Re PRIESTS WHO NIT-PICK re church attire:...two priests (different churches) recently emphasized "proper attire" for church...one of them was anti-hats in church..saying it is "disrespectful"...in my opinion it depends on what type of hat and how it is worn and for what purpose...(at calvary chapel costa mesa people wear hats and its not a problem..hats are worn for many reasons..sometimes I wear a baseball hat because my hair is "out of control",other times I wear a ski hat because its cold outside...normally I wouldn't wear a hat at a catholic church,except occas. when its really cold in the morning or evening..
& the 2nd priest did an entire homily (sermon) using the scripture-of- the-day (all catholic churches,worldwide, read the same scriptures on the same day) re the holy temple of the old testament as an analogy re how sacred church is today..and he went on about if people of the old testament treated the temple with such sacredness shouldn't we come to church likewise? Shouldn't we wear different clothes than what we wear out in public? This may be true on SUNDAYS but the PROBLEM is that he seemed to be applying it to any & every mass..including daily mass...(ie 630am,8am,530pm et al)...many stop in for daily mass before or after work.
Not many people have the time to change their clothes before & after daily mass. Some of the PRIESTS,or this priest, is OUT-of-TOUCH with the real world...they LIVE,WORK,SLEEP,& EAT at the church. In the morning they can roll out of bed and walk across the parking lot to the church,,,with their church robes on..they don't have to choose attire..they don't have to drive to the church,deal with traffic,get gas,etc They don't have to think about taking care of kids,even feeding themselves..some of these churches even have a full-time cook.
I agree that there should be some standards of dress for church..I don't like it when some dude comes to church in shorts with an overly-casual attitude but I don't see that as a big problem at this particular parish. I look around and see most people dressed decently,if not with coat-&-tie. That's just not going to happen in southern cal,except on sundays.
This priest sounded SPOILED in this particular homily...and kept going ..I finally got up and left ..I couldn't take it anymore. If we all start nit-picking,how about lazy,unprepared, homilies? I've heard a lot of "quickies" off-the-cuff,obviously not written out,and without any real,deep,lesson that will stick with us. That's my thought for the day.
