The Priest's Attire
by VP
Posted on Saturday February 23, 2019 at 01:01AM in Books
My son, let thy modesty be known to all men; walk as you have the model prescribed by the Church.
If thou dost not conform to the law of the Church, thou shalt be as the heathen and the publican; see therefore that thou despise not the law of thy Mother; she has decreed what shall be the color and the style of thy clothes; observe her rules.
She has prescribed simplicity and becomingness in priestly attire; comply with her rules; she discountenances the wearing of soiled and tattered garments; cast them aside.
How, my son, has the gold become dim, the fine color been changed?
How many there are among my priests who are ashamed of my uniform! They belong to the royal priesthood and they disdain to wear a royal crown.
They have renounced the world and yet they love to wear clothes of the most worldly pattern; they are my soldiers and scarcely gave they enlisted and been enrolled when they rebel and cast aside my uniform.
They are my servants yet they strive to please men; they are clerics and they appear as bridegrooms; they are of the world, therefore they love the world and the world loves them.
O foolish men! They are esteemed indeed by worldlings, but they are an abomination in my sight; they are ashamed of me before men; I shall be ashamed of them before my Father who is in heaven.
O my son, avoid the society of such disedifying clerics; put far from thee the vanity and price of their demeanor.
Follow not the example of those, my son, who do not give themselves wholly to worldly vanity, but who nevertheless are undisciplined and regardless of rules, saying that they do not bother about these trifles.
Neither follow the example of those, my son, who by their slovenly attire rather provoke laughter than excite veneration.
But study and imitate those who by the becomingness of their external apparel show forth the interior integrity of their lives; let thy feet walk in their footsteps.
