A seminary classmate and fellow Episcopal priest who shall remain nameless (but whose initials are The Rev. Arianne Weeks) asked for some review on how to put on a rope girdle. And yes, it's a rope girdle, not a cincture. A cincture is that wide fabric belt that you use with your cassock. The following step-by-step photo instructions should be easy to follow for even the most vestiphobic out there.
Step 1: Double the rope girdle. (This is why the kindly Wippell salesperson tried to sell you one you thought was way to big for you... Always listen to your kindly Wippell salesperson from now on, OK??)
Step 2: Put your hand through the looped end of the doubled rope girdle.
Step 3: Make another loop in the rope girdle by folding it back over itself.
See?
Step 4: Then put the girdle around your waist while keeping your hand in the loop you've just made.
Step 5: And then pull the tasselled end of the rope girdle through the loop you made with your hand.
Step 6: Tighten up the rope girdle by allowing the loop to tighten around the end of the rope girdle you've just passed through it. This will make a slip knot that will resist coming loose at some embarrassing point in the liturgy like the anamnesis.
Step 7: Then take up the trailing ends of the rope girdle at about the midpoint. 
Step 8: And pull them under the part of the rope girdle that goes around your waist at a point about 8 inches from the center slip knot.
Step 9: Now pull these new loops out a bit, over the part of the rope girdle thats encircling (in my case, barely) the waist.
Step 9 continued: So that you have two new loops hanging over the top of the belted portion of the rope girdle.
Step 10: Pull the tasselled ends of the rope girdle through the two new loops.
Step 11: And tighten these two new slip knots by pulling down on the tasselled ends -- and you now have two new loops hanging down from the rope girdle.
Step 12: Now pull the ends of your stole through the two loops that remain. And you're ready to rock it Old Skool!
8 comments:
I guess than that I am "Olde Skewele", as I also cross my stole in an X shape over my chest. Just a thought...love the step-by-steps! You should teach PPT--Practical Pastoral Theology!
Lookin' good, feelin' good, Rick
I'm all about the X shape for the clergy stole too. That's my preferred mode. But I thought in this forum it might raise more questions, so I went conventional.
M
Yay! I got it - it only took about 10 min - and I only swore once or twice! ;)
Ahem. In the Truely Olde Dayes only a Bishop would send his stole vertically through the loops, and priests would duly cross theirs as Fr Robyn says.
Thanks for the step by steps... though the starching of collars one reminds me too much of the procedures involved in gessoing a panel for an icon! You must dig up the special antiphons for the mixing of the starch.
This made my day (and it's a cold, wet, miserable day in London which needs cheering up).
Question? Would a deacon do the same but on the side? x shaped or straight? thanks!
Now tell me why
Great to see these old "Crafts" preserved. The church is loosing so many traditions along with the traditional vestments. I wonder how many "Modern " priests know all the prayers to say as they put each item on??? In the old days vesting was a devotion and an art form
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