• Low-cut trousers that expose undergarments. • Muscle shirts. • Singlets. • Low-buttoned shirts. • Being shirtless. • Overly casual clothes except for casual events (never in church). • Immodest bathing suits (‘Speedos’). • Earrings and other marks of effeminacy. • T-shirts or jumpers with large slogans or pictures. Practical Points on Modesty in Church for Men and Women • Keep within the modesty guidelines for daily dress. • Put on your best to go to Sunday Mass. • Clothing should not be ostentatious or distracting. • If you go to church during the week, wear clothes that are not casual, but worthy of God’s house. • Men should uncover their heads prior to entering a church (even when the Blessed Sacrament is not present). • Women should cover their heads prior to entering a church (even when the Blessed Sacrament is not present). In the life of Saint Frances of Rome (1384-1440), we read that God showed her, among her many visions of the fires of Hell, the souls of certain ladies whom she had known in Roman society, “who had been excessively captivated by vanity and concern for the cultivation of physical beauty”. They had sought to “increase their ability to captivate men, and… to enhance their looks in a deceptive manner”. For following the fashion of the day in indecent styles of dress, they became a cause of seduction and sin, and were now plunged for all eternity into the infernal torments. This vision of Hell so marked Saint Frances of Rome, that she had it painted on the murals of her chapel, as a constant reminder of the judgments of God.52 101
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