Part 3, Chapter 25
We are made in the image and likeness of God. And we are His beautiful creation. Every man and woman is a gift. If we are gifts, shouldn’t we treat each other as gifts? That is what modesty is truly getting after. Modesty is about seeing ourselves as a gift and everyone as a gift too. We should and must see each and every human beings as God sees them; that is, with love. Love is how God sees us; He made us from love, to be love, for love.
So what does this have to do with modesty? Modesty strives to help us to see others as gifts because we are able to see ourselves as gifts. So in being modest, we strive to see our body as a temple of the Holy Spirit. We strive to respect our body because God gave it to us. This means we treat it as the true temple that God intended it to be. We have to respect ourselves. So any focus upon us is not respecting the gift. We want our focus and everyone’s focus on God. So anytime we wear something that brings attention to us, especially to a specific part, we are not living out modesty. Modesty should help others focus on who we are deep inside. As John Crudele says, “Love their hearts, not their parts.” This means that whatever we wear should help to show who we truly are.
Modesty doesn’t mean that we can’t dress up or look nice. “As far as may be, keep to what is simple and unpretending—such dress is the best adornment of beauty and the best excuse for ugliness” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 124). Dressing up and dressing at all, should be something we do because we are a gift and should be treated that way. When we are selecting something to wear, we should look at why we are wearing what we are. We have to look at the intention of why we are doing it. Our intention should be to help others and ourselves to love ourselves and to see that we are truly a gift which God made. Modesty is not about restricting us; rather it is about helping others to love us as much as God truly loves us. Modesty seeks to help others to love us, not use us. So we need to help others to love us by helping them to not focus on our parts, but rather to focus on the beauty that is inside each of us. What beautiful beings we are. Thanks be to GOD!!!