No, LM goers - you DON'T have to be dowdy

Really.

Jackie Kennedy, Easter Sunday, 1962 - that's as in going on close to 50 years ago.

Notice the length of Jackie's dress. Yes, right around the knee-cap. Where NORMAL Catholic women of the day wore their dresses. Notice how she is not wearing thin cotton trousers underneath for some weird-o sense of "modesty." Notice her dress is not mid-calf or longer. Notice she is not competing for the "Duggar dowdy" award and does not feel compelled to unite with the Pakistani "sisterhood."

Padre Pio allegedly would have fainted over the lack of sleeves, but most normal American women, even then, especially in warm climes, would not have.

So, please. Do yourselves a favor. Muslim men don't go to church, so you really don't have to worry about being leered at by Muslim men at a Catholic Mass.

Show of Hands please

...how many of you... particularly women, remember when women and girls were more or less socially forced to wear a freaking Kleenex on their heads to enter a church if they didn't have a hat or a veil?

I noticed some of the younger women doing blogs seem to get a charge out of veils. Listen, if it floats your boat, do it, especially since you don't *have* to.

But for me, there is an inner core which strongly says: "Not only NO, but HELL NO."

I wonder if there is a divide on this subject between women who are old enough to remember having to put a freakin' paper nose rag on their head with a bobby pin in preference to going bare headed. My guess is women under a certain age have no such cultural baggage against veils in church, while older women tend to resent memories of that.

One friend of mine who is about 12 years older than me told me that she had a small head and always looked bad in a hat. The subject came up in her convent school and the nun (well pre-Vatican II) told her "there is no canon law that says you have to wear a hat." Next Sunday she went in without one ... an usher actually chased her up the aisle with a Kleenex and she told him, in a nice way, to go chase himself. She said after that OTHER women also decided they didn't particularly like it either, and also stopped wearing hats/veils.

Frankly, I've always had to force myself to read Paul. Not the saint I want to meet first. Or particularly 2 millionth and 1st. I bet I talk to the guy whom Paul made chop off his foreskin before I talk to Paul. "So...was he as big a jerk as he makes himself sound?" Just because someone's a saint doesn't mean I have to like him or her!

Just saying.

[BTW, you guys can feel free to kibbitz too. But I warn you, it may be stepping into a "Honey, does this X make my butt look big" kind of thing.... wise men may fear to tread.]

Mein Gott - 70s fashion felonies

Do. Not. Miss. This Link. This picture is just a sample of what's on Diana's blog. Some modern archaeologist found a 70s JC Penny Catalogue. I can attest to the fact that these "garments" were out there. NOT for the faint of heart. It's all true. I was *there.*

St. Fiacre's Garden: *LOVE* those GROOOOOVY 70's!

or "How to get your a$$ kicked six times between now and Sunday"

I'm not even going to pretend this one has anything to do with religion. I have to admit it would be no end of fun to send something from this catalogue to a relative who insists everyone do a family gift exchange!

(Somehow "they" missed the all baby blue male dinner jacket ensemble. Mostly seen on hip 16 year old prom trotters.)

Thanks for nothing, Harry!

When I was in college, I was reading a book about the Tudors, and was surprised to learn that Henry VIII did in fact have two sons born of Catherine of Aragon. Both were sickly and died in infancy. How different the history of England would be (and America, for that matter) had at least one of these youngsters been robust. Same goes for his elder brother Arthur.

Though England didn't have Salic law as did France (i.e. women could inhert the throne in England) Henry was a worry wart that the crown was still not totally secure given all the civil wars in the past century. Then after all the machinations brought about when Henry did produce a male by Jane Seymour, Edward VI, HE turned out sickly too. Didn't even reach his majority and had a regency. Who lived? The girls. Upon whom did the throne devolve upon? Mary I then Elizabeth I. Neither died with an heir ... so who did the throne fall to? A great grandson of Henry VII ... where it would have eventually gone anyway had Henry just minded his own beeswax.

If you have teenage kids though, they may well have something in common with Henry, sartorially speaking. Henry had his jacket dagged. Your kids might have the knees in their jeans dagged.