Mantilla by Anna Elissa

Mantilla by Anna Elissa

Whether you are simply curious to find out the reasons behind the tradition of women covering their heads in church or are already convinced it is a good and beneficial practice, whether you are perplexed to see it making a comeback everywhere or are already a long-time dedicated veiler yourself, Anna Elissa's Mantilla: The Veil of the Bride of Christ is the most thorough, insightful, and serene guide to veiling ever written-one that will equip you with answers to your own questions as well as the never-lacking questions of friends, relatives, and strangers. Resting her account on Scripture and Tradition as interpreted by the Church Fathers, St. Thomas Aquinas, and papal, liturgical, and canon law texts, the author offers arguments of fittingness on behalf of veiling, responds to common objections against it, offers practical advice for choosing, wearing, and even designing mantillas, and shows how the veil contributes to a Eucharistic way of life that treats femininity as a gift, a treasure, and a mystery. To illustrate and verify her points, Anna Elissa presents a substantial collection of testimonials from women of all ages about their experience adopting and wearing the veil-and from men, too, including clergy, about why they value the practice and its return. Appropriately for a book about the language of signs and beauty, Mantilla's chapters are graced with nine full-color plates of exquisite artworks featuring women in veils.

I invite you to read this book, because it will be for many, as it was for me, a beautiful surprise. Here the author, a young woman who studies psychiatry but is well prepared also in the theological field, shares with us her experience; she gives us the reasons for her choice to wear a mantilla. We find in this book historical, theological, liturgical, and practical reasons for rediscovering this practice, which was once very common in the Catholic Church everywhere. -Most Reverend Antonio Guido Filipazzi, Titular Archbishop of Sutri and Apostolic Nuncio