ONE
The
Concept of the Christian Life
. . .The Christian life essentially consists in
God's loving self-communication to us with our concomitant response
to Him in love. One peculiar characteristic of this communication of
God to man is that it has centered itself within a concrete
historical framework. God's gift of Himself therefore establishes
the process of salvation history. This process began with man's
creation and elevation to the supernatural life, a life which is a
participation in God's own divine life. This participation is real
and, therefore, somewhat similar to life as it is in God Himself;
however, since it is only a created sharing, man possesses it in an
infinitely less perfect manner than God who is Himself this
life.
Man rejected this self-communication of God
in original sin. Yet God's desire to give Himself to man was not
withdrawn. He determined to save man from his sinfulness, and
thereafter the divine communication centered around the promised
Redeemer. Salvation history preceding the advent of this Redeemer
became a preparation for the Redeemer's coming. From the time of His
coming, salvation history was and is the establishment and
continuation of His redemptive work.
1. The Christian Life as
Prefigured in the Mosaic Covenant
In the age prior to the coming of Christ,
salvation history was rooted in the Mosaic period. At the heart of
this Mosaic era was the great salvific event of the exodus (Ex
15:1-18). Through this event Yahweh led the Israelites out of
Egyptian slavery and under Moses formed them into His People. The
history of the Jewish people previous to this exodus event was
merely a preparation for this central happening. Thus Israel in
recalling its ancient traditions could see that Yahweh's covenant
with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was a preparation for the great
covenant definitively established through Moses on Mount Sinai.
God, then, within the framework of salvation
history has determined to communicate Himself according to a
covenant. What is covenant? In reference to salvation history it is
a mutual life relationship in love between God and His People, and
among the People themselves. God on His part communicates His own
life through grace, and man in return gives himself to God and his
fellowman in loving service. There are various laws governing the
multiple aspects of this life-relationship. There is a formal
worship with its determined ritual. Yet everything centers around
the essence of covenant, the life relationship.
As mentioned, the Mosaic covenant dominated
the Old Testament period. At the heart of the formation of this
covenant there was a transition process involved as the Jews were
led forth from Egyptian slavery to freedom under the leadership of
Moses. The Egyptians had finally consented to this departure of the
Jews under the pressure of the last of the plagues inflicted upon
them. Under this plague the Egyptians' first-born were slain. The
Jews escaped this deathblow of Yahweh by marking their doorposts
with the blood of the paschal lamb: ". . . I will go through the
land of Egypt and strike down all the first-born in the land of
Egypt, man and beast alike, and I shall deal out punishment to all
the gods of Egypt, I am Yahweh! The blood shall serve to mark the
houses that you live in. When I see the blood I will pass over you
and you shall escape the destroying plague when I strike the land of
Egypt." (Ex 12:12-13).
As the Jewish people escaped from Egyptian
bondage they experienced a transition which was essentially
religious in nature. This transition was from a less perfect to a
more perfect type of existence, for in being released from slavery
they were gradually formed into Yahweh's People. The definitive
event of this formation occurred on Mount Sinai. Here the covenant
between Yahweh and His People was sealed with sacrificial blood.
Moses sprinkled with blood both the altar, representing Yahweh, and
the Jewish people. Since blood signified life for the Jews, such an
action had deep meaning for them. It symbolized the sealing of the
covenant, the establishment of a new life-relationship between
Yahweh and themselves.
2. Life in the New Covenant
This Mosaic covenant prefigured the covenant
which was to be established in Christ. Yahweh had given himself to
the Jews in a special way. He was their God and they were His
People. This life relationship was highly imperfect, however, if
compared to that instituted by Christ. The covenant life between God
and man established by the Incarnate Word is of the most intimate
nature. We see this if we consider the new covenant as being
contained in a perfect way in Christ Himself. He is radically the
new covenant.1 Covenant, remember, has various dimensions
of love. Out of love God shares His life with man, and man in
community responds in love by giving himself to God and relating in
love with his neighbor. In Christ we perceive these relationships
achieved in the most perfect manner possible. First of all, Christ
in His humanity receives the divinity's gift of self in the highest
degree – to such a high degree, in fact, that we have the hypostatic
union as a result. In other words, the human nature of Christ is
recipient of God's self-communication in such a perfect manner that
it does not exist by reason of its own personal act of existence,
but rather by the divine existence of the Word, the second person of
the Trinity.
Christ as man – in the name of all men, for
all men – perfectly receives God's communication of Himself in
grace. This is the first movement of covenant life, downward from
God to man. In the second movement of covenant, man's response, we
again see Christ as central. As man, Christ makes the perfect
response to God for all men. This response of Christ includes both
His love for His Father and His relationship in love with men. His
entire life was itself this perfect response. His life, submerged in
a constant, loving conformity to His Father's will, was and is the
perfect incarnate response which man is called upon to make to his
covenant God.
The response which Christ made was centered
in His death and Resurrection. These two events contained the whole
of Christ's life and are intimately united. Everything which Christ
did previous to Calvary was a preparation for Calvary and
consequently shared its redemptive value. The Resurrection was in
one way or another the completion of the work of Calvary. Since
Christ's perfect response to the Father culminated in His
death-resurrection, it is evident that Christ's life involved a
transition just as did the life of the Jewish people in the old
covenant. This transition of the Israelites was manifested in the
exodus from Egypt. In fact, Christ's transition in
death-resurrection was a fulfillment of the Jewish exodus; and just
as the transition of the Jews marked a passage from a lower to a
higher type of existence, so did Christ's transition or passover
have this characteristic.
