Living While Collared

My confession up front is that this are some rambling thoughts, which somehow, I think, all tie together. We’ll see ...

I take some heat for my driving. It’s sometimes well-deserved. I know that when I am behind the wheel, my shadow emerges and I can change from being a fairly laid-back guy to an aggressive, bullying presence. It's not a particularly conscious choice. That's the problem.

I've discovered an interesting thing, though, now that I'm once again running about in clerical clothing more often. I am more conscious about my driving style and more considerate in how I navigate the roads when I'm in the dog collar. It is, of course, because I know that I am conspicuously dressed and that I represent more than myself. When I am DWC – “Driving While Collared” – the result is much happier for the rest of the on-road community.

Catholic priests are familiar with the teaching that we function in persona Christi Capitis, that is, “in the person of Christ the Head”. The prime example of this, of course, is when we stand at the altar during the Mass. As John Paul II put it in a letter to priests, "this happens above all whenever the sacrificial meal of the Body and the Blood of the Lord is celebrated. For then the priest as it were lends Christ his own face and voice: Do this in memory of Me (Lk.22:19)."

Note: I am aware that this teaching has been abused in order to argue that women cannot possibly represent Jesus the Christ, due to his being male, while they are female. Let's set aside such nonsense, which reduces the Incarnation to being about gender rather than about humanity. I want to make a positive point with the idea of in persona Christi.

The late Pope’s letter was a reminder that it is the specific duty of the Apostles and their successors – all bishops and priests as apostles of Christ, “to always act in persona Christi Capitis.” [Emphasis added.] But I am more conscious of representing Christ when everyone else can see that it as well. The collar is a dead giveaway; there's no denying it or acting as if it weren't the case. I don’t want to present to our community the image of Christ behind the wheel of a Ford Expedition, barreling down the streets of Little Rock and forcing people off the road. The Church has enough of an image problem at times, without adding to it that of maniacal drivers.

So, I’m more aware, more cautious when “collared”. But here’s the problem: when in mufti, I am as likely as ever to slip back into my habitual patterns on the road. One of my Lenten challenges, therefore, is to learn to be conscious of the fact that, wearing clerics or not, my calling is to always act in persona Christi, and to settle down a bit, yield more frequently, and try to regard the speed limit as something other than a “suggested minimum”. It’s not that driving is such a big deal. However, my awareness of representing Christ is a big deal.

And you know, of course, this is not simply an issue for those in what we refer to as the “ordained ministry”. (Ah, at last! The sermon arrives!) All of us, by virtue of our Baptism, share in the ministry of Christ as prophet, priest, and king:

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9)

Part of my discipline now is to draw on a simple phrase based on this passage the Letter to the Galatians (3:26-28), which I quote from the Authorized Version:

For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

The phrase: “I have put on Christ.”

The thought: “I have clothed myself with Chrsit. I live and act in this world in persona Christi Capitis.”

I am trying this Lent to reflect on that simple phrase and to internalize that profound thought not only when I am putting on my Franciscan habit, or a stole and chasuble for Mass. I’m doing so when I pull “civilian clothes” to go to the store, or gym shorts to go for a run, or an old T-shirt to mow the grass. I don’t know how successful this project is yet; I’m not sure that I’m looking any more like Jesus at Target or on the treadmill or behind the lawn mower. But I’m thinking about it more, at least. To quote St. Paul (from the AV yet again!), my hope is:

That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:10-12)

“Apprehended”, eh? “Took hold of,” another version has it. But I really like “apprehended”. We have been apprehended, like the unsub on this week's Criminal Minds, who thought he could really escape notice and go about life as usual. We’ve been apprehended by a God who, in desperate love with us, will not allow us to go unnoticed, nor to ever live life as usual again. To use another bit of crime drama slang, we’ve been collared. Not just the priests, who wear one, but all of us.

So, as baptized Christians, we are invited to a consciousness of how we are “living while collared”. We are called to live as those whose lives have been seized and claimed by the Most High Love – aware of and cautious with our relationship with God, ourselves, our neighbor, and our world.