Modesty: The Word We All Dread

Buckle up, women of Franciscan University, we are about to take a trip to Modesty Land.

Modesty: the dreaded word among us Catholic women. Cue the flashbacks to Catholic school and having your hemline measured to make sure your skirt was the appropriate length or the time the elderly lady at your parish pulled you aside to comment on the immodesty of your outfit for mass. Shudder, turn up your nose, gag a little, have some flashbacks…whatever reaction you need to have to the dreaded word modesty, have it now and get it out of your system.

Are you ready? Then let’s begin.

I am going to begin by making a disclaimer. I am by no stretch of the imagination a “modesty expert”. Heck, I am not studying theology or psychology or some other major that gives me insight into the human person. Basically, by textbook standards, I am extremely unqualified to talk about this subject. So where do my credentials come from that allow me to cover this weighty topic? Experience. That is all I have to give you lovely women. But sometimes I think a couple of real life stories can make more of an impact than a bunch of highly intelligent textbook definitions. I have a short 21 years of life under my belt, but in those 21 years modesty and her ugly twin sister immodesty have knocked at my door many times.

I want to begin by taking a walk with you down memory line. I am going to take you to a classroom at my former university, a secular arts school in the middle of downtown Pittsburgh. We are on the 7^th floor of one of the academic buildings where I am taking a natural science class. The professor calls on me to put an example question on the board. My little freshman self, lacking in any knowledge of true modesty coupled with zero self esteem or sense of dignity, has on a tight t-shirt and equally tight yoga pants. During the trek up to the board, several of the boys (emphasis on boys) in the class catcall and whistle at my freshman self.  Internally embarrassed, I walk back to my seat relieved the experience is over. But it isn’t. I glance at my phone and see a text from one of those boys commenting on how my body looked in the outfit I had on. I will spare you the word for word text because it is not even worth repeating.

That was not the first or the last time a situation like that occurred. The uniform of my classmates and myself was basically yoga pants and leggings worn as pants. Time after time I wondered why guys kept hitting on me inappropriately or why the wrong guys were always drawn to me.  It was always their fault though, and never mine. How could it be my fault? I was not asking for it or doing anything wrong....right? With that mindset, I would make excuse after excuse.

“Just stop looking.”

“Control yourself.”

“I’m comfortable and I like this so men need to get it together and deal with it.”

And then one day I was hit the face with a big bag of bricks called modesty.

This was not the type of modesty I had grown up with, featuring the anal skirt length or five-finger count making sure my shirts were not too low cut. It was a type of modesty that sprung forth from the very depths of the dignity and mystery of being a woman. For the first time in my life, when I looked in the mirror, I did not just see a physical body. I saw more than that. I saw a reflection of a woman radiating the beauty of Heaven. No wonder men are fascinated by us women, we allow them to glimpse into the grandeur of the beauty and mystery of Heaven itself!

I also began to recognize that my excuses for the way I was dressing were entirely selfish. The battle for purity is not the female team and the male team each doing his or her own thing, it is a struggle we undertake together. If dressing in tight clothes causes me to use the goodness of my beauty as a woman to be a temptress to sin for my brothers, then I should get off of my high horse of doing what I want and help them out by practicing modesty. I can make a small sacrifice to stop wearing whatever I want to wearing items of clothing that help my brothers fight a little bit better. Bottom line, achieving chastity requires teamwork.

Why can’t they just divert their eyes? Why can’t they just stop looking? I hear these questions a lot when the topic of modesty comes up. A lot of times people will compare men and lust to women and gossiping. Honestly, for various reasons, that comparison does not do much for me. So, I would like to offer another comparison.

I think every woman can raise a hand to having poor body image at one point in her life. For many of us, it’s something we deal with frequently. How many times have you looked in the mirror and criticized yourself during your life? Why do we do this? It is like a natural reflex in our brain that we cannot explain and cannot stop. You know how we do not understand why men cannot stop lusting at the drop of a hat? They do not understand why we cannot just wake up one day and stop criticizing our bodies. Telling a man to just “divert his eyes” or to “stop looking” is like telling a woman to look in the mirror and never have a negative thought again or never have a day were you feel uncomfortable in an outfit. 

Could you honestly, without fail, do that?

Modesty is and still will be a touchy subject. It has a dual nature of being entirely widespread (we all have to work together in the fight for purity) while at the same time being extremely personal (it is each person’s individual responsibility to make a daily choice to practice modesty).

To end, I want to leave you with two things. First, I want to leave you with my day-to-day approach to modesty. The first question I ask myself when I look in the mirror at my outfit is this: “Am I being a team player today?” What does that mean? It means that is what I’m choosing to wear today helping my teammates and myself fight the battle for chastity the best and am I pulling my weight as a member of the team. Being a team player means always keeping in mind the goal the team is working for. In this case, it is the goal of glorifying God’s creation in our bodies. Being a team player means that it’s not just about me, it’s about my teammates. Working for my teammates includes denying myself for the sake of the good of the team.

Finally, I give you the words of someone who is an expert on modesty: the Catholic Church. Truth be told, I never looked up the definition of the word “modesty” in the Catechism until writing this blog. I ask that you read the following and soak in the beauty and truth of the language in the text that follows.

“Purity requires modesty…Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden…modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love…Modesty is decency. It inspires one’s choice of clothing. It keeps silence or reserve where there is evident risk of unhealthy curiosity. It is discreet….Modesty inspires a way of life which makes it possible to resist the allurements of fashion and the pressures of prevailing ideologies…Modesty is an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to man.” (CCC #2521-2524)

In the Fearless Love of Christ,

Sarah

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Sarah is a senior Legal Studies major. Upon graduating this spring, she will be attending law school to pursue a career as an attorney. Sunday morning coffee, reading & writing, anything athletically related and pursuing the heart of the Lord through Our Lady are some of the things in life that bring her heart great joy.