Wearing Stuff

The new archdeacon, a jovial, bustling lady who used to work in the Diocese of Oxford, came to say hello. We sat in the café opposite the church. She decided to go for a creamy hot chocolate sprinkled with Smarties so I suppose she must have needed more sugar than me. She comes from a moderate evangelical background, like most clergy now. Somehow we ended up talking about vestments. She brought the subject up, I swear. 'Does what you're wearing make a difference to what you feel?' she asked. 'Does it feel different to use something very traditional as opposed to something modern-style?'

It was a very good question: when you preside, you know the Eucharist is still the Eucharist no matter what you're wearing. In extremis I once stepped in to take a service when Miriam the curate when I arrived here got a coughing fit and couldn't carry on: I was wearing Wellingtons and a waterproof over which I draped a stole. A couple of weeks ago I found myself filling in at a church not far away where they turned out to have no kit at all, so I wore a surplice over a cassock. I have no doubt at all that either Mass was valid, whether I had a maniple or not, and the same applies to my Evangelical brethren who appear at an altar vested in chinos and a sweatshirt, no matter how objectionable I might find it. The Holy Spirit, I have no doubt, still turns up, even if He holds His nose. If He had one.

Psychologically, too, once I'm in the zone the schmutter doesn't matter. I'm concentrating on the words and actions, and the kit only comes into it when I am avoiding tripping or knocking things over with the maniple. But it does make a difference to know, before I start really, that what we're using is the best we can provide. It should be the best. It should be clean and seemly, and not draw attention to itself. It shouldn't be slapdash or careless: time and attention is part of the sacrifice. It should also be visibly part of the great continuum of Christian worship, not novel or individualist, which is where the messy aesthetics of the 1960s to the 1980s stumble: the kit's form and style should refer to our brethren across time and space, and not to ourselves. So yes, it does make a difference of some kind to know we've got it more right than wrong. Thank you for asking.