Hey y'all!

So I was inspired by my dear friend Emma @ Gloria in Excelsis Deo to write about my own modesty story from reading hers. Please go and check out her blog, she's a gem in the Catholic blogosphere!

And now, allow me to take you back in time to a little Catherine....

As a child, I wore mostly pants. I know that I wore dresses and skirts to church - most of the time - as well as some formal occasions (the occasional wedding, birthday party, etc.).

My modesty journey started when I was about 11, unbeknowest to me at the time.

I had just joined my local 4-H Sewing club - a club that I stayed in for the next decade or so. That is where I learned how to sew, in case anyone was wondering.

My first project? I chose to make a skirt.

I remember reasoning at the time that I had little to no "play skirts" at the time. And I thought it was time to expand that particular part of my wardrobe.

I made a beautiful (fairly long) skirt with Winnie-The-Pooh fabric. I still have it - it is now stored away for my (future) daughter.

2 years later, I was more or less pressured into making a pair of pants. I remember not liking them nearly as much as my skirt. Though I think it had more to do with the difficulty of actually making them than anything else.

Fast forward to when I was 15. 

I had just recently "converted" to the Faith. I say this because I was baptized as a Catholic at 5 months but never received full instruction or was received into the Sacraments because of the fact that my mom is (and always has been) Protestant. Not that I hold it or anything else against her by any means. It just bears a lot on my story, so I feel the need to disclose it.

After I received the Sacraments, I was kinda thrown into kind of an identity crisis of sorts. I knew how to act as a woman in the general sense of the world. But....how was I supposed to act and dress as a Catholic woman?? This may seem like a silly question to ask, but I knew that the Faith was not just a religion but a way of life. And I wanted to live it right - being the perfectionist that I am.

I had no example at home to fall back on. My father was going to be no help in this situation (no offense to him, of course, but....)

So, I began observing other women at church. As I befriended a lot of them, I picked up on their examples and copied them. My Junior Sodality at church was also a tremendous help, as it gave me the example of Catholic girls. It was through their example in dress that I made the decision to wear only skirts to Mass, any Mass whether it was the Ordinary (Norvus Ordo/English) or the Extraordinary (Latin) Mass, as well as veil my head.

At 15, I was still wearing pants in my daily life and functions outside of church. I went to a church picnic around that time, again watching other Catholic women. I noticed that even then, that most still wore skirts!

At 16, I found a book lying around my parent's bedroom. It had a beautiful cover on it, and it was called Dressing with Dignity. With my father's permission, I read it. I'm fairly certain that he bought it with me in mind. Why else would he have it around?

Goodreads

Anyways, like many other Catholic women, that book changed my life.

I will admit that the book bothered me at first. I was horrified at what the effects of immodesty on men really were. I began boning up on what exactly modesty in dress really was - via modesty talks, sermons, and other books on the subject. I felt this distinct "call" if you will, to lay aside my pants for good, especially in the light that I was dealing with a horrible vice of impurity at the time.

I started slowly - I stared wearing them all day on Sunday first for a few weeks, and then started wearing them on weekdays.

There was one distinct problem though - at the age of 16, not counting all of my good skirts for church, I had maybe 3 skirts. And not all of them good.

Hence, I sought to remedy that problem via my sewing skills. I did make several of my skirts, but my wardrobe was supplemented by hand-me-downs from the ages of 16-17.

Now, from the sounds of things, you think everything is going smoothly, right?

Not exactly.

I faced some family opposition to my new dressing habit.

Mostly, I'm sorry to say, from my mother.

I'm still not 100% sure why it bothered her. Maybe it had to do with my conversion, maybe not. Whatever the case, there were a few instances where she insisted that I wear pants for - things like driving (for the first couple of lessons, which really mystified and annoyed me), horseback riding, etc. She also made a point of buying me a couple pairs of jeans before college (my old ones were getting too small).

Being stubborn as my mother, I stuck hard to my new principles. After several heart-to-heart talks between me, her and my grandmother, my mom accepted my position. Now, my modesty doesn't bother her anymore, I'm happy to say.

My maternal grandmother helped a lot in outfitting, as she introduced me to the world of thrift stores and what wonderful finds existed in them. A lot of my wardrobe has come from thrift store finds that I've either altered or done over. I also received several old outfits of hers - outfits from the 50s and 60s that she couldn't wear anymore. But like my mother, she was worried about my safety in a long skirt. A worry that I laid to rest when I proved that I could climb rock cliffs in Hawaii in a long white skirt and not get a spot on it. I did have to weather a little ribbing when I started wearing modest swimwear, but again, example quieted that.

Things took an interesting turn at the age of 18. Now I was going to college - which doesn't have a lot of skirt-wearing or modest women around.

It took only two days on campus for the question to come up - why only skirts?? I had expected the question to come up sooner or later, but I was surprised at the speed that it came! That question would crop up occasionally over the four years of college, but most accepted it as a part of me fairly quickly.

But, I was going for agriculture. A field not exactly known for skirt-wearing women.

I had made one denim skirt that was pretty durable. Granted, the thing is ugly as sin....

Anyways, I fully expected to be required to wear jeans during the hands-on labs. On the first time out there, I got the surprise of my life when the barn manager basically gave us free rein on what we could wear in the barn - besides the safety boots of course. With the fact that I only had one denim skirt, I made one more - one that worked a lot better and that I kept modifying to figure out what worked and what didn't. I did (and still do) wear the jeans underneath my long denim skirts for protection against barn filth and in case an accident did happen.

The skirt that I made and heavily modified throughout college. It probably could use a few more...

I did have to have a brief stint of wearing jeans for a riding class I took, but besides that, I wore skirts 99.99% of the time I was in school. In fact, I became known for my classy style and my lady-like behavior. I suddenly realized what fruits could be gained from modest dress - compliments from acidic professors, doors being held open, co-workers offering assistance.

I spent those four years exploring modesty more and figuring it out from sheer experience how to become modest in different situations: farm work, outdoor recreation, professional dress and even swimming! I blogged about each of them - just look at the bottom of the page in my labels section and click on the "modesty" label to find them!

I can now pretty much safely say that my journey to being a 100% modest dresser is complete!

With the exception of one thing....

I still haven't figured out how to ride horseback with a skirt.....

As I compose this, I suddenly have realized that my story is much longer than I had thought! For the sake of my dear readers, I'll relate my personal modesty standards in the next post.

Old-fashionably yours,

Catherine