Wow

So great :)

Caption: "Super Popeman begins his rescue of the liturgy."

(Am I the only one who saw the spread out vestment and thought 'super-hero cape'?)

Go over to Fr. Z's site to see a whole series of pictures from First Vespers. Quite beautiful.

WDTPRS

Wow, is that Romish or what!?

=D

Who's in charge here?

Ooooooh-RAH!

And that, my friends, it how a 3-point landing is done.

It does look like Papa might just take off in a strong wind. I'm impressed!

Superpope!

OK...I get why folks love this sort of thing...as the Vicar of Christ, etc. we need our Man in Rome to be somewhat larger than life...and these vestments make it clear that a certain traditional beauty adds to the Largeness...

Now, having said all that, let me say this: it's just a little too much, dontcha think? Just a tiny bit over the top? My Lingering Anglicanism is showing here...I think they do a better job of liturgy all around then we do...even better than the more traditional Catholic liturgies...

But I'm what happens when a Mississippi redneck gets an education, converts to Anglicanism, gets more education, converts to Catholicism, and then becomes a Dominican...that's a whole lotta no-nonsense religious upbringing combined with a love of noble simplicity.

Fr. Philip, OP

P.S....besides, I'd sweat like a pig on a spit in all those heavy clothes!

Awesome! If for no other reason than watching people squirm about it being over the top. :)

Well, if my local priest or Fr. Philip were to show up dripping with white and gold brocade every day, or if bishops were dressing this way every day, that'd be one thing. But this is the Pope in the Octave of Christmas, and that's quite another.

We've spent a long time _not_ dressing up for Our Lord, both in the sanctuary and in the pews, so that affects our sense of how dressy this is.

If I saw a medieval reenactor (playing a civilian, of course!) who was dressing with comparable splendor for a big court occasion, I would certainly not think white and gold brocade or a heavy cloak were over the top. Maybe having a couple of pages help out would seem like a lot, but not if it were a very high official of the court paying homage to a king or queen ruling in splendor. If everyone were going out for pizza and the king were wearing jeans, then of course it would be over the top and disrespectful -- not to mention uncomfortable for others who knew this was an informal occasion and dressed like it. The trick is to dress up enough to pay honor, without becoming a mere vain clotheshorse.

The Pope is seneschal to God Himself. If He does not dress up on high festivals, he is showing a lack of respect to his position and to the Lord who gave it to him. (Either that, or he's showing that he doesn't really believe that he holds said high position from the hands of God Himself.)

Speaking as somebody who had to walk back and forth to church a couple miles through the snow yesterday and therefore wore snowboots in church, I want _somebody_ to be able to dress up to honor these occasions.

Sure, it's over the top. All the better to remind us that all the pomp and honor reflects God and the office he instituted, not the man who has to wear the stuff. It's a palpable reminder that Jesus reigns over all.

It would also probably be appropriate for a craftsperson to be aided by his/her apprentices, or the head of a household to be aided by household members, or even just to enlist some friends to keep your formal clothing clean. Actually, it's a shame one doesn't see this more often, as one does see a lot of dirty trains and hems at outdoor medieval recreation events.

I'm all for it. Go Papa!

Would it be un-PC of me to note that he looks like a "Caped Crusader"?

WOW! is right! It just makes me smile to see the pope embracing his office. My family ALWAYS wears nice clothes to church. If we go skiing and we cannot make it back home before we go to mass we bring some nice clothes with us and change in the church bathrooms before mass. Now we live in Vegas and people wear their PJ's to mass, so we always look overdressed. The priest's vestments even look sloppy. Mass is all about bringing glory to God. Don't you all think that if a protestant was watching this they would say WOW? I mean those vestments don't really belong to the pope they belong to all popes. He just borrows them for a while. I think God does not really care about clothes, but he cares that we care. I mean why should God care about some metal, cotton, and other stuff. He is God. But I think that he cares that we care to pay him respect and to give him our best and on really important occasions we should give him the best of the best and that is what the pope was doing.

How do you like my shoes, guys?

One word : Beautiful

Are the ones holding the vestment cape the official holy air conditioners?

I wonder why the link now says "Image not available".

As corporate beings (embodied souls), we bring both the spiritual and the physical into our worship. We aren't Calvinists who say that all matter, human reason, human song, etc..... is totally depraved and, therefore, vain. No, we acknowledge that our physical surroundings can affect our mental (and spiritual) deportment. So many times I see this attitude of minimalism that, taken to it's logical conclusion, would lead one to embrace a puritanical, Quaker style of worship wherein we sit in a blank room and simply pray silently.

How boring.

There was a time when I would have considered this a bit OTT (over the top), when my evangelical/low church Episcopalian sensibilities had the edge over my High Anglican ones. Now that I have crossed the Tiber, I say, Way to Go! After all, if this is the true Church of Christ, shouldn't the Pope dress the part?

Changing the subject back to captions, here's mine:

"I'm sorry Holy Father, but if you don't speed up a little we'll never get this thing off the ground!"

The last Da Vinci invention : the flying pope....