I have always had a great fondness of the
black cassock. It fascinated me as a little kid, and I remember asking my
grandmother why priests wore black cassocks. She told me that, “The black color
signifies death. The priest wears a black cassock because he is ‘dead’ to
worldly things.”
As a young teen, when I took the
first few steps of discernment, I saw my Godfather, who has been a priest for
52 years, put on his cassock to hear my confessions and I longed for the day
that I, too, could wear one like that.
Entering St. John Vianney College
Seminary, I could still remember how happy I was putting on my cassock for the
first time. I can’t truly explain why, but I found it to be so special.
Today, I sat in the National Shrine
of Immaculate Conception for a Priest Ordination. As I was praying the Office,
a small group of seminarians passed by. I had known that seminarians of the
Northern dioceses are allowed to wear clerics and cassocks. However, the first
time witnessing it left a deep impression on me.
There they were, in their very expensive
Italian-made cassocks, their spotless white collars, and their fancy French
cuffs, standing off to the side talking. A strange feeling took over me. The
cassocks which I was seeing seem so foreign and other-worldly. I didn’t feel
the fondness that I always have had. I felt repulsed.
It seems to be a rather strong word choice,
but that was exactly how I felt. Admittedly, I thought to myself, “I am not
sure am deemed worthy to sit with them for Mass.”
Perhaps, you probably are thinking,
“Oh my gosh, he is in a vocation crisis.”
No, not at all.
It is just that when I saw how
fancy and expensive the stuff they were wearing, the beautiful image of the
black cassock seemed to have lost its true meaning.
I don’t know if you have ever seen
the movie St. John Bosco – A Mission to
Love. In one part of the movie, Pope Pius IX expressed his desire to make
Don Bosco a monsignor. The kind priest smiled and responded, “Holy Father, my
kids are so used to see me in my old black cassock. I am sure they would
recognize me in the fancy garment of a monsignor.” Indeed, Don Bosco’s cassock
was distinguished by the countless patches that his mother, Mamma Margarita,
had to put on, partly because it was so old, but more because her son spent all
day playing with the rough teenage kids. The patches became the mark of John
Bosco’s dedication to the young.
Another person came to my mind, the
Cure D’Ars, St. John Vianney, Patron Saint of all priests. If you get a chance
to look at his clothing, you will see how worn and patched the holy priest’s
cassocks were, especially from behind because of the 17 hours he sat in the
confessional hearing confessions every day.
Please don’t get me wrong. By no
means am I saying that we should wear clerical attires with patches and tears,
nor am I undermining or being condescending towards group of seminarians I saw.
Neither am I criticizing the use of clerical dress. I have always loved the
black cassock and will always be for the use of it.
The black cassock, as my grandmother
wisely explained, set the priests (and seminarians) apart. It reminds us that
we no longer of the world but belong to God, and our aim is to die to worldly
allurements.
However, the temptation is to see
it as a symbol of prestige and self-importance.
We can so easily fall into the pit
of thinking too highly of ourselves and making it all about us rather than
about our Master, the Lord Jesus. We can become forgetful of our roles as mere
servants.
Fr. Joseph, my dear old spiritual
director, taught me a great lesson about the donkey. He told me that he often
reflected on the image of the donkey that carried the Lord into Jerusalem on
Palm Sunday. He said it would be really sad if the donkey thought that all the
praises and flowers thrown at his feet by the people were meant for him, rather
than the one he was carrying. We are donkeys of the Lord. Our role is to carry
him to the people. It is not to us, but to Him, the praises are due, and most
definitely it is not for our honor but for the sake of God’s kingdom that we
don our attires.
O dearest Jesus, Lord and Master of
my life, please let me not ever forget that!
