A big bang for dressing

DRESSING may be a routine activity for all of us. We hardly give any serious thought to it other than what common sense tells us. But it can have deep theological basis important for us to know. Let’s put it under the crosshair and see what relevant adjustments we have to make.

This can be gleaned from an interview sometime ago with then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.

When asked about how our first parents, after their fall, immediately realized their nakedness and then wove fig leaves to cover themselves, the Cardinal practically referred to the origin and theological basis for our dressing.

“This demonstrates how man, who is no longer standing in the splendor of God, and of course no longer sees the other in the light of that splendor, now stands as it were naked before others,” he said, to explain the immediate effect of original sin.

That is to say that while before the fall, Adam and Eve felt no shame in their nakedness because they saw in each other the splendor of God in their bodies, that innocence was lost after the fall. Their bodies did not anymore show the splendor of God. They had become a source of shame.

The sin they committed did not only alienate them from God, but also disturbed the pristine order of things and damaged the harmonious relationship between the man and the woman.

The original clothing, the fig leaves, became a way to hide themselves from God and from each other. Later the covering became a necessary element to establish their personal and social identity, and restore and keep their relationship with God and with each other.

This view, I believe, is worth developing further as well as spreading far and wide. It gives deeper meaning to our dressing, and connects it and us to God and others in a more intimate way. It can and should create a big bang in our attitude and understanding of our clothing habits.

It shows us how our garment is not only a covering and an instrument of modesty. It also has become a tool to identify ourselves and to facilitate communication with others, God being the first and the ultimate other for us.

For sure, this idea, which is not yet an official Church doctrine, will go a long way in changing our mentality for the better, affording us to derive spiritual significance from this banal business of dressing up.

It’s time to give our dressing activity its proper moorings and orientations, making it transcend the twists and turns of purely human and natural considerations, which can give us a high if blinding degree of excitement but fail to affirm our true dignity.

We have to understand that clothing, which is at the fundamental level of our earthly life, can exert tremendous and crucial influence on the other higher aspects of our life.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that it can even make or unmake us. It can enhance us or compromise us. A basic need, it can give the fundamental character of our life. It reflects what’s inside us, and can also build it up or harm it.

For the Christian believer, our attire then assumes greater relevance to our personal dignity, our social relations and our supernatural destiny. It’s not just something purely individualistic, at the mercy of one’s whims and caprices. By necessity it is at once personal, social and spiritual or religious.

If we realize this truth about our clothing, I suppose we’d exert the appropriate effort to comply with its due requirements. We just cannot be casual about it, aloof to its objective standards. We just cannot allow ourselves to mindlessly flow with the fashions without knowing where we are heading.

This truth reminds us that there’s a need to be suitably dressed because of part of our personal and social identity comes from our profession, such as being a priest, a doctor or nurse, a lawyer, a policeman, an engineer, etc.

It also indicates to us the criteria we have to use to pursue the goals of functionality, beauty and elegance in sartorial tastes. All these criteria should culminate in the fact that our garments should reflect the splendor of God.

I believe it’s not a restrictive criterion, but rather one that integrates and enriches all the legitimate concerns we have whenever we talk about clothing and fashion.