The
title of this
node will no doubt send some into a
screaming frenzy: how dare you imply that the
priesthood is the
pinnacle of
putting on airs, false faces, that sort of thing? I find it interesting that many people think of
acting in such a
negative way. As an actor, I do not think of acting as a
business of faking, but rather of making; when one acts, one seeks to "
make belief" rather than "
fake belief" -- another node altogether.
When my
performance in a show is clicking, when I am "
on the money," so to speak, in some indescribeable way, my own
personality hops into the
passenger seat, and the
character that I am portraying takes the wheel. In many respects, I feel that I
become the character; Jason is still there, but he has temporarily stepped aside to allow the character to exist.
In the
theological language of the
Roman Catholic Church, when the
priest is functioning in a
liturgical context, he is functioning
in persona Christi, which
literally translates as "in the person of
Christ". What this phrase means is that, while the priest is still
ontologically himself, he quite literally
becomes Christ.
What makes this the
apex of acting is that the "character" the priest becomes during
liturgy is not a
fictional character; in a very
real sense, the priest becomes the
second person of the Trinity, the
Son of God – Christ gets into the driver's seat while the priest takes to the passenger seat.