Years ago, when I was first ordained, one of our parish priests told me about his months as a transitional deacon and how he would use “Aunt Rose’s sweater clip” to turn a priest’s stole into a deacon stole. He thought a sweater clip might be handy for a deacon and offered to dig through his sock drawer to find the one he used. I politely declined. But not long after that, I found myself serving Mass at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Georgia, and they didn’t have a deacon stole in their collection, so the monks created one for me using a safety pin. I wished then that I had Aunt Rose’s clip in my suitcase.
Now, all these years later, I discovered a vestment company actually sells something similar. From Trevor Floyd Company:
Deacon Stole Chains are used for the convenience of making a standard Stole a Deacon Stole in either a permanent or transitional way. One end of the clip attaches to one hanging side of the Stole and the other end of the clip attaches to the other side drop of the Stole as illustrated on this page.
Who knew? I decided to order one ($20 plus shipping) and it arrived in the mail today. See below.
I’ll try it out this weekend and report back. Check out this site for more info.
I’m sure Aunt Rose would approve.
