If you notice the priest in the photo who looks like administering the Sacrament of the Anointing is shown wearing a white chasuble and over it a green stole! First of all, the chasuble is only proper for the Mass and not for other liturgical celebration. Second, the proper color for the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick is Purple and not Green!
It seems this liturgical "ignorance" is pervading in Asia. I call it ignorance because in fairness to these priests, they may not be liturgically adept on the do's and don'ts of what to wear. Since they are used to wear a chasuble and stole most of the time because of the celebration of the Mass, they think that one size fits all and these is what they wear for ALL litugical celebrations!
Notice the priest below, Fr. Robert Reyes, who is wearing a white chasuble under a white overlay stole while blessing the houses damaged by Tropical Storm Ondoy (aka Ketsana).
Notice also that he is wearing ordinary street clothes and is not wearing an alb and surplice which is the proper vestment for blessing. You might call me an obsessive-compulsive for this one or too strict for liturgical norms. I could let it go for this priest, if this is the first time it happened and if the occassion does not permit him access to an alb and/or a surplice and the proper colored stole. But look at this!
The General Instruction of the Roman Missal is clear on this:
336. The sacred garment common to ordained and instituted ministers of any rank is the alb, to be tied at the waist with a cincture unless it is made so as to fit even without such. Before the alb is put on, should this not completely cover the ordinary clothing at the neck, an amice should be put on. The alb may not be replaced by a surplice, not even over a cassock, on occasions when a chasuble or dalmatic is to be worn or when, according to the norms, only a stole is worn without a chasuble or dalmatic.
337. The vestment proper to the priest celebrant at Mass and other sacred actions directly connected with Mass is, unless otherwise indicated, the chasuble, worn over the alb and stole.
Not the stole over the chasuble. My brother once told me that their is an indult regarding the use of an decoration-less white chasuble so that a colored overlay stole MAY be worn over it. But as with all indults, it becomes the norm rather than the exception. As far as I can remember, the only indult that did not enjoy this much enthusiasm was the Traditional Latin Mass after John Paul II's Motu Propio "Ecclesia Dei". Well, thanks to Pope Benedict's Summorum Pontificum, the TLM is not anymore an indult.
My wife once told me that I am being too passionate with liturgical laws. I told her that my reason is simple. What are the rules for when the ones who are implementing it are the ones making a mockery out of it.
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