Veiling

I remember being a kid, going to Mass to the Cathedral and seeing grandmas wearing their waist-length mantillas. But after a while no one really kept wearing them.

About a year ago, I started noticing a few women here and there wearing veils or mantillas to church. I got a little bit curious and started looking into why women wear veils, and I really liked the idea. I am naturally awkward and kind of self conscious so the idea of showing up to Mass with a veil on my head... my hands would sweat at the thought of it. Not to mention, what if I came across as a holier-than-though? (I'm not sure why I thought that other people would think that of me since it's not what I thought when I saw women wearing mantillas).

A couple of days ago, I came across this post on Faith and Family. It seemed like there's a lot of women out there with the same sort of fears, which made me feel better. The more I read about it, the more and more I liked the idea of wearing a veil to Mass. But I still freaked out thinking about what other people would think.

This Sunday something different happened at church that made up my mind. The priest was going to be a couple of minutes late due to some scheduling confusion, and there was a bit of chit-chatter in the church. I was trying to not to space out and say some prayers while we were waiting for Father to arrive, when I overheard the family behind me complaining about the priest being late. And it bothered me a bit. I mean sure, we were going to have to wait for him and we're usually on time but also... is it going to kill you to spend 5 more minutes in church? is there something out there more important than waiting for The Eucharist? so my mind was made up. I decided to start looking for a veil to wear to church because maybe this way it will be an outside reminder (for me and those around me) of what's really going on. To keep our minds in the fact that we're there to celebrate Mass, that we're there to be with Him. It's not a Sunday task to be checked off.

Too many is just as bad as none

So I was looking at some old posts during a slow period at work erhm I mean after I got home and was done with the laundry and cleaning and found this really funny one over at Simcha's blog about people making rude comments to large families. Some of the responses the mothers give are funny, although I think if I had been in that situation I would've said something like:  yeah, we got TV but I really don't like commercials.

Anyways that got me thinking about large families and children... And let me tell you, it isn't pretty on the other end. We've been married for around three years and no babies. Granted, we haven't actively tried but we haven't gotten pregnant. And I'm cool with that.

If it's God's will for us NOT to have any kids, I'm not going to argue. But it does start getting uncomfortable when everyone asks: "when are you having kids?" well.... how would I know? I hate it when people ask me this question. And for some reason, they never seem to ask my husband, as if I was the planner or whatever.

So we go to Church where all the uber-Catholics seem to look down their noses to me, the childless woman (OK, OK perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit, but it's MY blog) and ask when is it that I'm going to have kids?. Look lady, you  have 25 kids behind you so I think you know from personal experience that kids.just.happen. Not all of them are planned.

And don't even get me started on the snobby comments on birth control. Well you know what? I'M NOT USING ANY! It seems like no one really stops and thinks that maybe... MAYBE... that's what God's will is. To not to have any babies, or to not have any babies now. And all I do is embrace it.

There's also the notion that we are not a family since we don't have any children. We're not a couple, we're married. We are a family. We are just a small family, but still a family.

So if it's any comfort for any of you ladies out there, for every moron that asks you if all those children are yours and if you know how they happen, there's a moron asking us (the just wives, not moms) when is it that we're having children already because we're not getting any younger.

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Why are we so mean?

I have been reading some posts on modesty lately (it seems to be a recurring theme). The posts are pretty good but what's shocking about them is the comments.

All the women agree that we should be modest, but they disagree in what exactly modest is. Some say it's showing a bit of cleavage, some say skirts shouldn't be above the knee, some say no bare shoulders, etc etc.
And it's only obvious that there will be disagreements. It all depends on the way we (as individuals) have been raised, the place where we grew up, examples we had and body types. What seems slightly... um... revealing... for someone might look just fine on a flat chested woman.

But this isn't really the problem. We can't ALL agree on everything. The problem is how they interact with each other, not really taking in consideration that the other person typing is... well... a person. That has feelings, thoughts and a background. And yet, we all seem to want the others to think of our feelings before replying to the comment.

And that got me wondering... why are we so mean? is it simply because we're typing and looking at a screen? perhaps if we had the other woman in front of us, it would be so much easier to think about their feelings, gage their reactions. But since all we see is a screen, black and white letters well... it's easy to forget that there's a person behind that.

Or maybe we're naturally mean to each other. Like some sort of primitive thing inside us. Just like we see animals fight each other to show who is stronger or a better mate, we still have this wild instinct of trying to feel better than the other female: she's funny but I'm prettier. She's smarter but I'm funnier. I know more about modesty than she does.

Who knows, maybe it's a mix of both.