Notice my stiff, uncomfortable facial expressions. You can see that it’s good I have other skills, because I obviously have no future as a model. I took these pictures myself with a time delay on the shutter.
First, we see a plain alb with a cincture:
In this picture, I am wearing a plain alb. Albs are most often worn with a rope cincture. Natural colored cinctures are most common, but they also come in colors to match the church seasons. I’m wearing a green cincture for 1the contrast so that you can see it.
The word alb is short for tunica alba, which means white tunic,
and that is exactly what it is. Men and women of the first century wore tunics as part of their everyday clothing. Obviously, white tunics are hard to keep clean, so they weren’t practical as street clothes. However, they were used in the church. Since the Bible depicts the angels who announced Jesus’ resurrection as being dressed in white, as in Matthew 28:3, the church of the first four centuries gave people albs as soon as they emerged from the baptismal waters. The alb is therefore an angelic garment, a baptismal garment, and a resurrection garment.
Albs can be worn by anyone who leads worship, including lay people.
Next, we see an alb with a stole:
You can think of the stole as the first-century equivalent of a modern necktie. In modern ecumenical practice, the stole marks the wearer as ordained clergy.
Originally the stole was a sort of kerchief. In this picture, I am dressed as a slave whose job it is to wash the feet of the masters’ guests.
The stole in the picture is green, which is appropriate for regular services on the Sundays after Epiphany or after Pentecost; actually, most of the year. I would wear different colored stoles for different occasions. Notice that the stole that goes with the alb is larger than the stole that goes with the cassock.
Finally, we see an alb with a stole and chasuble:
The chasuble is generally only worn in services in which there is Communion, and then only by the principal celebrant—the one who handles the chalice and paten. The chasuble is a circular garment with a hole in the center for the head. If you stretch your arms straight out when you are wearing a chasuble, the chasuble is in the shape of a folded-over semicircle, or an upside-down taco shell, if you will. The chasuble goes over the stole, though lately there are some stoles that are designed to be worn over the chasuble. Chasubles are usually very beautiful and expensive. Most come with matching stoles.
In this picture, the stole is under the chasuble. If you look very close, you can see the ends of the stole hanging below the bottom of the chasuble.
Other colors for the stoles:
- Red
- Red stoles are worn at Holy Week services, on Pentecost, at ordinations, and on services that commemorate the death of a Christian martyr.
- White
- White stoles are worn during the twelve days of Christmas, during the fifty days of Easter, at funerals, and at weddings. They are worn at a service that celebrates a secular holiday, and on certain special days, such as Epiphany Day, the Baptism of our Lord (which is the Sunday after the Epiphany), on Trinity Sunday, and All Saints Sunday.
- Purple
- Purple stoles are worn during Lent and Advent, when hearing confessions (in the Catholic Church), and when administering Communion in the hospital.
I do not have a picture of a Geneva gown, because if you have graduated from school, you know what they look like. Calvin wore a Geneva gown because he was not clergy, he had a doctorate in law. Geneva gowns are most common in churches that are in the Reformed tradition, such as Presbyterian churches, and in other groups with Calvinist roots, such as Baptists.