Worldlings & Makeup & Holy Communion

[Shin]

Now on the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Margaret heard the voice of the Saviour asking her :

"My child, dost thou truly believe that I am the Lord thy God?"

Margaret replied: "My Creator, my Father, true Joy of my heart, why dost Thou ask me such a question?"

And the Lord: "Because, My child, with most men I am dead as far as they can make me so, and few are they in whom I live by grace."

"So greatly do they offend Me that were I, the true God, to forget that I came to suffer for them, surely would I hiss them away from My Presence when they come to communicate; such is the horror of their sins. For in receiving Me unworthily they again crucify Me and give Me to drink of a more bitter cup than that which the Jews offered Me. But as I permitted the Jews to take hold of Me and drag Me through the city to Calvary, so now do I suffer injury from those who receive me without devotion, and who handle Me irreverently."

"Hence thou shalt tell thy confessor that I command him never again to give the Communion of My Body to any person, whether religious or secular, unless she first cease to paint or adorn her face, or at least be prepared to do so; and unless, moreover, he be disposed to obey My commandments and to do My Will. For the Communions of worldlings and their lives are an exceeding offence to Me. Woe to souls who cease not to offend Me and yet presume to receive My Body, for it will go hard with them at their judgment."

- The Life of St. Margaret of Cortona

[odhiambo]

That just scares me to death. Sometimes I am even scared of going to receive for fear of doing so unworthily. We are so sinful. Every thought, every look is fraught with danger.

[odhiambo]

"Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.

A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.

For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying.

1 Corinthians 11:27-30

[Shin]

Yes a very appropriate quote to add to the first..  

I find fear is helpful to motivate me to change what I falsely sometimes think are lesser things that do not have to yet change.. if I were to abide in comfort I would not, but with a spark of fear.. I remember again how perfect and pure the love is that Christ demands of us..

[odhiambo]

During a retreat for our parish perpetual adorers, a speaker came to talk to us. He gave testimony of how, as a young man, who had a promising career in front of him, having been brilliant all throughout his days in college and universities.
His parents who are practicing Catholics,  arranged a party for him which was preceded by the celebration of a thanksgiving Mass.  During that Mass, he confessed to us that he received unworthily.
From that point onwards, things just started to fall apart for him.
 He became sickly and his sickness was not easily diagnosed. He became deaf, ( at least that is how I remember his talk). He also developed a paralyzing illness affecting his legs, he had to be on a wheelchair. At one point he was admitted at the Kenyatta National Hospital here in Nairobi. For months things got from bad to worse. While still unwell, in his hospital bed, it occurred to him to turn to the Lord. He remembered the unworthy reception and he felt such overwhelming remorse he wept and wept. The long and the short of it is that once he had reconciled with the Lord, he, miraculously got his former health back. His hearing became normal while he was in the Adoration Room. If I remember correctly he says he himself was just sitting there having accompanied his girlfriend to prayer then he heard a popping sound in his affected ear and that was it, he could hear!
He has written a book about all this. I have since bought two copies of the book and given away as presents. I have not read them myself.

[Therese]

I'm glad that I do not feel any need to use make-up, especially seeing it is so displeasing to our Lord.  I even think that faces look better without make-up and I would like to tell two women I know that they do not need the use of it and that it displeases our Lord very much.  But these women know that the Church permits the use of make-up--and the Church is Christ's voice on earth--so they won't understand where I am coming from ... unless, of course, I were to show them the St. Margaret of Cortona quote.  However, because the Church permits the use of make-up and does speak for Christ I will not approach them on this subject.  Besides, I am dispensed from giving fraternal correction.  Any thoughts?  

[Shin]

Do you have a clear, direct and infallibly authoritative statement that it is permitted Therese? If not, why believe it's permitted in the face of everything?

Perhaps at best some folks are taking a loophole and expanding an exception into a general practice eh, like grabbing inappropriate clothes when folks have none at all?

Listen to the Fathers:

'I hold that not only virgins and widows, but also wives and all women without exception, should be admonished that nowise should they deface God's work and fabric, the clay that He has fashioned, with the aid of yellow pigments, black powders or rouge, or by applying any dye that alters the natural features. . . They lay hands on God, when they strive to reform what He has formed. This is an assault on the Divine handiwork, a distortion of the truth. Thou shalt not be able to see God, having no longer the eyes that God made, but those the devil has unmade; with him shalt thou burn on whose account thou art bedecked.'

St. Cyprian of Carthage, Bishop & Father of the Church

'To dye oneself with paints in order to have a rosier or a paler complexion is a lying counterfeit.'

St. Augustine,  Bishop, Father and Doctor of the Church

'What does God think of spurious beauty, rejecting utterly as He does all falsehood?'

St. Clement of Alexandria, Father of the Church

And Our Lord directly again:

'Moreover, know that just as all mortal sins are very serious, so too a venial sin is made mortal if a human being delights in it with the intention of persevering.

Wherefore, know that two sins, which I now name to you, are being practiced and that they draw after them other sins that all seem as if venial.

But because the people delight in them with the intention of persevering, they are therefore made mortal. . .

