and blessings upon her and those she prays for. It contributes to her beauty and helps her and everyone else honour God in much the same way that we only offer to God precious and beautiful vestments, sacred vessels and architecture. All contributes to giving God the worship that is due to Him. A woman who would be invited to Buckingham Palace to meet the King or to the White House to meet the President would wear her absolute finest apparel. To this day, famous women, even non-Catholics, adhere to the dress code of wearing a veil to meet the Pope. How much more should this be the case when going to the House of God and approaching the sacred altar where God Himself is present? Fourthly, by wearing a veil in church a woman imitates Mary, who is always veiled in her apparitions. Our Lady is the true Ark of the Covenant in which God united Himself with human nature. By imitating the Mother of God, a woman is asking God to effectively fill her with His grace so that she can be an instrument of grace for others. A fifth reason is that veiling helps a woman to pray. Just as the priest, in the traditional Mass, comes to the altar with his head covered as a sign of recollectedness, so women are helped to pray with fewer distractions and greater recollectedness when they wear the veil. ‘But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor the Church of God’ 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 12
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