How to Dress for Mass

A parish in the area offers the following advice in the front cover of the hymnals:

“The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the participation in the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, the eschatological marriage of Christ and His Church.  The standard dress for a wedding is a tuxedo and a long white dress.  If you do not have these readily available then please select another formal outfit to wear to Mass.”

The tuxedo comment is meant to be humorous of course.  At the same time it illustrates an important point.  The Mass is a wedding, and moreover it is the single most important event in which we participate this side of heaven for the sole reason that it isn’t simply on this side of heaven.  It is a curious thing to me that people dress better for work, dinner parties, and other social events than they do for the Sacred Liturgy, which is the culmination of all reality.  That being said, the manner in which people present themselves at these other formal occasions is rapidly declining.  There was a time when every professional male wore a jacket and tie to work every day and people would dress to the nines just to get on an airplane.  Our culture has lost the sense of the formal almost entirely, which is explained in part by a near complete lack of objective artistic beauty and in part by a disdain and disregard for ritual, both of which I firmly believe are rooted in an overemphasis on entertainment and comfort in virtually every aspect of our lives.

Study after study has confirmed that people act differently when they are dressed differently.  In schools, consistent results show that students who wear uniforms have higher academics performance, lower discipline problems, and higher self-esteem¹.  It seems, in an ironic twist of the phrase, that the clothes do make the man.  From a Catholic perspective, this should come as no surprise.  We are a faith that is grounded in sacramentality, the principle that the internal is affected by the external, and the external is a manifestation of the internal.  Simply put: we act how we are, and we are how we act.  When people dress more formally, they tend to act more formally.

It strikes me, though, that many are unaware of what constitutes appropriate dress for the Holy Mass.  True, there was a time in which this seemed like a rhetorical question, one to which everyone implicitly knew the answer.  But those days are long past and only a nostalgic memory of them remains in old, faded photographs.  In the current fashion climate, it seems necessary to outfit the good people of God with the knowledge of what makes an appropriate outfit.

What I offer is the male edition of “How to Dress for Mass.”  I leave the female edition for another writer to take up.  We begin with the main articles that make for a well-dressed gentleman.  First, a jacket is necessary.  Yes, it can get hot in Mass; yes, you might not be comfortable, but then again it is about presenting your best to God, not about comfort.  And besides, the priest who is dressed in clerics (hopefully) with an alb and a chasuble is more than likely hotter than you are, so offer it up for his holiness and vocation.  Preferably the jacket is part of a suit: a suit by definition has matching fabric for both the coat and the pants.  If you are really looking to present your best, find a three-piece suit with a matching vest.  If you don’t have a full suit, a sport jacket and dress pants will be fine, but pair the jacket with dress pants that are wool, not cotton.  If you have to wear cotton pants, make sure that they are well pressed as cotton shows wrinkles easily.

A suit is meant to go with a tie.  True, one of the modern “looks” seems to be the tie-less jacket, but this look is sloppy ... unfinished.  The tie can be either a regular necktie or a bow tie, but if you are tying a regular tie, learn how to tie a double windsor, or at least a half-windsor.  The "four-in-hand" is asymmetric, too skinny, and quite frankly for high school boys.  The double windsor is the big-boy knot.  If you are tying a bow tie, make sure to adjust it and pull it tight enough so that the back end doesn’t slip down.  A clip on bow tie, much like a clip on tie, is for five-year-olds, not grownups.

The suit, shirt, and tie should be classic, not flashy.  While current apparel on the market will always bear a stamp of modern trends, these three pieces should be as close to timeless as you can buy.  If the word “trendy” comes to mind at any point in deciding what to buy and/or wear ... don’t.  Somethings will always be in style, like the white shirt and a striped tie.  Other things will never be in style, like a Snoopy tie and paisley shirt.  The middle category contains those things that are “in” right now but bear little possibility of remaining so much past a few years: pink shirts for example.  In general, stick with the classic colors.  Blue and black suits will never go out of style, and the same is true of some brown suits.  While a white shirt is the safest bet, blue or even brown will probably be okay, as will subtle pin-stripes.  The shirt should be long-sleeved; you should be able to see the cuffs sticking out just past the edge of the jacket.

I tend to wear suspenders with suits and a belt with a sport jacket, but that it simply my preference.  A belt can work with a suit as well, and there are some who prefer suspenders with everything.  If you plan to wear suspenders, make sure that they button to the inside of the pants.  Suspenders with the metal clips fall into the same category as the four-in-hand ... probably worse.  The color of the suspenders either matches the pants or the shoes.  A belt should match the shoe color.

Shoes should be dress shoes, preferably with leather soles.  There are too many pseudo dress shoes on the market, and all of them should be avoided.  Nothing looks goofier than a sharp suit, well-tied tie, and a pair of shoes that are trying to satisfy the categories of formal, casual, and sport all at the same time.  A general rule is ... if the shoes look good with jeans, they are not dress shoes.  The shoes should be laced.  Look, I like loafers as much as the next guy, but I like them because precisely because I am lazy, and that is exactly what “loafer” means.

