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Nothing says, "Welcome to the Seminarian's office" quite like a cassock hanging on the door. It also functions as soundproofing when I play music while I work. More importantly, the cassock, surplice, and fascia are deeply symbolic of what it means to be a priest and of the lifestyle I live as a seminarian - aspiring towards the priesthood. Pictures of each vestment described in the slideshow above.
Before vesting, the priest, deacon, or seminarian washes his hands. This has nothing to do with COVID (it was around long before then), nor with some sort of ritualistic, man-made necessity. We are asked, not required, to enter into a sequence of prayers while vesting. There's a prayer associated with every vestment. When we wash our hands, we remember our baptisms and we ask God to purify our hearts and intentions. "Cleanse my hands, O Lord, from all stain, that, pure in mind and body, I may be worthy to serve thee." The cassock is the long black robe traditionally associated with the priesthood. Robes are usually a symbol of an office. Think about a judge's robe - it symbolizes the job. For a priest, it's more than a job. It means putting on Christ - assuming the way his identity was changed at his ordination. He is in persona Christi (in the person of Christ), and every part of the cassock symbolizes that. It's black, the color of death, because the priest dies to himself when he puts on Christ. It traditionally has 33 buttons going down the center - one for every year of Jesus' life. It'll often have five decorative buttons on each cuff - each one a reminder of Christ's wounds which the priest shares. Christ is the totality of the Priest's possessions. "O Lord, the portion of my inheritance and my chalice, You are He who will restore my inheritance." The fascia is the vestment I knew the least about going into seminary, and the one I appreciate most having been in seminary. It's a cincture, a belt of sorts (but typically worn just above the belly button), and it's symbolic of chastity and other promises. Religious wear three knots in their cinctures to represent their religious vows. The priest wears one to symbolize his promise of celibacy, a promise that I haven't taken yet but one that I'm living out daily. Cassocks also look much better with a fascia, but I digress. "Gird me, O Lord, with the girdle of purity and quench in me the fire of concupiscence, that the grace of temperance and chastity may abide in me." The surplice originally comes from the alb, which originally comes from the baptismal garment. Scripture talks about this kind of garment often. Angels are depicted wearing something like it. The redeemed in the book of Revelation have washed their garments white in the blood of the Lamb. It's a symbol of holiness, purity, and God's redeeming power in the life of the wearer. While the cassock and fascia are worn by the priest daily, the surplice is only worn for the liturgies: the only reason the priest, seminarian, or anyone, is fit to serve God is that God is the one renewing and sanctifying their life. "Invest me, O Lord, as a new man, who was created by God in justice and the holiness of truth." I don't want to talk about the contentions surrounding altar servers - whether young men and young women should be allowed to serve, or whether altar servers are fundamentally distracting - but it would be disingenuous of me to talk about the beauty and significance of these vestments and not talk about altar serving. These are priestly vestments. They symbolize the baptismal identity of the wearer - all the baptized called to be alter Christus (another Christ), all of us are called to die to self, and we are all called to wash our garments in Christ's mercy. They also point toward the priesthood and the priestly life. The practice of serving at the altar, of being so close to the Eucharistic sacrifice, and of vesting, were so formative for me as a young man. I don't think I'd be in seminary today if I didn't serve. It's so important for me that everyone who sees or wears these vestments knows their significance and is pointed back to Christ in and through them. Maybe that's a post for another time...
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Catholic. Archives
July 2023
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