The first of the two sins is that the faces of rational human creatures are being painted with the various colors with which insensible images and statues of idols are colored so that to others, these faces may seem more beautiful than I made them.

The second sin is that the bodies of men and women are being deformed from their natural state by the unseemly forms of clothing that the people are using.'

Our Lord Jesus Christ, 'The Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden'

[Shin]

God bless you too I pray Therese!  

Very glad you have nothing to do with the stuff! Makes folks looks like quite ridiculous!  

[mod edit: for content]

[Shin]

'Therefore, know for very certain that as often as they daub their faces with antimony and other extraneous coloring, some of the infusion of the Holy Spirit is diminished in them and the devil draws nearer to them. In fact, as often as they adorn themselves in disorderly and indecent clothing and so deform their bodies, the adornment of their souls is diminished and the devil's power is increased.

O my enemies, who do such things and with effrontery commit other sins contrary to my will, why have you neglected my passion; and why do you not attend in your hearts to how I stood naked at the pillar, bound and cruelly scourged with hard whips, and to how I stood naked on the cross and cried out, full of wounds and clothed in blood?

And when you paint and anoint your faces, why do you not look at my face and see how it was full of blood?

You are not even attentive to my eyes and how they grew dark and were covered with blood and tears, and how my eyelids turned blue. Why too do you, not look at my mouth or gaze at my ears and my beard and see how they were aggrieved and were stained with blood? You do not look at the rest of my limbs, monstrously wounded by various punishments, and see how I hung black and blue on the cross and dead for your sake.

And there, derided and rejected, I was despised by all in order that, by recalling these things and attentively remembering them, you might love me, your God, and thus escape the devil's snares, in which you have been horribly bound.'

Our Lord Jesus Christ, 'The Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden'

We really have some fine modesty resources, quite a collection of quotations, priceless for understanding the spirit of the virtue. Surround folks in quotes about a virtue and it has the most wonderful effects on the soul.  

[odhiambo]

Saint Jerome had no patience with those wearing make up, so we read

[Therese]

God bless you too I pray Therese!  

Very glad you have nothing to do with the stuff! Makes folks looks like quite ridiculous!  

Thank you, Shin!  Yes, women do look better without their faces painted.

[mod edit: on request]

[odhiambo]

I was trying to remember where I read that! Did Saint Jerome say something similar or am I mistaken?

[Therese]

Women who are not pretty on the outside who wear make-up to look "attractive" to their husbands or to their future husbands, without any real vanity on their part, are the type of women that the (two) bishops I speak of did not condemn.  I know that Jesus condemns make-up because it is artificial and alters one's God-given features, so I see no good in a woman using it, but I don't know moral theology as thoroughly as a bishop does--not even half as thoroughly--and Christ's voice is found in moral theology, just as it is found in the teaching of the Saints, no?

[Shin]

I was trying to remember where I read that! Did Saint Jerome say something similar or am I mistaken?

Oh yes, Odhiambo, a number of saints have said as much, relating such stories, one way or another.

St. Jerome.. yes he had some things to say.. one could well imagine..

Let me look it up a little and see what I can find..

Let's see, he relates St. Paula's statement when he tells her life's story:

'I must disfigure the face which contrary to God's commandment I have painted with rouge, white lead, and antimony. I must mortify that body which has been given up to many pleasures. I must make up for my long laughter by constant weeping. I must exchange my soft linen and costly silks for rough goat's hair. I who have pleased my husband and the world in the past, desire now to please Christ.'

St. Paula

Note the part 'contrary to God's commandment'.

Then also, just quickly looking through my note files and library:

'The married woman has the paint laid on before her mirror, and, to the insult of her Maker, strives to acquire something more than her natural beauty.'

'The women who ought to scandalilze Christians are those who paint their eyes and lips with rouge and cosmetics, whose chalked faces, unnaturally white, are like those of idols; upon whose cheeks every chance tear leaves a furrow, who fail to realize that years make them old; who heap their heads with hair not their own; who. . .'

He goes on quite a bit.. 'who smooth their faces, and rub out the wrinkles of age; and who, in the precence of their grandsons, behave like trembling school-girls. A Christian woman should blush to do violence to nature, or to stimulate desire by bestowing care upon the flesh. "They that are in the flesh," the apostle tells us, "cannot please God."

[Shin]

These days everyone is afraid of wrinkles and looking older..

The respect due to venerable old age is disappearing and the elderly all want to look like youths still pursuing the same immorality...

I really admire venerable old age..

[Therese]

These days everyone is afraid of wrinkles and looking older..

The respect due to venerable old age is disappearing and the elderly all want to look like youths still pursuing the same immorality...

I really admire venerable old age..

I just read one of your quotes above, Shin, and this quote I read reflects that it is not good even for "ugly" women on the outside to wear make-up, even to try to appear more pleasing to their husbands, as make-up distorts their natural features.  In light of this, I see that no woman should be wearing make-up.  Besides, I find that women who are not so attractive on the outside would look much better without their artificial make-up.  Some, I'm afraid, look very, very ugly because they look artificial.