Mike over at Googling God has a great post on dressing for church — and on jackass pastors who give parishioners a dressing down for… dressing down. Can you imagine being like, “Oh, I thought you were new here. We don’t wear shorts to church.” WAY TO GO, HOSPITALITY! As much as PeaceBang harps on bad ministerial attire she certainly doesn’t recommend harrassing the faithful about their clothing choices (unless they’re assisting in the service, in which case it’s fine to gently make some suggestions if one must).
Here’s the post, and thanks for calling me “esteemed,” Mike. Gee. *blush*
Great point – good manners have everything to do of expecting the most of yourself, while making sure that everyone around you is at ease. The point of manners is to smooth things along – great reminder!
I so enjoyed his post and I do enjoy your blog, which should be clear if you read Mike’s first comment, written by me.
On my first trip to Italy, years ago, I’d been out all day Saturday tromping around doing tourist stuff, and at about 4:30 just happened to find a church that was going to have a 5pm mass, so I went in and sat down.
At about a quarter of, a nun came over to me, looked at me disapprovingly, and said… something. In Italian.
My Italian vocabulary was about 5 words.
I looked at her apologetically, and tried, “Parli inglese?”
Her manner changed entirely. She beamed at me, said something else in Italian, patted my cheek, and bustled away.
I concluded that the first thing she’d said to me had been something along the lines of,
“What’s the matter with you, coming to mass in jeans and sneakers, all bedraggled and your hair windblown! You don’t know how to dress for church?”
and that the second thing she said had been,
“What a good Catholic girl you are, coming to Mass on your vacation when you don’t even speak the language! Good for you, dear.”
This was years ago, but I remember it with fond amusement.