Your parent tells you, “Stop pretending!” “Do your homework.” “Take out the garbage.”

So you stop pretending and return to the real world. “The real world,” whatever that is.

Pretending is to be something you are not. Trick or treating as Harry Potter or Spiderman is fun. For a while, you may even believe that you are that character.

Pretending is to imagine, and imagining can lead to this “real world.” When you’re sad, you pretend to be happy again and slowly that happiness returns to your life. You hit your brother or sister, you feel sorrow for doing it and you imagine being friends and then find yourselves playing a game with your sister or brother. Pretending is to believe.

We pray for peace all the time in church. We know it’s not happening right now but that doesn’t stop our praying for peace or harmony. When we pray for peace we are pretending that this “real” world can get a little better. By imagining a peaceful world, we just may be able to make it happen.

I told you already that I pretended to be a priest not thinking it would actually happen. But it did. Like a Halloween costume, I put on my plastic vestments and imagined myself as a priest. Now I place the cloth vestments on myself and smile. My pretending paid off. My imagination made a dream come true for me.

No saint woke up one morning and said, “I want to be a saint!” And presto, changeo, they became saints. They pretended to be good people and then became good people. They pretended to follow Christ, and then they became Christ-like. That’s who the saints are.

St. Paul tells us to “put on Christ,” as though it’s a costume. Pretend to be Jesus Christ and see what happens in your life. Will you be a little kinder, will you be a little nicer and helpful, will you be more considerate of others? “Put on Christ.”

So, stop pretending and take the garbage out and do your homework. But when you return to your room, then continue pretending and imagining because you never know what may happen.

Books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS. All available on Amazon.com
“Soulful Muse,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Living Faith’s Mysteries,”
inspirational reflections on the Christian seasons
of Advent/Christmas & Lent/Easter
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Letters From My Cats,”
a collection of letters written by my cats over twenty years
“Bowling Through Life’s Stages with a Christian perspective,”
Bowling as a metaphor for religion and growing up