It’s tall, it’s pointy, it goes on a head, it’s quite enormous, and it’s looks a bit funny, yes I’m talking about a Bishop’s Mitre, also known as “the Pope hat”. 

What’s the point of that thing? I can’t tell if he wants to be taller than everybody else or if he thinks he’s a rocket-ship ready to blast off into heaven? Maybe he thinks that by wearing that thing he’ll stand out to Jesus when He comes back.

The fact of the matter is quite simple, but first I want to make a point very clear, the Church never does anything just because, there is always a reason behind everything that is involved, everything is a symbol and has a reason for being there. One symbol that is associated with the Mitre is that of the tongues of fire from Pentecost.

At Pentecost all of the Apostles and even Mother Mary were huddled together in the upper-room, afraid to even speak the name of Jesus outside of their circle. Then on the feast of Pentecost (for Pentecost is one of the seven high holy days in Judaism) something spectacular happened. Loud gusts of winds threw opened the doors of the upper-room and the Holy Spirit descended on them, and appeared as tongues of fire on their heads. This was the first Sacrament of Confirmation.

From that point forward these scared few were filled with the Holy Spirit and were transformed forever. They immediately went out into the world proclaiming Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven. Many were martyred for their belief and their teachings .

Funny isn’t it, that the same people who were hiding because their fear of being killed for what they believe, then all of the sudden they’re chopping at the bit to let everyone know what they believe with the knowledge that they will be killed for it. Basically, they proclaimed that they would rather DIE than deny the TRUTH.

The Mitre is a reminder to us as to what happened on that most gracious and glorious day, some even say that Pentecost is the Birthday of the Church. Nifty ain’t it, having reasons behind what you do all the way down to what you wear. The Church proclaims simply through how she goes about worship that Christ is present in everything and gives meaning to everything for He is the Logos, the Word of God.

Tags: Sacraments, Vestments

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 1st, 2008 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Symbols. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.