02-09-2021, 07:38 PM
Chapter 1 (Part 3)
The Catechism of the Council of Trent details for us how the sins of impurity are filthy and gives us the means of practicing purity including Mortification, Temperance, Custody of the eyes and Modesty in Dress, “Too much display in dress, which especially attracts the eye, is but too frequently an occasion of sin. …As women are given to excessive fondness for dress, it will not be unseasonable for the pastor to give some attention to the subject, and sometimes to admonish or reprove them in the impressive words of the Apostle Peter: Whose adorning let it not be the outward plaiting of the hair, or the wearing of gold, or the putting on of apparel. 1 Pet. 3:3..Many women are adorned with gold and precious stones, have lost the only true ornamentation of their soul and body.”
Now, if we look to Our Blessed Mother, we see that She is our model for purity. She is forever modest in Her dress. In all approved apparitions She always presents Herself as fully clothed from the neck to the feet. Her dress does not ever show Her elbows nor do they even show Her calves of ankles but continue on down to cover Her completely with only Her feet showing. As women, we look to Mary as our model in motherhood and we strive to imitate Her virtues. Why should we not imitate Her in dress? Surely, if we focus on Her, She will never lead us wrong and we could be more assured of our salvation.As the centuries rolled past, immodesty continued to grow in popularity and in the last century has greatly risen. At a time when the world was literally on the brink of worldwide immodesty, our Lady of Fatima appeared to try to save us from where we were heading. Through three young innocent children She pleaded with us, showing them, even, an image of hell and the souls that are suffering there because of sins of the flesh. She asked for prayers and sacrifices for sinners telling us that, “many souls go to hell because they have nobody to pray and make sacrifices for them.”
She gave them a vision of hell so real that it changed the lives of the three seers forever. Little Jacinta, who was known to be like all other little children, became greatly inspired to save souls after this. In Lucia’s memoirs we read, “Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issues from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by the terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent.”
Then Our Lady looked at them sadly and said, “You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.”
Lucia goes on to tell us that this vision of Hell filled Jacinta with such horror that every penance and mortification was nothing in her eyes if it could save a soul from Hell. Many of us refrain from teaching our children about Hell because we are afraid of frightening them. If only we had seen this vision ourselves, we would understand the importance of modesty and of saving souls. But perhaps, God wished for us to learn form this little seer. For it was she who was so frightened by this vision and we who are only affected by the story of it now. Perhaps this is why the vison has not been taken seriously since then. Little Jacinta, Lucia says, would shudder at the thought of all those lost souls and kneeling, recite for hours the prayer Our Lady had taught them, which we say at the end of every decade of the Rosary, “O my Jesus! Forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are most in need of Thy mercy.”
Those ‘most in need’ refers to those who are in greatest danger of damnation. What a humble example. She made many sacrifices and offered them all for poor sinners. We can learn very much from her and make penance a part of our everyday life and the lives of our children. When we have taught a whole generation the benefits of penance will we begin to see a change in this world we live in.
The world was awed by Our Lady’s visit at Fatima and the great ‘Miracle of the Sun’ for all to see so that they may believe but how many have responded? When Our Lady of Fatima later appeared to ten-year-old Jacinta in 1920 she revealed that “Certain fashions will be introduced which will offend Our Divine Lord very much. Those who serve God ought not to follow these fashions. The Church has no fashions. Our Lord is always the same.” Then, “More people go to hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason.” Being one of the most famous, recent and approved apparitions of Our Lady, the main focus of its message then was sins; sins of the flesh. Have these sins increased and not lessened since 1917? It is these sins of the flesh that continue to cause wars. “You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. In order to save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If you do what I tell you, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.” Since it is the sins of the flesh that send most souls to hell, we can presume that they are the most prolific kind of sin. If they are the most common types of sins, then when Our Lady asked for people to pray and make sacrifices for sinners, She meant that these most predominant sins largely contribute to strife and wars. Our Lady was quite serious, Her peace plan begins with a modest lifestyle along with a prayerful and penitential one.
The Saints knew penance only too well and we read of the rigorous penances that they inflicted upon themselves for their own sins, for the Holy Souls, and to crucify their flesh for others. I myself had the blessing of knowing a fervent religious who, only under the direction of his spiritual director, undertook heroic penances. Why are we so afraid of a little penance when Our Lady always asks it for the conversion of sinners?
