Check out this beautiful vestment created by his Mexican hosts for the Pope’s Vespers in Mexico.
You can say this kind of thing is way over the top. But I think the Mexican aesthetic is that they are fully committed and not afraid to go big.
Like a cope (a very solemn cloak used for carrying the monstrance with the Real Presence of Jesus), that’s made out of cloth of gold brocade with purple trim during Lent. I mean, heck, you know they say you can use cloth of gold or cloth of silver as a stand-in for any liturgical color. But in the modern church, you don’t usually see it happen. Now, it’s going to happen. It will be solemn, and Lentish, but also pretty darned formal and big-occasion. (And it doesn’t make it look like a cheap poncho splashed with paint is how we choose to serve God, which is the visual that a lot of rich host countries in Europe tend to stick the Popes with.)
The subtle reason for this is that Leon’s patron saint is Our Lady, under the title of Most Holy Mother of the Light. So the golden cope points to Christ (in the monstrance) as the Light of the World. It also shows the kinship between the Virgin Mary and the priest, because both have had the privilege of carrying God and serving as His throne. It does not glorify the Pope, but only Jesus Christ.
So it’s classy, it’s oriented toward the sacred, but it’s not what most Europeans today would do. And that’s just fine.
It’s a good article. Too bad we don’t see these details in the English-language news media.
*pleasantly surprised* I was expecting something that looked like a felt shop exploded, or an entire legion of folks learned cross-stitch in the making of it– with a shop’s worth of thread.
That’s rather restrained, compared to some of the ones I’ve actually seen used, and rather dignified. Rich but not ludicrous. Not understated, but not covered with details that must be seen to make sense.
That’s how you can tell it’s Lent.
But yeah, it really is nice. Maybe I got a little too funny about it… but I watch all these things, and very rarely do I get to see gold brocade anymore, even on the Pope. And yet, when I was a kid, you still would see it occasionally on priests in my town. It’s an impoverishment of liturgical art and imagination. So I’m excited and amused to see that the Mexican vestment designers refuse to go along with the “Lent means we put a drab gun to your head and take away your holy water” school of thought. I want Lent to be about repentance, not about sticking dead branches and cacti in front of the altar. (Thankfully not a problem in my parish nowadays, but I’ve seen it.)
*grin* Oh, if I compare it against the stuff I’ve seen pictures of in Europe, it’s WAY over the top! If I compare it to my favorite sort– white alb, chasuble with a cross in the middle of the chest, maybe some very delicate gold making the y-shape, stole and everything else not even visible. Favorite ever is the green chasuble with plus-sign outline crosses from the shoulders to the center of the chest, most central outline-cross being filled with some fancy-work.
I’d guess that it’s a matter of contrast– if normal life is plain, the fancy is more eye-catching; if normal life has a lot of religious symbols, you’ve got to be bolder to show the difference; if normal life has lots of fancy stuff, elegant simplicity gets attention; if normal life has all obvious religious symbols purposely removed, bold and direct religiosity says more.
(I used a cheat-sheet– don’t actually know the names of stuff with any confidence.)