, but they relate differently: Adam is origin and Eve is goal. In a sense, even though neither origin or goal is superior to the other, and each depend on each other, Eve is the apex, which is quite the opposite of denigration. “This is my Body GIVEN FOR you”, are the most masculine words ever spoken. This is what it means to be a man. They sum up the whole thing. On the other hand, “Let it be DONE UNTO ME according to Thy word,” are the most feminine words ever spoken.
In Mary and Christ, in Adam and Eve, God reveals how we relate to each other and we to Him. God became incarnate as a man, not a woman. Man images God is a distinctive way: transcendence which initiates our salvation. Humanity has to respond to this. Woman, the glory of man, shows that God wanted this relationship inscribed into our flesh. We learn from woman how to respond to God. That’s why the Devil went for Eve. She didn’t receive. She grasped for it. She initiated instead of receiving. Hence, she lost her garment of glory.
More on God – Christ – man – woman. Paul is not saying that God is superior to Christ. So what does “God is head of Christ” mean? Hierarchy doesn’t have anything to do with dignity of people. There is an order of relationships in creation. Woman being submissive does not lessen her dignity. Christ submitted to His earthly parents without losing His dignity. Head covering is symbol of submission. Man prays uncovered because he is not being submissive. Women pray uncovered because they symbolize receptivity to what God is initiating. Women in liturgy symbolize how all humanity ought to receive what God is giving. Men in liturgy symbolize how our transcendent God initiates the gift. Man was origin and woman the goal.
Now… to it!
Women should have veils because of the angels.
?!?
Firstly, the Greek word for veil in the verse about the angels is exousía, meaning “power, authority” along with many other things. This is why the Latin Vulgate reads: ideo debet mulier potestatem habere supra caput propter angelos. It has been interpreted as “veil” as a sign of man’s authority over woman and, hence, a symbol of propriety.
In wearing the veil women (paradoxically) unveil (reveal) the differing roles of men and women in the order of creation, and reveal Christ’s headship over the Church.
Why bring up the angels?
Angels are by their nature unindividuated in matter. Thus, every angel is his own species. No two are alike. The entire angelic order is a vast hierarchy, from greatest to least. There is order in the Trinity. Angels manifest the will of God that there is an order to their creation. In respect (at least) to the angels, we human beings should respect God’s ordering of creation.
Moreover, angels pay attention to what we do. In 1 Tim 5:21 Paul writes:
21 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without favor, doing nothing from partiality.
On the face of it, it seems that angels pay attention to whether or not we “keep rules”. Rubrics are rules.
Angels are involved in the heavenly liturgy bearing our prayers, as we see in Rev 8:3-4:
3 And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; 4 and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God.
Angels know God’s will even as they attend to us, as in Matt 18:10:
10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.
Here is an argument for keeping to the rubrics in sacred worship: the holy angels are there, attending to what we do. The angels long to see what God is doing, and God is the principle Actor in the liturgy. In 1 Peter 1:12 we read:
12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things which have now been announced to you by those who preached the good news to you through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.
What greater things does God do in creation than the sacred worship which reflects and foreshadows that of Heaven? Of course the holy angels will be present at every Mass, and in numbers that we cannot fathom. We should respect their presence in these most important moments. St. John Chrysostom preached in a sermon for Ascension Thursday (HERE):
“The angels are present here. Then angels and the martyrs meet today. If you wish to see the angels and the martyrs, open the eyes of faith and look upon this sight. For if the very air is filled with angels, how much more so the Church! And if the Church is filled with angels, how much more is that true today when their Lord has risen into heaven! The whole air about us is filled with angels. Hear the Apostle teaching this, when he bids the women to cover their heads with a veil because of the presence of the angels.”
It is profoundly disrespectful to God, to the angels and to each other to do anything against decorum in the sacred liturgy.
Decorum is not, here, just good manners. Decorum is from the Latin decus, “right, proper, fitting”. In rhetoric, decorum governs what is appropriate, aptum, in style in a given situation. Decorum is the “fit” between this moment’s situation and the action. It is what this circumstance demands. The Council of Trent forbade anything that was indecorous in religious art (25th Decree). Decorum has been increasingly under attack under the efforts of modernist deconstruction. However, decorum remains important in all occasions. The more lofty the occasion, the greater need for decorum.