If it is cold enough to warrant a coat, a dress coat would be best, one that can be worn over the suit jacket.  Regardless, the coat should be taken off moments after arriving in the pew.  Yes, some churches are old and cold (the building that is, not the people).  However, regardless of the fact that the Eucharist shares a connection with the Jewish Passover, we should not be dressed ready for flight.  A gentleman takes his coat off when indoors.  Likewise, he takes off his hat.  Formal hats have fallen out of use as of late, mostly because people walk less and drive more.  The parish I mentioned at the start still has the hat “clips” on the pews, reminiscent of a time when nearly every man wore a hat to Church, and knew well enough to take them off when indoors.  I have high hopes that the dress hat will make a comeback along with the bow tie.  As a side note, it should go without saying that ball caps are for the ball field, not for Mass, even if they are removed once inside.

While the overcoat comes off, the suit (or sport) jacket does not ... ever.  (Well, at least until you get back to the car.)  Whether the coat is two-buttoned, three-buttoned, or even four does not matter.  What matters is that while you are standing, every button except the bottom is buttoned.  (I had a student who once insisted that is was only the bottom button that should be done up.  This, together with his four-in-hand and clip-on suspenders made for quite the picture.)  When you are sitting, all jacket buttons should be undone.  This means you should re-button them when you stand, and re-unbutton them when you sit ... every time.  I realize this incessant buttoning and unbuttoning can seem excessive, but the bright side is that the Catholic Mass is aerobic enough so that by the time the recessional plays it will seem like second nature.

I wish that the list of things not to wear could be left unspoken, but I am afraid that is not the case.  Therefore ... (take a big breath) ...  no ball cap, no shorts, no short-sleeve shirts (most especially tee-shirts), no sports team advertisements, no sandals, no sneakers, no gum (okay, that isn’t apparel), no tank tops, no sweat pants, no sweat shirts, no sunglasses, and no jeans.

There are three objections that are often voiced when I bring up the topic of appropriate dress at Mass.  All three can be answered by applying the same objection to the formal wear that accompanies a wedding.  First, isn’t it important to be comfortable?  If I am not used to dressing up, it feels fake to me to do it just for Mass.  If this is the case, I presume that you wore tennis shoes and shorts for your July wedding, yes?

Second, talking about how people dress just turns them off.  The important thing is that they are there ... at Mass, right?  Well, yes, the most important thing is that they are at Mass, but that doesn’t mean that anything else goes.  It is hard to think of any other area of our life that we would accept such minimalism.  This is especially true of a wedding.  Dare I say that there has never been a bride that would have accepted a groomsman showing up in shorts and a tank top (presumedly because the tuxedo didn’t make him comfortable) only to brush it off with, “Well, the important thing is that he is here.”

Third: Jesus does not expect everyone to shell out the money for dress clothes.  Certainly he would allow someone into his presence who was not dressed up, right?  Certainly ... but that doesn’t justify our choice to dress sloppy.  Mass is a formal event, and as such it deserves out best dress.  If we choose to dress otherwise, we will not be turned away, but that fact does not free us to dress however we want.  Quite the opposite: the generosity of Christ accepting us “how we are”, faults and all, should motivate us to give to him the best that we can, and that includes dressing up for Mass.  Of course, if one is truly unable to afford dress clothes, then they are the exception.  However, 99% of the people who level this objection can afford a suit.  One suit is all it takes: nobody will know if you wear it every Sunday.

What we wear affects how we approach the Mass, but more to the point it reflects how we think of the Mass.  If we are willing to put on a suit and tie for a wedding, if we are willing to dress formally for a fancy dinner party, why are we not willing to do so for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?  I have written page after page about the Liturgy and what can be done to improve it.  The unique thing about formal dress is that is in the hands of the laity.  If every parishioner were to take the Wedding Feast of the Lamb seriously and dress in a manner that reflects its reality, I guarantee that the liturgical atmosphere would change almost instantly.

Remember, it is not what suits your personal preferences, but instead what suits the dignity of the event.  The Mass is bigger than you - dress like it.

1  At an Albuquerque middle school, the implementation of school uniforms saw discipline referrals drop from 1565 to 405 in one semester.  In a California district, mandated uniforms resulted in a 36% decrease in crime, 74% decrease in sexual offenses, 51% decrease in fights, 50% decrease in weapons offenses, 34% decrease in battery offenses, 32% decrease in suspensions, and 18% decrease in vandalism.  In 2001, three schools were enlisted to conduct three different “dress days”: a dress-up day, a dress-down day, and a regular dress day.  Formal school uniforms were not a part of this study.  In all three schools, there were notably less discipline cases on the days students dressed up and notably more on the days they dressed down.