In Roman Catholicism, a black veil is a symbol of the most complete renunciation of the world and adoption of a nun's life. On the appointed day the nun goes through all the ritual of the marriage ceremony, after a solemn mass at which all the inmates of the convent assist. She is dressed in bridal white with wreath and veil, and receives a wedding ring, as a "Bride of Christ". Afterwards she presides at a wedding breakfast, at which a bride-cake is cut. She thus bids adieu to all her friends, and having previously taken the white veil, the betrothal, she now assumes the black, and forever forswears the world and its pleasures. Her hair is cut short, and her bridal robes are exchanged for the sombre religious habit. Her wedding ring, however, she continues to wear, and it is buried with her.
In Lay circles, a triangle- or rectangle-shaped cloth or lace veil, also known as a mantilla, is worn by Catholic women while attending church Mass. This practice has fallen into decline since the 1960s among those who attend the revised rite of the Mass, but traditional Catholic women who attend the ancient Latin Mass still wear them.
Famous quotes containing the words black and/or veil:
“The ornament is a statuette, a black figure of a bird. I am prepared to pay on behalf of the figure’s rightful owner the sum of $5000 for its recovery. I am prepared to promise, to promise ... what is the phrase?—’No questions will be asked.’”
—John Huston (1906–1987)
“It is not an arbitrary “decree of God,” but in the nature of man, that a veil shuts down on the facts of to-morrow; for the soul will not have us read any other cipher than that of cause and effect. By this veil, which curtains events, it instructs the children of men to live in to-day.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)