The Collar

There is a scenario I foresee playing out soon. In this scenario, I am walking around campus at Mount Angel in the morning. As required, I am wearing a clerical collar. Heading down the pathway to class, one of my fellow seminarians passes by me, does a one-eighty, and says, "What do you think you're doing?"

I turn to him and reply, "Who, me?"

"Yes, you. What are you doing wearing that?"

"The clerical collar?"

"Of course, the clerical collar. How dare you?! You are an imposter!" He is shouting now, pointing at me and drawing the attention of bystanders. "Someone alert the authorities! Get the monks! This seminarian's a fraud!"

Then the angry mob descends, tackling me and taking away my collar, putting me to shame.

None of this, of course, will ever take place. I have been directed to dress in clerical garb because it indicates an ongoing formational change in my identity. I am in the process of becoming a Catholic priest. The clothing comes with the job. I get that. It just feels surreal to put the thing on.

The crux of my feelings comes down to the esteem with which I've always looked at those in clerics. This is sacred territory. Who am I to dawn this collar that so many holy, devoted, sacrificial priests wore in their ministry? Who am I to be a minister of Christ's holy Church? Who am I to be audacious enough to hear and heed God's call to Holy Orders?

Black clerics signify a certain level of death to self. Priests make a sacrificial offering to serve the Church in a distinct and miraculous way, which is indicated in the clothing they wear. When a priest wears his clerics, he is saying to God and to God's people that he places his very self on the altar -- his marriage, his sexuality, ownership of his schedule and life decisions, opportunities at wealth, and the time he has in this life. A priest in clerics is always on duty. At any moment, someone could ask a question that changes their faith life, request a confession, look with disdain and comment with scorn because of their history with the Catholic Church, or be in an emergency requiring last rites.

So I am again led to ask, who am I to wear this significant symbol? I can't exercise priestly functions. I am new to this gig. My sacrifices are minimal compared to the ordained.

Yet I am on the journey.

I am reminded of the parable of the master paying his workers the same wage no matter the time they had begun labor for the day. I may be the worker who arrived near the close of business hours, but I'm here. I'm preparing for the life of a priest, so I need to dress like one. Not off the hill, away from the seminary because the collar has a much different ministerial purpose in public. Here, though, my life ought to be directed toward continued discernment. Part of that discernment is taking up the practices of priests -- Liturgy of the Hours, the study of philosophy and theology, the fraternity of brothers in ministry, the appropriate clothing of God's servants.

The collar does not make me holier or higher. As a seminarian, the collar grounds me in the profound change of character I must undergo to be an adequate witness and agent of change. I may be intimidated at times and even feel like an imposter in my own clothes, but what is worth doing that doesn't require the stretching of limits, the expanding of knowledge, and the searching of our souls?

Like a soldier headed to battle, an athlete to the playing field, a performer to the stage, a medic to the afflicted, I am a seminarian dressed for the occasion, my occasion, and despite my doubts, no one will likely be tackling me to take away the collar anytime soon.

"In a secularized and tendentiously materialistic society, where even the external signs of sacred and supernatural realities tend to be disappearing, the necessity is particularly felt that the priest -- man of God, dispenser of His mysteries -- should be recognizable in the sight of the community, even through the clothing he wears, as an unmistakable sign of his dedication and of his identity as a recipient of a public ministry. The priest should be recognizable above all through his behavior, but also through his dressing in a way that renders immediately perceptible to all the faithful, even to all men, his identity and his belonging to God and to the Church."

The Directory for the Ministry and Life of Priests