The masks we wear

BILL TONER SJ :: Some years ago I was chatting to some young children at our front door, in the working-class area where I live, when the phone in the hallway rang. I picked it up, and said, “Jesuit residence, Cherry Orchard”, then spoke on the phone to for a few moments. When I returned to talk to the children, one of them asked me, “Why do you talk funny on the phone?”.
Many people adopt a different personality, or ‘persona’, when they answer the phone to strangers. Usually they want to appear calm, happy, and ‘civilised’. With friends we may be more relaxed and blunt.
In psychology, a persona is sometimes called a ‘mask’ because it conceals some aspects of our ‘core’ identity. These are characteristics of our personality that we have learned to suppress, or have been taught to suppress. Some children are born with a ‘difficult’ temperament and if this is not addressed in the right way, it can cause socialisation problems for them later on. Of course, the problem could often be blamed on the nature of the society, rather than on the nature of the child! Be that as it may, it is important that children ‘fit in’ as they grow up, or life can be very miserable for them. I remember that as a small child I found tomatoes very bitter, and my parents allowed me to dip the segments in the sugar bowl before eating them. On one of our first social visits as a family I did the same and my parents were mortified. Nowadays, when I am out for a meal, I am still conscious of my inclination to dip my tomatoes in the sugar bowl! But I have learned the importance of wearing an appropriate persona or mask to survive in society.
There are some possible problems with the persona or mask we adopt as we grow up. One is that it is so different from our core personality that it is a constant source of strain. For instance, people in certain professions, such as a priest or a doctor, can be ‘put on a pedestal’ by the public, and are constantly ‘putting on an act’. Years ago, in summer, I used to say Mass in a caravan for a group of friends, wearing only a liturgical stole over my holiday clothes. Later on, a more conservative colleague took over the task for me, and he liked to wear full vestments saying the Mass. A small boy was heard saying to his mother, “There’s a proper priest!”. People can be pressured into adopting personalities that they may not be fully comfortable with. Another problem, pointed out by the psychologist Erik Erikson, is that people start to play a role that they find is rewarded by success and status, and are so seduced by it that they forget who they really are. Although they derive satisfaction from playing the role, they are not really ‘comfortable in their skin’ and are still at heart in “the back streets of Naples” as Peter Sarstedt described it in his song ‘Where do you go to, my lovely?’. Most modern psychologists consider that it is possible to change your persona, and to adopt a different one which is less at odds with your core identity and possibly more acceptable to others. Some encourage people to experiment with different behaviours and reactions. The main obstacle to doing this is the belief that you can never change, and that your basic personality is determined by your genes and childhood family relationships, a view generally attributed to Freud. These factors can be significant, but do not completely determine who you become in later life.
As a priest, I am often curious about the personality of Jesus Christ, especially when I am praying. When we go to talk to someone, we like to know what kind of person we are talking to. If we don’t know, we may become wary, and our words are stilted. We may be wondering if Jesus has a sense of humour, or if he is as serious as he often appears in the scriptures. Certainly, Jesus was fully human, and as a son of Mary he inherited a genetic make-up, and elements of a personality which he had to learn to live with. In the scriptures he often comes across as exceptionally kind, especially in his readiness to go out of his way and tire himself out, in his ministry of healing and preaching. He was gentle with sinners, such as the adulterous woman whom the crowd were ready to stone. At other times he comes across as argumentative and disputatious, not suffering fools gladly. He argued with the disciples, for instance when they were trying to work out which of them was the greatest, or when they were trying to prevent him going up to Jerusalem; he even wondered aloud how long he would have to put up with them. He was often bitter in his face-to-face criticism of the Pharisees, particularly when they appeared hypocritical, or were trying to catch him out. However, we may presume that Jesus, after many years living quietly in Nazareth, set out to develop a persona that was appropriate to his mission. In that respect he was extremely successful; all the evangelists report that “Great crowds followed him”; not only for his healing gifts but for his preaching, and the authority of his speech, – “No man ever spoke like this man” (John 7:46). Yet Jesus also understood that there was ‘a time to speak and a time to keep silent’; as he was giving up his life for us there were no ‘speeches from the dock’; just an eloquent silence.
The conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman he met at the well, and whom he asked for a drink of water, is one of the few long conversations recorded in the Bible (John 4:5-30) between Jesus and another ‘ordinary’ person, and it may give us some clues about the kind of person we are talking to when we pray to Jesus. First of all, it is important to note that Jews were supposed to observe certain cultic laws that Samaritans did not observe, one of which was that they did not share the same eating and drinking vessels, which would have been necessary if Jesus was to accept a drink of water from the woman. Although there was not a friendly relationship between Jews and Samaritans , Jesus showed this woman friendship and respect. Secondly, one fact that emerged, that the woman had had five husbands and was now living with someone else, would have made her disreputable in that time and place, yet Jesus was not judgemental regarding her marital situation, which he appeared to be already aware of. Thirdly, there is an element of friendly banter in the conversation. The woman shows puzzlement that Jesus would speak to an unaccompanied Samaritan woman, but Jesus makes nothing of it. Fourthly, the woman speaks in a bold, forthright manner. She gives as good as she gets, but Jesus does not seem offended. At the same time, Jesus does not just engage in small talk, he has an important message to deliver about his gift of “living water” and he is determined to get it across is spite of the sceptical and even mocking tone of some of the woman’s responses.
This conversation, between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, suggests that we can talk very freely to Jesus in our prayer. We can be confident that we are talking to someone who respects us whoever we are; who is non-judgmental; who probably has a sense of humour or irony; and who is ready to tell us the truth, – not necessarily there and then but in the quiet moments of grace that we are all gifted with in our lives.