Note: The Catholic Church's stance on head covering is that it is not required but is permitted as a personal devotion. This series of posts is not suggesting it is required in any way and is only my personal experience with head covering.
Read part 1 here.
God Brought Me To It
What was I to do with this old tradition of head covering in Mass? Where did it come from? Why did women originally veil or cover their heads? Why did we stop? Why had I not been taught about this tradition? I know the Catholic Church does not create random traditions, so I knew there had to be a theological explanation for it. I didn't know what it was, or why I, for some inexplicable reason, HAD to find out.
After attending Mass for a few months, I began to really contemplate veiling. Why couldn't I get this interest out of my mind? Was the Lord calling me to find out more about this theology and possibly requesting this of me?
I know the power of prayer and I know the Lord will make His wants known to me as soon as I open myself up to it. And so, after a few more months, I, bravely (yes I use the word bravely, b/c I think anytime we open ourselves to God's will we become the bravest versions of ourselves), said "Lord, if you want me to veil, you are going to have to bring me to it." Oh be careful what you ask for my friends!
The Email
The VERY NEXT DAY after I prayed that prayer, in my inbox sat an email from a fellow parishioner offering to give away her extra veils to anyone who was interested. Talk about an answer to prayer, huh?!
Unfortunately, I responded too late and all veils were already given out but the result yielded a wonderful dialogue about veiling and I was referred to a number of resources including this book to learn more about the theology behind this tradition. In my search for more information, I also stumbled across this fantastic blog post regarding the scriptural basis for head covering. For the first time in my life, I FINALLY understood what St. Paul was saying to the Corinthians about this and it made SO MUCH SENSE! So, that evening, I rush ordered myself this veil in a lilac color.
The Giveaway
Around this same time but before I ordered my own veil, I had entered a giveaway from a company who made chapel veils. They were offering 10 people a chance to win their own veil. Of course there were over 1000 entries but I entered anyway. I thought, why not? If God wants me to veil, well He will bring me to it.
Wouldn't you know, I was one of the 10 lucky winners? YEP so in the span of TWO DAYS of my prayer, I missed out on a free offer of veils from another parishioner just to randomly win a brand new veil of my choice from this company (which is wonderful by the way).
Waving the White Flag
I could deny it no longer, the Lord was in fact bringing me to head covering and it was my turn to wave the white flag and surrender to His will.
Oh how nervous I was! How will I look? What will people think? People will think that I think "I'm so holy" and that's so far from the truth. I will be completely humiliated. Then I heard these words (in my head of course) "Maria, can you not endure some humiliation for me?". Touche' God, touche'! This girl is going to "veil up"!
Check out my veiling experiences in Part 3 of this series.
Blessings to you and yours,
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