seminary investiture . . . putting on the new man!

Before we move on to our reflection on the significance of the vestments, particularly the cassock and surplice, it is important that we recover first and foremost the original intent of such vestments so as to develop our thoughts on its meaning based on its context.

First the cassock. In the first four centuries of Christianity the clergy did not bother to wear a distinctive garb that would mark them off from the laity. They wore the tunic as everybody else did. The tunic was an undergarment. Only a Roman citizen could wear a toga around his tunic but non-citizens could not, so they have to be content with their tunic which may reach just above their knees or extend to the ankles depending on the kind of movement one’s work demands.
This tunic was short sleeved. Long sleeves were considered barbaric fashion then, because only barbarians wear long sleeves due to the colder climate of northern Europe from whence they came. This was so until one day, to the shock of the fashion designers of ancient Rome, the emperor himself, after fighting the barbarians up north, came home wearing a long sleeves tunic.

That was the third century and it didn’t take a long time before the long sleeves tunic became more and more fashionable in Roman society.
During the fourth century, with the beginning of the barbarian invasions, fashion begun to change. The people went after the more comfortable and probably the more secure type of clothing which would not leave anything dangling from between one’s legs. This would later become the ancestor of the pants. However, the clergy decided to retain what they have been so used to wearing – the long sleeves tunic. So, in reality, it was the lay people who changed the style of their clothes and not the clergy. The clergy did not invent or copy, they merely retained the old giving them thus their distinctiveness as ministers.
This tunic would later become the precursor of the modern day white loose-fitting alb and the body hugging black cassock. It was called the tunica talearis – ordered to be worn by the council of Braga in 572 when a cleric is in his parish. Much, much later Pope Sixtus VI in 1589 ordered it to be worn in all circumstances, and still latter in 1604 it was decreed as the main outdoor garment, the uniform of all the clergy.
It is called soutane or in Italian sottana from the Latin word subtus meaning under – a tunica, an undergarment. In the 1960s, papal indult had granted to priests and seminarians living between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, meaning those living in the tropics, to have their cassocks in white, obviously because of the heat, as black absorbs more heat, while white reflects it. In the 1980s this white cassock was recognized by the CBCP not just as a clerical uniform in the Philippines but also as a liturgical vestment because it is white.
Do you know that supposedly a Roman cassock shall has 33 buttons representing the number of years Christ was here on earth? And do you also know that the sleeves should have 5 buttons each representing the 5 wounds of Christ? Virgilio please don’t begin counting your buttons. 33 buttons may just be too many for your height!
The surplice. Should Msgr. Gamboa tell you later to wear your sobrepelliz he means that you should wear your surplice. Sobre means above, pieles means fur coat, in Latin it is called superpelliceum – super means over, pelliceum means fur. It is a vestment worn over a coat. Thus if you notice it is loose. It is loose because you are not wearing a fur coat underneath it which the clergy did before, before global warming that is. And you are not wearing a fur coat or at least a padded cassock because you are living between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. So as you can see a surplice was worn as protection against the cold or at least to cover “the protection” against the cold.
It is not to be mistaken as a rochet, (so don’t call it roquete) because you and I are not allowed to wear a rochet. A rochet is a vestment worn by prelates – the higher clergy, so to say, the bishops and cardinals. It is like a surplice, but unlike the surplice, a rochet is close fitting and body hugging and does not have pleating, and it is part of the choir or formal dress of bishops and cardinals.
A surplice however, replaces the alb when worn over the cassock (of course nowadays you don’t wear it by itself nor should your wear it over anything else except the cassock.). Thus it is considered as a liturgical garb – the garb of the baptized and later on the garb of those who serve in any liturgical ministry. In the 12th century when the monks started wearing it, it reached until the ankles (the Benedictines wear this even today – the original sobrepelliz, of course minus the undercoat and only during mass). Then in the 13th century it became a little bit shorter. In the 17th and 18th century it became even shorter reaching only the waist – you can see this style at the classrooms pasillo at a time when priests and seminarians look so, so badoy). Then in the 19th century it became longer once more slowly reaching where it is right now, just under the knees.
This is one vestment that underwent a lot of fashionable trends and evolution so much so that many synods in church history have to rule on its style and use. Considering sometimes the inclination of some members of the clergy even now, and seminarians for that matter, it is most believable, as the judgment of those synods would state, that certain styles, when left to the discretion of the individual or groups, may just look too feminine! Well some synods even reached the point to rule on how much laces one can use when laces became fashionable even among the clergy. Now I am entertaining doubts when Toto and Michael Pete suggested we change the style of our surplices. Hopefully they didn’t have laces and raffles in mind!
