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by Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic, Archbishop of Toronto..-
My dear friends,
This letter speaks of our deepest perception about Jesus, a perception
which is the result of his own revelation to us.
Caesarea Philippi
People’s opinions about Jesus were, at first sight, rather
complimentary: “John the Baptist: and others say Elijah;
and others one of the prophets”, (Mark 8:28). To be thought
a prophet is obviously an honour. But Jesus is clearly dissatisfied.
He wants his disciples to say who he is. Speaking for them all,
Peter answers, “You are the Christ” (Mark 8:29).
The difference between the views held by other people and the
disciples’ conviction is as deep as it is essential. Elijah,
or another prophet, was expected to come to prepare for the final
and definitive saving act of God; John the Baptist described himself
as preparing the way of the Lord. Jesus knows, however, that he
is not doing the work of mere preparation. In him, the definitive
saving act of God is already at work: “But if it is by the
finger of God that I cast out demons, then the Kingdom of God
has come upon you” (Luke 11:20). For Jesus, and thus for
those who follow him, the Kingdom of God is not some merely future
reality, which his parables are meant to predict and illustrate.
Rather, there is only one Kingdom of God which is already present
and active in what Jesus says and does. Far from being lessons
on its nature and functioning, the parables are challenges issued
by the Kingdom through Jesus. In the parable of the Sower, Jesus
concedes to his listeners that his appearance does not correspond
to their notions of what God’s definitive saving act ought
to look like, just as the humble and barely visible shoots do
not look like the future harvest. Yet it is these very shoots
which will, and already do, stand in judgement on the swooping
birds and burgeoning thorns, for they will provide the harvest
when the birds and thorns are ineffective and forgotten. Should
the sower be misled into inactivity and hopelessness, he will
rob himself of the harvest. Should the listeners of the parable
be misled by Jesus’ humble appearance now, they will fail
to participate in his future glory when he comes as the Judge
of the Universe.
We Look at Jesus
All too often, we feel it is ours to describe the Kingdom of God,
to give it content, and then do our best to bring it about. But
it is not for us to define it. If we truly wish to know how God
goes about saving us and all humanity, we look at Jesus in the
Gospels, his words and ways of acting, we look at his destiny.
Jesus’ identity
determines our identity; Jesus’ plans determine our plans;
his destiny determines ours. It is not up to us to create a notion
of individual perfection, or that of a perfect human society,
and then ask Jesus to proclaim it. Yet we have done it again and
again, consciously or unconsciously, subjecting Jesus to our ideals,
or to the ideals embraced by the society in which we live, ideals
which only weakly reflect what Jesus has stood for from the beginning
of his human existence. We tend to endow these ideals, which are
primarily our own, with the authority of Jesus, thus spanning
Jesus into what is ultimately our own agenda.
Civic Acceptance
and Relativism
We are very proud of our multicultural society, proclaiming our
tolerance and acceptance of everyone in our society. Not only
do we let one another be, but affirm and support, at times financially,
our differences. At the same time, however, we hear demands which
we fail to perceive as being quite opposed to multiculturalism,
demands, namely, that we consider our cultural and religious differences
as unimportant, as relative, as saleable. We are told, in fact,
that we ought not to insist on our religious differences in order
to avoid being divisive or appearing to suggest that our faith
is superior to others.
Not only is such a
demand opposed to real multiculturalism; it also identifies civic
tolerance and acceptance of one another with an ideological relativism
which claims that all religions and convictions are the same,
no matter how they differ from one another. Our faith in Jesus
Christ is, according to this claim, no more than a reflection
of an insight underlying all individual religions known to and
lived by human beings. What that underlying insight happens to
be no one seems to know apart from suggesting a pallid concoction
issuing from a library, a concoction which is not worth living
for, and for which no one would dream of dying. The secularist
atmosphere in which we live may indeed be capable of producing
ideologies for which men and women are ready to die, but is entirely
unable to create a religion worth its name.
We must take Jesus
at his word and not imagine ourselves to be cleverer than he is.
If we consider ourselves as his followers we have no right to
reject his utter and lifelong conviction that, in him, God is
bringing about the definitive salvation. His resurrection from
the dead is not a way of saying something else, but God’s
towering gift to Jesus and to all those who follow him: Jesus
is now personally alive giving us the grace of living with him
now and in eternity after death.
The Person of Jesus
In a society in which the public acceptance of Christian thought
and morality is crumbling, it is becoming less and less possible
to be simply a “decent Christian” by living up to society’s
expectations.
What is needed, instead,
is personal friendship with Jesus, personal love for him, personal,
daily and regular contact with him. If Jesus is our personal friend
we shall be able to withstand the drift into a self-seeking apathy
and religious indifference.
Lately the Holy Father
has emphasized two old and ever new ways of being with Jesus:
the Eucharist and the Rosary. In the Eucharist, Jesus comes to
be with us, calling us “to be with him", just as he
called his first disciples (Mark 3:14). His invitation to be with
him is as real and as personal as it was back then.
In the Rosary, we accompany Jesus and watch him with his Mother
during significant moments which are of utmost importance in his
life and for our life. The Holy Father's addition of the luminous
mysteries fills out the image of Jesus for our benefit.
It is Jesus to whom we look.
It is Jesus whom we imitate.
It is Jesus whom we follow.
It is Jesus who is with us so we can be with him.
Yes, we work with others.
Yes, we learn from others.
But in Jesus we find our ultimate identity and purpose.
He is the Alpha and the Omega for each one of us and for every
human being.
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