Modesty And Vigilance This Easter
By REY FLORES
Easter is coming around again and many people will be wearing their Sunday best to celebrate this important holy day celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. While some can afford new clothes, others of us will do our best with what we have.
As at Christmas, many attendees at Easter Mass, who aren’t regular Mass-goers and are not used to the unwritten dress code, may show up in either irreverent clothes, or even in scandalous outfits that leave little to the imagination.
I have seen women wearing miniskirts that will not allow them to sit in the pew without the skirt literally hiking itself up, revealing what brand of underwear they prefer to wear.
Before anyone starts to pontificate to me about maintaining vigilance of my eyes, I can assure you that any red-blooded male will find it difficult to ignore a pretty girl in an immodest dress.
Despite all of the efforts we Christian families make to teach our children about chastity and modesty, the secular popular culture is louder, more brash, literally more sexy, and certainly relentless in introducing young children to immodesty, promiscuous behavior, dirty words, and disrespect for the human body.
Popular mainstream culture presents human sexuality as if it were some sort of an amusement park ride. This is not anything new per se, but it has become increasingly more prevalent in all aspects of entertainment, especially in what is aimed at younger children.
Then, of course, there is the influence of Planned Parenthood in the perverted sex-ed classes being taught to children as young as second graders. The National Education Association has given carte blanche to Planned Parenthood in the public school system across America.
Often, the militant radical feminists who are supposedly against patriarchy and misogyny are the ones protesting topless at public events, sometimes scrawling words like “slut” on their midriffs to add to the spectacle.
While not as radical, there has been a trend during the last couple of years of women wearing yoga pants or leggings in public. You may recall a recent flap in the news a couple of weeks ago where a couple of young women were even stopped from boarding their flight because of their immodest pants.
Many women wear these pants without any underwear because of the thinness of the fabric. This then causes more scandal when men cannot even go to the grocery store without being distracted by a bunch of women wearing pants that, again, leave very little to the imagination.
Men are visual creatures, and perhaps women have become more visual creatures in the last couple of generations as well — just look at all of the sex, sex, and more sex we are constantly bombarded with on the Internet, on TV, on radio, and on billboards and other advertising in newspapers and magazines.
While some women understand their own responsibility to not be a source of temptation to men, many women do not care what men think and are encouraged to wear whatever they want because “no man is going to tell me how to dress!”
Yet if a woman is dressed immodestly, whether it’s the short skirts, the yoga pants, or exposing excessive cleavage, and a man either stares, whistles, or makes an inappropriate and rude remark, then he is solely to blame?
Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want women to be covered up either in burqas or hijabs as the Muslim culture dictates. Those poor women suffer in so many different ways that the head-to-toe coverings are probably the least of their worries, but it’s crazy to hide any of God’s creation like a piece of furniture in an old abandoned house.
While my wife used to point out to our daughters the beauty of longer skirts and wearing a veil at Mass, even they, with all of the things we taught them, have fallen away from some of these more traditional ways of presenting themselves in church.
Sometimes we are traveling elsewhere, or someone in the family gets sick, or whatever may come up, and we cannot make it to our regular Mass. The “last chance” Mass on a Sunday is always interesting because you know these folks are at least still trying to do the right thing.
Anyway, I have attended “last chance” Masses where the women look as if they were headed out to the nightclub. I was blushing as some of these women walked by me. I was trying my hardest not to look that way all throughout the Mass, but it was a major distraction not just for me, but to every man and boy around them, including the priests.
Is it really the death of modesty for women? Will the yoga pants trend ever end? Will summertime once again be a time for men to remain extra vigilant of our eyes?
It doesn’t help that major retailers push these immodest fashions on not just women, but on little girls as well. No wonder there are increasing cases of horrific sexual abductions and assaults against little girls because our society is sexualizing them at younger ages at every turn.
All I can say is: Ladies, be considerate of the men and boys around you. And men, even if a woman is dressed immodestly, ask St. Joseph for his help in keeping your eyes and your thoughts on God while the temptation is in sight.
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(Rey Flores is a Catholic writer and speaker. Contact Rey at reyfloresusa@gmail.com.)
