“Words can never say,
The way He says my name
He calls me lovely
No one ever sees the way He looks at me
He sees me holy…”
Once during confession Father asked me to use my beauty for
God… Though highly flattered by his simple compliment I was at loss as to what
he was asking of me. In my childish
understanding of Catholicism I had come to think of outer beauty as something
close to a sin. In fact, in 2007 after
having one of the greatest encounters with God and going through a period of
considering religious life, I stopped dressing up in hopes of killing the vain
spirit that lived in my soul. The
experience was extremely freeing – I stopped caring what I looked like
physically. But eventually I went to the other
extreme- I started to resemble a bum or a lazy, unkempt person. In the years since, I've come to the
understanding that God is all things good and beauty is part of who He is. He made women with radiance and femininity. In addition, He
told us that our physical bodies are good.
A while back a coworker asked me why the Catholic Church has
so much art and extravagant material possessions. She made a remark that if Jesus lived so
simply why such overwhelming wealth in its cathedrals. I’ve thought about her comment a lot since
and discovered that beauty should lead us to God. If this is true, then the purpose of art is to
exalt, to pay tribute to the King of Kings and more importantly to build a path
towards Him. This is reason enough to
adorn our places of worship and to maintain them. In the same manner I came to understand that
my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and looking my best for my Lord is not
a sin. In fact, the way I adorn myself can
lead people to Christ.
Our culture looks at Christianity as something out of date,
narrow minded and irrelevant. In addition,
they judge the outer before they give the inner an opportunity and
that’s why we have to learn to use all of our person for God. When I used to come to Mass only to warm a
bench I would look at the lectors and the people involved in the various
ministries and see them in long dresses from decades ago and no sense of style and I would think I don’t
want to be like them. I believed
then that my physical image was a great part of who I was and my biggest fear
was becoming a clone of an unstylish, brainwashed Catholic... As Catholics we strive for holiness and pay a
lot of attention to our inner beauty, but Pope John Paul tells us (what Jesus
told us first) that our bodies are beautiful too! While contemplating the
Pope’s theology of the body I learned that my clothes are a great way of
witnessing to people. To let those that
are contemplating conversion know that Catholicism is for all of us- especially
for those that have difficulty wearing long skirts (smile). Style is part of our culture, it’s a language
of the youth; thus, when others see us let’s speak their language. Let’s tell them that Catholics enjoy the art
of fashion too. I think part of what
Father was telling me, was just that - to let others see me just as I am and to
use my God given love of fashion to evangelize and to win people for Him. That’s what I strive to create here a forum
that presents God as He is: ALL Caring. He cares about YOU- all of you- even the small and superficial part like personal style. He loves receiving more from us - the more we give Him of ourselves the more He
can do through us (smile).
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