Fathers, You are the Guardians of the Sacred

In one way or another, we fathers have to contend with the question of modesty in dress. I hope to formulate the concept of modesty in a positive light, as a virtue by which we show respect to that which deserves respect, a virtue that makes use of hiddenness to show forth the resplendence of God’s design.

To examine the delicate issue of modesty in dress, I must begin with a broader conversation about sexuality and its modern distortions. The problem is not that modern society thinks too much of sex, but that it thinks too little of it. By that I mean we have degraded sex from a life-giving and self-giving mystery of love in the context of a sacrament to a form of selfish recreation, mere titillation, and the irrational surrender to instinct.

People think of the Church’s attitude toward sexuality and modesty as unduly restrictive, as though the Church is a little embarrassed by sex, and feels she must hide it away because it is “dirty.” On the contrary, only the Church properly reverences sexuality for the good and beautiful reality that it is. Paradoxical though it may seem, it is the modern world that does not value sex. It is because the Church reverences sex far more than the world that she resists to the death the trivialization of love in the hands of modern hedonists. She builds walls around sex to protect it, not condemn it.

Blessed Fulton Sheen explained in Three to Get Married that sexuality must be reverenced. He writes, “One of the psychological reasons why decent people shrink from vulgar sex discussion is because by its very nature it is not a communicable kind of knowledge. . . It is too sacred to be profaned.” Yet modern culture refuses to understand this. Having reduced sexuality to mere biological function and self-gratification, we have lost the mystery of the sacred surrounding sex, and so have lost the taboos surrounding it. We see this reflected in our films, music, conversation, and dress. Because the taboos on sex are gone, modern people no longer feel the need to appropriately veil the body.

That which is sacred deserves to be set apart. It is too precious to be exposed to everyone. It is not for all, it is for one, or a few, and the most sacred things are set apart for The One, God Himself. In marriage, for instance, the spouses give themselves to one another bodily — and only to one another; the gift isn’t for anyone else. Just as it would be revolting to make love in public, it is similarly, though to a lesser degree, repellent to overexpose the body in public. Why? Because, in the first place, there is the body’s connection to sex and the sacredness of sex to consider; in connection with that, the human body, especially the woman’s body, is sacred because it is life-giving, and life is itself sacred; thirdly, every human body is meant to be a Temple of the Holy Spirit and should be treated as such.

One of the most obvious objections to immodesty in dress is the provocation of sins of the flesh. This, too, relates to the question of sacredness. It’s helpful to remember that impure thoughts are sinful in part because a kind of profanation takes place: a man desires something that does not belong to him. A woman’s body is too precious to be given to just any fellow on the street, even if only through sight or the imagination.

The sacred should be veiled in mystery. In the past, the veiling of the sacred was as natural to humanity as leaves to trees. Even pagans understood this. In ancient Egyptian temples, for instance, access to the inner sanctum of the temple was reserved for priests and pharaohs; it was not granted to everyone. In the Old Testament, the Jews placed the temple veil in front of the Holy of Holies; it was not for profane eyes. And of course, in our churches today, we place a veil before the Tabernacle because it contains the very presence of God Himself.

The problem of immodesty today runs deeper than just a societal tendency toward lust (which I certainly do not deny); it flows from desacralization, a loss of the sense of the sacred. For our secular, materialist society, nothing is sacred, including a woman’s body. According to twisted logic, there’s no reason to veil it. There’s no reason to reserve it for a husband (in the case of marriage) or for God alone (in the case of the religious vocation). The modern woman, through immodesty, casts all that she is before the world, and the world is only too eager to devour it. A kind of inexpressible and intangible emptiness follows from this. The girl who flaunts her body has given away a part of herself she can never get back. To a degree, the gift she brings to her marriage or her religious life will be diminished.

The same holds for a man who flaunts himself, of course. However, I focus on women here because I wish to speak especially to fathers who have daughters. In a recent opinion piece for Crisis magazine, Patrick O’Hearn rightly emphasized the key role fathers play in the preservation and promotion of modesty. He writes, “Modesty begins in the home when fathers speak the truth boldly. Our daughters must know they are treasures, not commodities. They can either reveal themselves to the lust of men or reserve their beauty for the gaze of God and a future spouse.” The father must understand himself as the guardian of this process, the guardian of the sacred. God has put into his hand beautiful and delicate flowers in the form of his daughters, and they must be shielded from the rough wind of the world.

