This morning's laugh-groan-laugh and h/t to A Concord Pastor Comments whose post about First Communion Dresses appeared on my screen before I'd yet eaten.And thank God I'd not yet taken a sip of anything. It probably would've splattered onto my screen as I read about one British retailer's promise not to "...Sell The Same Dress To Another Child At The Same Mass" (capitalization in the original).
After zooming in on that solemn vow, I noticed the politically correct gender neutral language (i.e., "child") and amused myself briefly by pondering a slew of little boys dressed in drag before smacking myself upside the head. Then, I visited another site, swallowing several times while trying to digest this overwrought ad copy which reads, in part:
"Here is an ultimate gorgeous girlie First Communion dress with distinctive sheer swirly layered skirt that twist and twirls with movement that every little girl and parent will just fall in love with."
The sentence structure snagged my attention but not for long because I became quickly entranced by the word "girlie" and the notion that having a "distinctive sheer swirly layered skirt" might have anything to do with receiving -- and being nourished by -- first Eucharist. Concord Pastor, Fr. Austin Fleming, makes a similar observation.
I, however, offer this solution to the soul-shaking, identity-challenging problem of having a distinctive girlie dress on such a special blessed day: let them wear uniforms.
I'm thinking plaid, which would probably go well with the latest translation of the Roman Missal.
