In a volume critiquing the Novus Ordo Missae (New Order of Mass), Traditionalist/Sedevacantist Catholic priest, Anthony Cekada, wrote the following about priestly garments in the Tridentine Rite of Mass which Latter-day Saints, familiar with the temple ceremony and the temple clothing and the liturgy relating to such, will appreciate:
The Priestly Vestments
Jungmann’s Mass of the Roman Rite contains a particularly eloquent sentence about priestly vestments:
The fact that the priest wears garments that are not only better but really special, distinct from the garments of ordinary civil life, enhanced where possible by the preciousness of the material and by decoration—all this can have but one meaning—the priest in a sense leaves this earth and enters another world, the shimmer of which is mirrored in his vesture. (M[ass of the]R[oman]R[ite] 1:280)
The priest who celebrates the traditional Mass puts on six vestments over his cassock. As he takes each vestment, he recites a prayer which recalls what it symbolizes. The traditional vestments, together with the accompanying prayers, are as follows:
· Amice: A rectangular linen cloth which the priest tucks in around his collar. “Lord, set the helmet of salvation on my head to fend off all the assaults of the devil.”
· Alb: A long linen garment, sometimes ornamented with lace, which hangs down to the floor. “Make me white, O Lord, and cleanse my heart; that being made white in the Blood of the Lamb I may deserve an eternal reward.”
· Cincture: A short colored silk or damask band worn over the left arm. “May I deserve, O Lord, with the cincture of purity, and quench in my heart the fire of concupiscence, that the virtue of continence and chastity may abide in me.”
· Maniple: A cord which gathers the folds of the alb at the waist: “May I deserve, O Lord, to bear the maniple of weeping and sorrow in order that I may joyfully reap the reward of my labors.”
· Stole: A long, scarf-like, colored silk or damask band hung around the neck and crossed over the breast. “Lord, restore the stole of immortality, which I lost through the collusion of our first parents, and, unworthy as I am to approach Thy sacred mysteries, may I yet gain eternal joy.”
· Chasuble: A colored silk or damask outer garments cut more or less amply, according to the style of the vestment. “O Lord, who hast said, ‘My yoke is sweet and My burden light,’ grant that I may so carry it as to merit Thy grace.”
All these vestments can be traced back in one form or another to the earliest days of the Church, though their history is somewhat complicated. During a later period, Pope Leo IV (†855) mentions five of them (LRC, 115)—the amice, alb, stole, maniple and chasuble---and Isidore of Seville (†636) mentions the cincture (LRC, 121). Vesting prayers similar to the ones the traditional Missal prescribes were used in the eighth and ninth centuries. (Anthony Cekada, Work of Human Hands: A Theological Critique of the Mass of Paul VI [West Chester, Ohio: SGG Resources, 2010], 188-89, comments in square brackets added)
For more on sacred vestments, see, for e.g.:
John A. Tvedtnes, Priestly Clothing in Bible Times
