Given at St. Patrick's in Wareham
Every year priests are forced to come head to head with that unfortunately difficult passage from Matthew’s Gospel woe to the pharasees and scibes because…“all their works they do for to be seen of men. For they make their phylacteries broad, and enlarge their fringes. ”
Strangely enough, I am not challenged with this difficult Gospel today and yet I have chosen to preach about it.
Today Fr. John and Fr. Bill, and I have decide to give a little lesson on vestments at all the Masses and so I decided to start with this difficult passage because…
I have often thought it strange that after proclaiming this Gospel very seldom does the priest, who stands before the people in more or less ornate robes, with tassles and phylactaries, ever try to make apology for his manner of dress.
I think that embarrassment about this passage and a misunderstanding of the theology of sacred vestments are part of the reason why the quality of sacred vestments have suffered so much in the last fifty years.
Anyone who has been to Mass with me on a solemnity or feast, knows that I am either, for some reason, not ashamed by this passage, or, otherwise, hopelessly dense.
The fact of the matter is that vestments are not a new thing, a recent aberration of the fairly recent 15th or 14th or 13th century. In truth, Catholic priests in all 22 Catholic rites in the world
have for most of the life of the Church, definitely for more than 17 centuries, worn special garbs to celebrate the sacred mysteries. But if this is true, how do we understand what Jesus is saying when He says: “Woe to you…”?
When Jesus criticizes the dress of the Pharisees, he is critiquing not their fashion sense, but their love for honor and places of honor, and the fact that the loveliness of their hearts do not correspond to the loveliness of their clothing.
I will be the first to admit that my vestments are often much more beautiful than my soul often sullied as it is by pride, and laziness, and envy, and every other sin. As I tell all those who come to me for confession: even the greatest saint knows that he sins seven times a day.
However, the beauty of sacred vestments, are not meant to be a reflection on my dignity, wisdom, or authority, but meant to be a reflection of the dignity, wisdom, authority, and beauty of the one by whose authority every priests acts.
In that same chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says: do not be called rabbi or master or father. And yet we still call priests by the title father, not because of who they are, because of their own dignity but because a priest is an image of Christ, who works in and through his priests and who is the image of the Father.
Vestments are meant to remind, the priest, just as much as the people, of the great dignity of Jesus Christ, who is our one true high priest to remind us of the beauty of His act of pure love on the Cross, which by the power of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit priests make present on the Altar.
A priest before Mass starts dressed in His simple clerical garb, these simple black garments are a symbol of learning just like the graduates cap and gown which developed from the monks garbs of the early middle agesat the first monastic schools and universities
They are a symbol also of the death to the things of the world that an honest search for the Truth, that is for our God, requires.
Around his neck, a simple white cloth, serves as a symbol of his teaching role. It recalls the white cloth which was worn in Roman times by Senators to keep their necks warm so that they might speak for long periods of time.
However, these “street clothes,” symbols of learning and honor are meant to be completely covered by the Sacred Vestments that remind the priest that despite his learning, and his teaching role, what a priest does at the Mass is not a work of his own hands but accomplished by the pierce hands, and feet, and heart of Jesus.
Starting with the Amice, a simple white cloth that covers the neck the priest prays that the Lord may cloth him with the helmet of salvation.
Along with the amice he puts on the long white alb a symbol of the purity not of the priest’s soul but of every Christian’s soul when washed clean by Christ in the waters of baptism. By putting on this white garment the priest puts on the human dignity of Christ and is reminded of the death that Christ’s perfect love endured, a death to self that the priest makes present on the Altar when he offers the Body and Blood of the Lord to the Father, and which the priest is challenged to make present in His life.
Next he wraps a simple cord around his waist, to symbolize the perfect chasity of Chirst but also the chains and difficulties that true love forces us to embrace in this life.
Over these under garments, a priest wears a long thin scarf called a stole, which is a symbol of the yoke of Christ, a symbol of the of the authority of Jesus, but also the weight and burden of that authority, that we see in the cross.
Finally over all else come the chasuble, which means little house. This garment is a symbol of our one shelter and refuge, the love of God, by which all authority and power that comes from God is used for the good of mankind.
The vestments that the priest wears should be of the finest quality that we can afford, if we really believe that what happens at the Mass is a cosmic event that draws us into an eternal relationship with our God.
These beautiful garments, however, that we put on at Mass are only a reminder of how much more beautiful our souls are meant to be, that each of us are called to put on Christ, especially here at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
The outward symbols of the beauty of Christ’s work of salvation must make us want to make our souls inwardly more beautiful, more pure, and more holy.
Just like the woman in the gospel today we are all debtors to our Lord, Master, and God, we all owe God everything, and more still because of our sins.
It’s only by asking for and accepting God’s mercy and then working each and every day to put on the robes of justice, honor, mercy, and truth, that we can put on Christ and be counted among the sons and daughters of Christ.
Lets make St. Paul’s prayer our own today: I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.
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