Baptism-shirt

A baptism-shirt is a new religious piece of clothing. It is a linen shirt worn under the usual clothing and directly worn on the body/skin. On the shirt you find a symbol that refers to the baptism, to Christ or to the faith. The shirt reminds the person who wears it every day of his/her faith in and connection with Christ.  It represents the fact that you have 'put on Christ' (Galatians 3,27) when you have been baptized. 

The shirt is hidden. It’s worn under the clothing. It visualizes your personal commitment to God - and nobody in the world has anything to do with that. In the Bible priests wear linen clothes. Jesus lay in his grave in linen bandages. That’s why the shirt is made of linen: it gives you something priestly ant something sacred. Sometimes silk is also used for the shirt, because baptism is also valuable.

                     Baptism-shirt 'Light'                                           Baptism-shirt 'Light' (Back)

You wear your “baptism-shirt” whenever you want. During a divine service or at a difficult moment in your life or perhaps daily. You needn’t be baptized in it.  

On this web-age some shirts are shown, made by the textile-artists Marijke Jager and Jeannette de Wilde who worked closely together. They wanted to show the possibilities a baptism-shirt offers and which associations it recalls. Besides these, shirts are shown that youngsters from Heerenveen made for themselves.

                        Baptism-shirt 'Connected'                                           Water-Baptism-shirt                                                 
             

                  detail baptism-shirt 'prayer'                                 detail baptism-shirt 'water'                   detail baptism-shirt 'baptism'

       albe  of a priest                                                                           little tallith                                                                              

A Roman Catholic priest wears an albe during mass celebrations. That’s a long white undergarment. In the Roman Catholic tradition the albe is associated with a morally pure way of life. On the albe you won’t find a stain, the person wearing it should be equally pure.

The small tallith (a cloth for prayer) is worn by orthodox Jewish men. Most important are the twisted threads, tsietsiet, at the four angels of the cloth. They remind the person who wears it of the commandments.

A baptism-shirt should be made by the person who wants to wear it. In this way you can choose the symbols from the christian tradition that appeals to you. We worked with youngsters who 'invented' their own symbols. The baptism-shirt threngthens the christian identity.

Petra Teijema-de Jong: “Day and Night” with sun, moon  and rock (Petra) and confession text.

Henk de Vries: “The jigsaw”- pieces of my life, with the symbols of belief, hope and love.

You can find more pictures of the Baptism-shirt (or baptismal shirt) here:    at the website of Marijke Jager

and here:    Protestantse gemeente Oegstgeest