“Liturgical Dress” — Dress to God’s Word
Editor’s note: Today, I’m pleased to welcome the following guest post from James Celoni of the awesome blog Dress to God’s Word / “Liturgical Dress”. James does the most amazing job of using his physical wardrobe to serve as a living compliment to the Liturgy of the Word. Take a look below for what this means in action and be sure to visit his blog each day for continuing inspiration! LMH
“All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for … training in righteousness.” –2 Tim 3:16
A “word cloud” based on a Sunday Gospel passage.
As a lay Catholic and parish music minister, I’ve wanted to integrate the daily readings into my prayer, life, and ministry. Since I hadn’t always made the time to spend with them, I looked for a trick to help me be more consistent. I decided, since I dress up every day, to expand my practice of dressing to the liturgical season (e.g., white for Easter, purple for Advent and Lent) to dress to each day’s readings more specifically (e.g., a tie with fishes for a miraculous catch, or a red striped shirt for Good Friday’s “by his stripes we are healed”). A few co-workers and others noticed and suggested I blog about it, but I figured it would take too long and nobody would read it, but I decided to give it a try and so started “Dress to God’s word” (LiturgicalDress.com, DressYourLife.org) last summer. It now has followers including DREs using it in their parish religious education programs–and it does keep me consistent.
James Celoni’s recent apparel.
I summarize each reading and include a “word cloud” of the readings (sometimes shaped), something related from Pope Francis (often from his homily), daily reflections (with summaries), related music, a selfie with notes about how it relates to the readings, and an occasional “special feature” (such as a “Roamin’ Catholic” report when I attend a different Mass). The music is often sacred (in various flavors, with unusual arrangements and some original stuff) but I find related show tunes, opera, country, pop, and spoofs too. I get the most feedback from the music links; please click them!
My external “dressing” challenges me to the more important matter of making my daily life more in tune with God’s Word, as we’re challenged to clothe ourselves in Christ (Colossians 3:12-14) and put on God’s armor (Ephesians 6:11-17).
So please check out http://liturgicaldress.com. I also post a daily teaser to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+: one-liner, picture, and link to the whole post. Feel free to add a comment, perhaps about how you “dressed” to God’s word today, literally or figuratively.
Happy Easter season!
Copyright 2014 James Celoni
