Yesterday as I came out of Mass, a friend of mine noticed I was all Lenten in my purple shirt.
I died a little death.
I have an irrational dislike of being matchy-matchy with the liturgical season. (I don’t care what other people wear. It’s just me I think about — you’ve long suspected that, I’m sure.)
The difficulty is that I got three new purple shirts last fall, and they are my favorite shirts. If I’m going to wear a shirt that is not stained or faded or both, it’s 50-50 on the odds that shirt might be purple. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I like my purple shirts as much as I like my black shirts. They match my purple watch and my purple glasses (which I updated for black glasses, heh) and my purple book and everything. I like purple.
It is not my fault that the Church likes purple, too.
So I decided Sunday morning that I’d get over my irrational aversion and just wear the purple turtleneck and suck it up. I was very hoping no one would notice, but obviously someone did.
There is no deep spiritual meaning to any of this. Some things that happen in Lent have no deep meaning, they just are.
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PS: My link above to my 2015 discussion of this issue includes some comments on penance on St. Patrick’s day. As this year’s feast does fall on a Friday, you’ll have to consult your bishop to find out your options. There’s not one single answer for the whole US, let alone the whole world.
Photo:By Moose School Productions (http://peteralsop.com/gallery/peters-headshots) [CC BY 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons. I have no idea whether you should like Peter Alsop or not. I know that I liked his purple shirt photo best, of all the viable choices on Wikimedia.