Mass

[Philo Koinonia]

Hey! I have always thought that the priests' outer garment at Mass is not supposed to have any seams in it, just like Jesus' garment that the soldiers cast lots for. Our parish priest does not do that. So I was just wondering what the Chruch says about that.

- Philo Koinonia

[Cam42]

[quote name='Philo Koinonia' date='Jul 28 2005, 11:32 AM']Hey!  I have always thought that the priests' outer garment at Mass is not supposed to have any seams in it, just like Jesus' garment that the soldiers cast lots for. Our parish priest does not do that. So I was just wondering what the Chruch says about that.

  - Philo Koinonia
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Nope. The Garment is called a chasuble. It is called in Latin casula planeta or pænula, and in early Gallic sources amphibalus, the principal and most conspicuous Mass vestment, covering all the rest. Nearly all ecclesiologists are now agreed that liturgical costume was simply an adaptation of the secular attire commonly worn throughout the Roman Empire in the early Christian centuries.

The early medieval chasubles were made of a semicircular piece of stuff, the straight edge folded in the middle, and the two borders sewn together, leaving an aperture for the head. From this it will be seen that the chasuble is only a cope of which the front edges have been sewn together. The inconvenience of the primitive chasuble will be readily appreciated. It was impossible to use arms or hands without lifting the whole of the front part of the vestment. To remedy this, more than one expedient was resorted to. The sides were gradually cut away while the length before and behind remained unaltered. Thus, after being first curtailed at the sides until it reached but little below the elbows, it was eventually, in the sixteenth century, pared away still farther, until it now hardly extends below the shoulders and leaves the arms entirely free.

Of the chasuble as now in common usage in the Western Church two principal types appear, which may for convenience be called the Roman and the French. The Roman is about 46 inches deep at the back and 30 inches wide. It is ornamented with orphreys forming a pillar behind and a tall cross in front, while the aperture for the neck is long and tapers downwards. The French type, also common in Germany and in a more debased form in Spain, is less ample and often artificially stiffened. It has a cross on the back and a pillar in front. In medieval chasubles these orphrey crosses often assume a Y form, and the crosses themselves seem really to have originated less from any symbolical purpose than from sartorial reasons connected with the cut and adjustment.

(from the Catholic Encyclopedia)