EDITORIAL | KAIROS GLOBAL | JANUARY 2019

Author: Dr Chackochan Njavallil

Modesty – A forgotten Virtue

"What a joy it is to meet a person with a happy smile and pure intention, whose modesty shines forth and acts like a window to reveal their personality and particular beauty," reads one of the posters on a wall.

The dictionary meaning of the word modesty states: ‘the quality or state of being unassuming in the estimation of one's abilities’ and some synonyms are; self-effacement, humility, lack of vanity, lack of pretension, unpretentiousness. I feel the dictionary meaning does not convey the Catholic understanding of the word.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church links modesty to the dignity of a person and says that it is decency (2522). The verses 2521 to 2523 speaks about modesty specifically. Verse 2523 differentiate between internal and external modesty. “Modesty inspires a way of life which makes it possible to resist the allurements of fashion and the pressures of prevailing ideologies.” Today, the virtue of modesty is very much ignored especially with regard to the way we dress. However, reading through the teachings of saints, we realise the problem is not new. 

In the fourth century, Saint John Chrysostom instructed women on the way they dress. “You carry your snare everywhere and spread your nets in all places. You allege that you never invited others to sin. You did not, indeed, by your words, but you have done so by your dress and your deportment. ... When you have made another sin in his heart, how can you be innocent? Tell me, whom does this world condemn? Whom do judges punish? Those who drink poison or those who prepare it and administer the fatal potion? You have prepared the abominable cup, you have given the death dealing drink, and you are more criminal than are those who poison the body; you murder not the body but the soul.”

While in hospital, Jacinta, who witnessed several apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Fatima, was saddened by the worldliness of the visitors, the women dressed in fashionable clothes, often with low-cut dresses. "What is it all for?" she asked Mother Godinho (her guardian). "If only they knew what eternity is." "the sins which bring most souls to hell are the sins of the flesh.  Certain fashions are going to be introduced which will offend Our Lord very much... the Church has no fashions; Our Lord is always the same..."

St. Francis de Sales, in the book Introduction to a Devout Life, exhorts, "Be neat, Philothea; let nothing be negligent about you. It is a kind of contempt of those with whom we converse, to frequent their company in uncomely apparel; but, at the same time, avoid all affectation, vanity, curiosity, or levity in your dress. Keep yourself always, as much as possible, on the side of plainness and modesty, which, without doubt, is the greatest ornament of beauty, and the best excuse for the want of it."

The time has come that we once again realize the significance of modesty and live upon and loudly speak about it.