Put on Superman

A version of this article appeared in the October 2010 Maneline.  Make this Halloween a teachable moment for your children.

Superman: always a popular costume choice

At the end of October, children across the country venture out into neighborhoods donning Superhero attire, Angel outfits, and all other sorts of costumes.  As a child I always looked forward to Halloween, the day I would march around in my homemade Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costume (as Donatello, of course) and walk from door to door trick-or-treating.  A funny thing would happen when I wore this costume -- I changed.  While in costume, everyone expected me to take on the persona and the behavior of Donatello and I happily obliged with “Cowabungas”, “Dudes”, and attempts at athletic jump kicks.  I had put on Donatello and the outside changed my very thoughts, words and actions.  I was a “little Donatello” for a night, realizing a lifelong dream of being a “hero in a half-shell.”

In baptism, we hope for a similar transformation.

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Paul writes, “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Gal 3:27).  Symbolized with a white garment, the newly baptized are clothed with Christ.  Unlike the Donatello outfit, when we “put on” Christ, it is once for all.  He does not come off.  We never dry off from our baptism.  Instead, we are continually challenged and strengthened by the Sacrament to take on the very persona and behavior of Jesus Christ.  Like the Donatello costume, what happens on the outside is meant to change our very thoughts, words and actions.  The goal, then, of putting on Christ is for the inside to match the outside, so that our very identity becomes who we outwardly claim to be in baptism.  For those of us who were baptized as babies, we spend our entire Christian lives trying to grow into the infant-sized baptismal garment.  We strain to join our voices with Paul’s in proclaiming that “it is no longer I, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). 

We return to the image of the “little Donatello.”  After the shell came off the effects quickly withered away.  Once the costume was boxed up for the year, once there was no big event to look forward to, I forgot about the whole thing.  With no continual reinforcement, I returned back to my usually quiet six-year-old self.

This too is a danger for us all -- forgetting our new identity in baptism.  “Every Christian is to become a little Christ,” C.S. Lewis writes.  “The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.”  We are continually challenged to appropriate our identity as “little Christs”, to grow in faith, hope, and love.  This becomes especially difficult when there is no big “faith event” on the horizon to look forward to.  In a world that pulls us in a million different directions at once, we need constant reminders and help to be “little Christs”; we need the St. Mark community and our family to ensure we notice and live into our baptismal clothes.  We both support and challenge each other to be who we claim to be in baptism.

This Halloween, as we see the “little superheroes”, “little angels”, and “little monsters” parading from house to house, may they serve as a reminder to baptism.  May the automatic taking on of personalities by the trick-or-treaters inspire us to take on the personality of Christ.  And may we support each other in our journey, no matter where we are in our faith.

Image Credit: Tim Malabyuo