Well I can talk for an hour with regards the fashion trends and tendencies of the supposedly unworldly clergy and would be clergy. But we don’t have the luxury of time and besides it would be preposterous to do in a homily. So the next time some of you would entertain the thought of suggesting a change of fashion, you are still normal considering that for centuries before, the church has entertained such avid fashionistas even among her ranks.
In this reflection I would like you to realize two things.
First, you are wearing and you will be wearing an ancient vestment. It is a garb that dates back to the first Christians in ancient Rome. In our time we may have added an extra pocket or two, and extra buttons here and there and made the shape a little more up to date, but it is the same ancient garb proudly worn by the newly baptized, the same garb of the first Christians torn by lions and wild beasts, the same garb stripped by soldiers just before they went to the gallows or drenched with oil so as to light the imperial gardens.
Then when the age of martyrs has come to pass the garb became a symbol of death to the world, to its allures and desires. The monks who continued to wear the garb of martyrs even after the fashion of the faithful changed, would choose this other route to martyrdom with another kind of dying and death to the world and the kind of values it propounds. Later on it would become black precisely because it became a symbol of one’s dying to the world and all that the world holds. It is precisely this thought that runs through the tridentine rite of clothing with cassock done during the tonsurate when the bishop says the following formula: Dominus pars haereditatis meae et calicis mei: tu es qui restitues haereditatem meam mihi. (The Lord is the portion of my inheritance, and of my cup; You shall restore my inheritance to me.) – a verse from the psalm which harps back to the time when Levites received no share when the promised land was divided to the twelve tribes, because their sole possession, their sole inheritance was the Lord.
Does this symbolism still make sense to you? Does this make sense to us priests in our choices and in the kind of priesthood we live today? I am glad you have chosen for your theme, “for the Lord has looked upon his lowly servant?” Lowly servant – what does that lowly mean and imply? When fashion changed the Christians wore the same basic garb their forefathers wore, the same basic garb even when they were adding more and more imperial symbols of power on the vestments they would put over this simple garb. Simplicity - I am glad that you have forgone expensive lunches. It is more in sync with what you will be wearing.
In today’s fashion we have this persistent problem regarding what to wear in a formal occasion and yet remain conveniently dressed. This dilemma has brought about the problem of proper church attire from draping but backless gowns to negligees pretending to be formal dresses and to panties masquerading as shorts! The cassock is the most inconvenient clothing one would ever choose. It may not make you into anything but you are going to wear it as a symbol and a reminder of your choice, a clothing that should color your life and choices.
Second, the superpelliceum was originally welcomed as a solution to the difficulty of wearing an alb with a fur coat underneath. It is one of those vestments made to hide something, a pretense just like the false benches in monasteries of old which made one look like he was standing while actually he was sitting. (This is to accommodate the rule of standing while praying the long psalms.) As of this time, I cannot make up my mind regarding what to do with this surplice except to think of it as an overdone apparel.
But you see liturgy is not all the time practical. It uses lots of symbols intended to awaken our resolve and to remind us of that resolve. In putting on the surplice in the old liturgy the seminarians prayed the following prayer:
Indue me Domine novum hominem, qui secundum Deum creatus est in justitia et sanctitate veritatis. Put on me, O Lord, the new man who has been created according to God in justice and holiness of truth.
Putting on the new man. What is that new man? Is the new man the same as the man in high school, the man in pre-college? Is there a daily struggle to become that new man? In my many years here often times I am led to like the “old man” better than the “new man” now wearing the cassock for a year or two. Their desire for the priesthood was more intense, their enthusiasm for the formation more upbeat. The new man – where is that new man, can you sustain that new man?
Otherwise the surplice becomes indeed an anomaly too dependent on the symbolism supplied by the church. One can justify the cassock as a uniform, as an identity, but without the meaning supplied by the church the surplice is an anomaly. For one you are making something already inconvenient more inconvenient – why should you put another dress on top of the other serving no purpose whatsoever. Another is you are made to put on something originally intended to hide something, that something which is no longer there anyway. And besides who needs fur coats in the tropics and much less a cover for the supposedly fur coat. No wonder, after the 3 to 4 months honeymoon with your new vestments which usually follows the investiture, you don’t want to wear it anymore.
Remember the meaning it gives and I suggest that when you wear it pray that old prayer which gives meaning to it. When putting on your cassock everyday pray: “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance, and of my cup; You shall restore my inheritance to me.” And for the surplice pray “Put on me, O Lord, the new man who has been created according to God in justice and holiness of truth.”
May the Blessed Mother help us see what lies beyond these symbols and the call we are called to undertake.