Just as a father would not wish to see his daughter lose her health or be robbed of all her money, he also does not want to see her lose the mystery and dignity that should surround her body. It is as much his duty to protect this good as the others — probably more so. Lost innocence is much harder to restore than lost money. And a real loss of innocence occurs when a girl begins to spend the beauty of her body in exchange for vulgar attention.

To be clear, I write these words with far more compassion than condemnation. Most girls simply follow modern fashion trends without realizing the consequences of their actions. They dress provocatively because culture tells them to do so, tells them that this is the way to be feminine, to be desirable, to get attention, to be loved. They give themselves away to the leering gaze of the world, not realizing the cost.

The same holds for a man who flaunts himself, of course. However, I focus on women here because I wish to speak especially to fathers who have daughters. In a recent opinion piece for Crisis magazine, Patrick O’Hearn rightly emphasized the key role fathers play in the preservation and promotion of modesty. He writes, “Modesty begins in the home when fathers speak the truth boldly. Our daughters must know they are treasures, not commodities. They can either reveal themselves to the lust of men or reserve their beauty for the gaze of God and a future spouse.” The father must understand himself as the guardian of this process, the guardian of the sacred. God has put into his hand beautiful and delicate flowers in the form of his daughters, and they must be shielded from the rough wind of the world.

Just as a father would not wish to see his daughter lose her health or be robbed of all her money, he also does not want to see her lose the mystery and dignity that should surround her body. It is as much his duty to protect this good as the others — probably more so. Lost innocence is much harder to restore than lost money. And a real loss of innocence occurs when a girl begins to spend the beauty of her body in exchange for vulgar attention.

To be clear, I write these words with far more compassion than condemnation. Most girls simply follow modern fashion trends without realizing the consequences of their actions. They dress provocatively because culture tells them to do so, tells them that this is the way to be feminine, to be desirable, to get attention, to be loved. They give themselves away to the leering gaze of the world, not realizing the cost.

Ultimately, these women wish to be loved, which is a legitimate and natural desire. Here again, fathers play a key role. They must teach by word and deed what real love looks like. They must teach that the real love a man shows a woman must not be confused with lust. The father must teach his daughter that her value does not consist in the attractiveness of her body, and that the way to win the love of a good man is not through indecency but through virtue. She will learn this through the father’s treatment of the mother as well as through his rightly ordered love toward herself. As O’Hearn writes, “Modesty starts not with dress but with fatherhood. A girl who is seen, cherished, and affirmed by her father won’t seek attention through her body. When she captures her father’s gaze and knows the love of her Heavenly Father, she learns to dress for glory, not for gratification.”

This does not mean, of course, that fathers must impose ugliness on their daughters, forcing them into unfashionable and shapeless garments. As I have attempted to show, modesty entails a respect for the body, and this respect can also be violated, on the other extreme, through the ugliness or tastelessness of one’s dress. As Saint Francis de Sales writes in Introduction to the Devout Life, “For my own part I should like my devout man or woman to be the best dressed person in the company, but the least fine or splendid, and adorned.” A man or woman could be well covered, yet still fail to respect bodily dignity through slobbishness or frumpiness. The virtue of charity, too, demands that we try to look pleasant, though not ostentatious.

In fact, especially as she grows older, a father ought to encourage his daughter to dress well, to be beautiful. Dressing beautifully complements what a woman is by nature and what she de- sires to be. It is different from dressing provocatively. Society has blurred these lines, and with a forked tongue, whispered to women that beauty in dress means self-exposure, which is a lie. It is possible to be both well-dressed and modest. In fact, the two are complementary.

Fathers, your mission is to take a little girl and raise her to her full potential, helping to draw out the vigor and beauty that lies within her. A daughter’s beauty is a complete thing: physical but also spiritual; beauty in appearance alongside modesty in dress and heart. Your difficult task is to foster the whole thing integrally, to let no part of her beauty be spoiled, no portion of her light dimmed.