Is there any occasion loftier than Holy Mass?
This was sensed by Paul about the Church of Corinth’s liturgical worship of God. Our sacred liturgical worship is something – far far from something we can screw around with any old way, or dumb down, or impose whims upon – is something we must get right! It is at the core of our fulfillment of the all important virtue of Religion, whereby we are bound to render unto God what is due to God, which is first and foremost obedient worship, as individuals, communities, even nations. Screw up Religion, and all that flows from it will be disordered. Paul, therefore, tells the Corinthians about their goofing around with worship. It is precisely in 1 Cor 11 that he talks about eating and drinking of the Eucharist unworthily. It is here that he says that some people are weak, ill or have died!
Paul is pretty early, you will concede. However, the Apostolic Tradition of the 2nd century mentions that women should cover their heads, and with cloth, not something thin. Paul was taken seriously about veils from the get go.
Again , the important the moment, the greater need for decorum.
Is there, therefore, any moment in which the holy angels would be more involved and, therefore, more offended by lack of decorum?
St. Cyril of Alexandria, commenting on First Corinthians says:
“The angels find it extremely hard to bear if this law that women cover their heads is disregarded.” (PG 74: c. 883 – Latin: “ideo veletur, inquit, propter angelos: sine dubio autem intelligt angelos cuique Ecclesiae constitutos a Deo, qui aegre ferunt magnopere, si decori lex a quopiam violetur.”
NB: “decori lex”
It could be that Cyril understands that every church, the Church of a city or region like “the Church of Corinth… the Church of Alexandria”, like the Churches of Revelation with their angels, indicate also that church buildings, consecrated for worship, also have their assigned angels. Think about it: we are given names, we are anointed, given light, baptized, given angels… so are churches, given names, anointed, lit, “baptized”, … given angels? Probably. It makes sense.
In short, women covering their hair while in church is a way of manifesting properly, in the right place and right way, the ordering of creation itself, in the sight of God who ordered it, the angels who serve it, and neighbor who needs reminders.
To be complete, there has also been offered as a reason for the inclusion of the angels something that one of the first Latin Church writers, Tertullian, proposed, namely, that the fallen angels are also present, watching. Commenting on the apocryphal Book of Enoch, Tertullian suggests that some angels fell from Heaven because of lust for women, searching for some meaning about “sons of God” and “nephilim” in Genesis 6. This is a stretch.
However, angels, according to St. Augustine, beings pure spirits are attracted not to physical things as physical things, but rather to physical things as signs. This is why demons are present and involved in pagan sacrifices and idolatry, why naming them gets their attention and perhaps greater attachment. Moreover, angels can manipulate matter in such as way as to have intercourse with human beings in the form of what are called incubi and sucubi. St. Thomas Aquinas deals with this in the Summa HERE.
Just to make this a little more complicated, St. Thomas also suggests that while “angels” here in 1 Cor 11 means just that, the separated substances who are persons unindividuated in matter, perhaps “angels” might mean the Church’s priests (definitely individuated, some holy, some not so holy). In other words, women should be appropriately modest in church so as not to rile up the priests.
It is not for nothing that, in the Vetus Ordo, the priest is directed always to have his eyes cast downward.
Finally, even the loftiest of the angels in the hierarchy do some covering up in the presence of God. In Isaiah 6:2, the chapter where we get our liturgical Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, the prophet has a vision of Heaven:
2 Above [the Lord] stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
It’s really late, or rather early (2 AM) I’ll close this down here. There is a LOT more to say and others have said it. But this is a glimpse into a fascinating topic that involves the holy angels!
*Search for a specific site: Enter site: in front of a site or domain. For example, [ site:youtube.com cat videos] . Exclude words from your search: Enter – in front of a word that you want to leave out. Really handy.
There is a fascinating article at the Diocese of Avila about the examination of the body of St. Teresa of Avila. It is in Spanish. 
A couple days ago, I posted a note of thanks to MM who sent a power tool from my 
At 
Loading ...