The Church has looked seriously at this subject and in the last 100 years has made more pronouncements against immodesty than have ever been made at any other time in the history of the Church. Within five years of Our Lady’s appearance at Fatima, in 1921, Pope Benedict XV wrote an encyclical called Sacra Propediem in which he stated, “One cannot sufficiently deplore the blindness of so many women of every age and station. Many foolish by a desire to please, they do not see to what degree the indecency of their clothing shocks every honest man and offends God. Most of them would formerly have blushed for such apparel as for a grave fault against Christian modesty. Now it does not suffice to exhibit themselves on public thoroughfares; they do not fear to cross the threshold of churches to assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and even to bear the seducing food of shameful passions to the Eucharistic Table, where one receives the Heavenly Author of Purity.”
As far back as 1921, Pope Benedict XV was appalled at the immodesty not only in Churches at that time but also in public places. How much more does this apply today when such shameful inventions called fashions are much worse than ever. It is obviously quite clear that immodest dress has been denounced by the Church, and repeatedly as we will see, all without success; the majority of the people have taken no heed of her good advice. It is almost as if there has been a conspiracy of silence, as most of the pronouncements made by the Church were ignored. It was as if the Church hadn’t said anything! In fact, Fr. Kunkel relates to us in his Handbook, how modest standards were released in 1928 but were ignored by the liberal press for 35 years! A real silence of the Church’s voice in the world!
In 1926 Father Dolan, Director of the Little Flower Society, visited Liseaux and spoke to Pauline, now Mother Agnes and asked her to speak to the ladies of the Society. Her message to them said, “…that if they would please the Little Flower and win her favor, they must not follow the fashion when fashion demands immodest dress.”
By 1928 Cardinal vicar of Pope Pius XI, Cardinal Pompili ordered a “Crusade Against Immodest Fashions, especially in schools Directed by Religious.” The letter stated “that a dress cannot be called decent which is cut deeper than two fingers breadth under the pit of the throat, which does not cover the arms at least to the elbows and scarcely reaches a bit beyond the knees. Furthermore, dresses of transparent materials are improper.” Obviously, there was a growing problem with women’s fashions, if the Church found it necessary to establish such a Crusade in 1928. Back then, skirts had just taken a big leap up the leg, so the Church felt it necessary to counteract the direction fashions were going. They took a serious step toward trying to stem with tide of the immodest fashions that were slowly becoming commonplace, not only among non-Catholics but among the Catholic population as well.
Again in 1930, Cardinal Sbaretti, in a letter from the Sacred Congregation of the Council issued by direction of Pope Pius XII imposed the obligation of combating immodest fashions and promoting modest, on all persons in authority – Bishops all the way through to parish priests. It stated, “…condemn emphatically the immodest fashion of dress adopted by Catholic women and girls, which fashion not only offends the dignity of women, but conduces to the temporal ruin, miserably dragging down others in their fall.” He went on to make the following decrees. “The parish priest should command feminine garb be based on modesty, and womanly ornament be a defense of virtue. Let them likewise admonish parents to cause their daughters to cease wearing indecorous dress.” “Let parents never permit their daughters to don immodest garb.” And lastly, “Maidens and women dressed immodestly are to be barred from Holy Communion…Further, if the offense be extreme, they may even be forbidden to enter the Church.” Can you imagine in this day and age someone being barred from Holy Communion or even entrance to the Church? The fuss that would be kicked up would be unbelievable! I can just see how it become a ‘human rights issue’ and some women even getting the government involved. There was a time when the Church had a voice and when it spoke people obeyed, but today that voice is but a whisper. We can only guess at all of the reasons, but we can presume that had the Priests and Bishops continued to be outspoken on the issue of immodesty we should see a little less immodesty today. But even though our bishops have not spoken, there still stands the statement that says that we should be barred from Holy Communion for immodesty. This should be enough, for those of us trying to practice, to the best of our ability, our Faith. We should take these words seriously enough to realize the importance of what we wear every time we attend Mass, regardless of whether our Pastor enforces the issue of modesty or not. It is our individual souls that is before God and we are the ones who need to do what is right, perhaps your example might give your Pastor courage to speak up on this issue.