Does it Matter What I Wear to Mass?

It's an appealing argument.  No. It's an appealing conclusion.  The argument is totally unsound.

"God doesn't care what I wear to mass.   God loves me no matter what I wear.   Therefore I can dress however I want."

This is a perfect example of a non sequitur.  The first proposition is simply false, and the second is not relevant to the question.

We do not -- and cannot -- do anything to effect God's love us.  So it is not a question of God's love.  

Does God care what we do? You bet.  After all, he gave us 10 commandments.  He wouldn't have done that if he didn't care what we do.  God commands behavior of us not so that he can love us, but so that we can love him -- so that we will do what is right.

I love my children no matter what they do, but that doesn't mean it's okay for them to do whatever they want.  Correct behavior is not about making someone like us, it is about being fully, authentically human.  It is about living so as to realize the purpose for which we were created.  This is what our faith teaches us: how to be proper human beings in the way God intended.

So God does care what we do.  But does he care what we wear?  Yes.  Creating an outward appearance is an act.  How we dress and groom communicates something to everyone around us -- and it does so far more profoundly than any of our words do.  Our very appearance speaks.

I would not wear rags to my friends wedding -- unless I only had rags.  Why?  Think hard about that, because the answer is either (or both) that I am so shallow and vain that I want people to think highly of me (or not less of me)  -- or, more properly, that what I wear announces something about the importance of the event I am attending.

By my clothing I tell everyone who sees me that something important is going on.  This isn't just the weekly toilet cleaning.

So why do we think that God doesn't care what message we send everyone about the importance of the most important event in the history of the universe?

Time to start wearing ties to Sunday mass...