Because of the Angels

Mass yesterday (which, was, incidentally, a weekday) included red cassocks for the acolytes, a stirring homily on the courage and fortitude of St. Margaret Clitherow, and Latin chant. This last was supplied by me. The former two items were courtesy of the visiting priest.

Before the final blessing, Father thanked everyone for their reverence, recalling a time when the very demeanor of Catholics and their behavior toward the sacred caught the attention of non-Catholics, and made them want to follow our faith. He prayed that such a day would come again, and encouraged us to keep on as we were doing. Then, after Mass, he thanked me for wearing a veil.

“I did not grow up in the Catholic tradition at all,” he said, “but I have always found that passage of St. Paul one of the most beautiful parts of the Bible, in that line where he says, ‘because of the angels’.”

He was referencing 1^st Corinthians 11, where Paul instructs that men should uncover their heads for worship, while women should cover their heads. He offers a theological argument for this, and then, seemingly out of the blue, says “because of the angels.”

I told Father that I had never understood that particular line. I understood the part preceding it, which had, in part, motivated me to start veiling in the first place. But that fragment of a sentence had always baffled me, as though it did not fit. I did quite a lot of research on that passage later, and none of the commentators I read seemed to have any logical explanation either. Some attempted one, but others echoed my thoughts that it just didn’t seem to fit. None seemed to think it important to the overall passage.

The best explanation I had found so far was that the angels are present at every Mass, and they would be scandalized to see a woman with her head uncovered, symbolically flouting the natural order that a woman is to be subject to her husband. It was as though St. Paul was saying, “if you won’t do this because it’s the right thing to do, do it because you’ll make the angels cry if you don’t.” It seemed a weak argument on Paul’s part, and weak arguments are not his characteristic at all-at all.

Father proceeded to explain how he understood it. “It is because when the angels look down from heaven on a veiled woman, they see not the woman’s glory, but the glory of God, and that gives them joy.” This was basically the answer I had found, but turned upside down. Or rather, right-side-up. And when you turn something right-side-up, it starts to fall into perspective.

I got a mental image of the veil reflecting the glory of God by concealing my womanly glory. If, to paraphrase a Paulism from another place, I die to myself, then I can live in Christ. If I hide my own glory, then I can show forth God’s glory—to my neighbors, to my coworkers, to my fellow-parishoners, and even the angels, who dance with joy when they see it.