The Clothes

 Dressing like a priest does not make me a priest in the way I am supposed to live my vocation.  Nor does a habit make a nun.  Action is what makes us who we are at the moment.  When I walk around San Francisco in my priest clothes, I must realize that people are looking at me with some sense of what this might mean.  Plus, it is a way for me to say that God is in our midst.  So I had better act as if a loving God is in their midst.  It keeps me on my toes in the public sphere.  A lot of people have dropped religion because they recall adults, dressed in their Sunday go to Church clothes, who were not very nice before or after the liturgy.  Those in recovery must act the same inside the meeting as they do outside the meeting.