GRINDING OUR TEETH IN VERSACE

In our office in the Colegio, we had been discussing the proper dress code for visitors and fetchers in the Colegio. Our security guards are having difficulties in implementing the required dress code, since there are two sets of dress code being discussed with our stakeholders. One requires this. Another requires that. And so we set a meeting with the Student's Affairs Department to clarify such confusion. But more than the two sets of dress code, what makes the implementation of such policy more difficult is its scope; if it also includes the employees of the Colegio. After all, are we not to be the models of the things we demand from others? When we demand from visitors that they should not wear flipflops (tsinelas), is it not proper that no one among us wear flipflops in the Colegio too?

Dress codes are important for they reflect the honor we give to the places we visit and to the host of an event. When we visit places, events, and persons of great honor, we make preparations and do our best to be in an honorable and dignified dress. We try to be our best, even in the way we look, in front of people whom we consider best. In simple and ordinary circumstances, we can be simply dressed. Though what is considered dignified or simple may be relative, what is important is that our clothes and efforts in our preparation for an event reflect our attitude towards them. They manifest the value we give to the person we visit or to the one who invited us.

More than the external garb, in our life as Christian, there is a more meaningful garb which we have to prepare for the most significant event to which we are invited. This is the vestment of our heart which we shall wear in the great hall of heaven; in the banquet of the Lord. This vestment is decorated neither with gold nor silver nor is it embroidered with the logo of famous and expensive signature brands. This vestment of the heart is bedecked with virtues and values that are pleasing to our heavenly Host.

It will please the Lord to see us wearing humility, charity, and gratitude, more than us attending His heavenly feast in fancy clothes. We do not want to be denied entrance to heaven for wearing the wrong dress. We may end up cast into the dark, wailing and grinding our teeth in Versace.