Some of you know that I'm pretty traditional when it comes to dressing. I go with neutrals most of the time, and sometimes add pattern, but not very often. So when it came time to choose a veil, I naturally gravitated toward black. It's neutral, and it won't make me nervous that I'm wearing a loud veil.
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| This is one of the black veils I usually wear - The French Fleur de Lis. |
My first veil came from eBay. Someone was selling items from an estate and a black veil was one of them. I paid maybe $15 for it. I was excited when the package came in the mail, I couldn't wait to put it on. So on it went and I was....disappointed! Maybe it was because I expected it to transform me somehow. I guess I thought I would look more like the queens and princesses who wear their veils when they visit the Pope.
Granted, the decision to start veiling wasn't because I wanted to look like a princess (at least not the main reason)! The main reason was to show my submission and reverence to God. So why did I want to look like a princess? Well, because....get ready for it.....I'm a woman!
When you read 1 Corinthians 11:1-16, it talks about women covering their head. One verse sticks out to me when I think about our nature as women:
1515 whereas if a woman has long hair it is her glory, because long hair has been given [her] for a covering?
Isn't that so true? Think about it: regardless of hair length, we want a nice cut; we fret over our hair; we have "bad hair days"; we color it, curl it, pull it back, straighten it, crimp it, love it, hate it. In other words, it's a pretty important part of who we are. When we ask what someone looks like, don't we describe them like this: "the tall blonde", "she has short red hair, about chin-length", "the brunette with the really pretty curls who sits in the third pew"?
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| Another one I wear often - The Spanish Bouquet in Beige. |
So if I'm going to humble myself before the Lord, it makes sense to cover my hair. It's a big part of who we are, and by covering it we are showing that something (someone) is more important than we are.
We're covering to show our submission to Christ, present in the Holy Eucharist. But we're still women and we still love pretty things, in lovely colors, right? And that goes hand in hand with the colors we see priests wear: green, white, gold, violet/purple, rose (no, it's not pink!), red. The colors of those vestments mean something, and many women wear a veil in a color that matches the liturgical seasons. For more on that, see my post Colors, Colors Everywhere.
What does all this have to do with Advent? Well, since joining The Advent Veiling Project I decided to change things up and instead of wearing a neutral color, I would wear purple (and maybe pink - I mean, rose!) for Advent. So the First Sunday of Advent there I was - ready to wear purple! And then I chickened out. I guess I wasn't ready for the difference wearing a color other than black or ivory would make in my life. Seriously!
Then along came the Second Sunday of Advent. This time I did wear a purple veil, and guess what? Nothing happened, it was just as though I had a black or ivory veil on, or no veil. Nothing!
And now the Third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, is almost upon us (can you believe it went so quickly?) and I have a decision to make - should I wear rose? What do you think? Leave a comment below!
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| The Rose on Black Medallion |
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| The Pink on Black Medallion |
Pax Deum