What was Christ's transition? Before Christ
experienced death, He was limited by the sinfulness of the world
into which He had immersed Himself in His Incarnation. He loved men,
and He loved to be in their midst, and in the midst of their world.
But He did suffer from the sinfulness of this world. Sinless though
He Himself was, He was in certain ways affected and limited by sin.
Indeed, sin destroyed Christ in his mortal existence. This shows us
the degree to which Christ was limited by or "hemmed in" by the
world's sinfulness. But through the passageway of His death, Christ
passed beyond the limitations He had experienced in His mortal life.
He conquered sin, and He rose into a more perfect type of life, that
of the Resurrection. In such a life He could no longer suffer, He
could no longer be "limited" by the sinful aspect of the world.
There is another similarity between the
Jewish transition or exodus and the transition involved in Christ's
death-resurrection. We saw the part that sacrificial blood
contributed to the passover or transition of the Jewish people in
two instances. The blood of the paschal lamb freed the Jewish homes
from the deathblow of Yahweh immediately before their departure from
Egypt, and ultimately it was sacrificial blood which sealed the
Mosaic covenant upon Mount Sinai.
Sacrificial blood was also essential in
Christ's passover or transition. It was through the shedding of His
blood that He passed through death to Resurrection. It was thus His
blood which made the transition possible and which sealed the new
covenant. This new covenant, supplanting the old, is the new life
relationship between God and His People, and the People themselves.
Christ, in achieving new life through death-resurrection, gained it
not only for Himself but for all His members.
The Christian, then, shares in the life of
Christ's Resurrection. But if he participates in the Resurrection of
Christ he must also share in Christ's death, since death is the way
to Resurrection. St. Paul tells us: "We are dead to sin, so how can
we continue to live in it? You have been taught that when we were
baptised in Christ Jesus we were baptised in his death; in other
words, when we were baptised we went into the tomb with him and
joined him in death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by
the Father's glory, we too might live a new life." (Rm 6:2-4).
Through Baptism therefore the Christian is
incorporated into Christ's death-resurrection. Baptism pledges the
Christian to die to sin and ideally to all that is not in accordance
with God's will, even though sin is not involved. Baptism also
pledges the Christian to live vitally his new life in Christ, his
share in Christ's Resurrection. As he is incorporated into Christ
through baptism, the Christian is also made a member of the Church.
Awareness of this simultaneous incorporation into both Christ and
the Church emphasizes for the Christian the fact that his life of
holiness in Christ is to be lived out in community. In other
words, the Christian lives in Christ within the People of God,
within the Church. This stress of contemporary spirituality upon the
communal aspect of Christian holiness is firmly rooted in God's
revealed truth. Throughout salvation history God has lovingly
communicated Himself to man within the covenant framework with its
communal dimension. He has also asked for man's response in love
within this same covenant framework.
The Church in union with Christ is the new
covenant. Since Christ is the Head of His Church, it follows that
the Church with her members must live out the covenant life
according to the structure which Christ gives her. The Church has no
life, no pattern of life, except that which Christ gives her. This
basic pattern or structure is death-resurrection. Christ established
the Church by His paschal mystery, His death-resurrection. In so
establishing the Church by such an event, Christ also determined how
the Church essentially lives out her covenant life down through the
ages – through death and Resurrection.
The Church, then, continues Christ's
death-resurrection. She consequently continues the entire mystery of
Christ, since Christ's entire life is contained in His passover
event.2 We see therefore why the Church can be referred
to as the continuation of the redemptive Incarnation. Indeed the
Church is Christ, the mystical Christ. Because she is the earthly
continuation of Christ, the Church has everything within her
structure needed to be the source of salvation and sanctification
for men of all times. For instance, in reference to the presently
much-discussed theme of the Church's relevancy to modern man, we
know from theological reflection that the Church has this relevancy
radically structured within her very existence. This is simply an
application of the reality that the Church actually does prolong the
mission of the Incarnate Word; since Christ was relevant to His age,
the Church has the capacity to be relevant to all ages.
What do we mean by saying Christ was relevant
to His age? Christ revealed the Father and communicated the Father's
life to men by adapting Himself in a fundamental way to the life
situation which existed at that particular time in Jewish history.
Since Christ through His humanity adapted His message to the people
of His times, so the Church must use her innate capacity to be
relevant for the men of this or that age. She must in a sense be
constantly reincarnating Christ, for she is the only visible Christ
which this world now has. This reincarnation largely means being
relevant.
As the Church is the continuation of Christ,
so is the life of the Christian. Just as the Church centers her life
in Christ's death-resurrection, so does the life of the Christian.
Both Church and Christian then are continually dying with Christ,
dying to all which is not of Christ. At the same time Church and
Christian are meant to rise more and more with Christ, assimilating
ever more perfectly His life through grace. This life of grace is
the Church's and the Christian's share in Christ's Resurrection. It
is true that this life of grace will have its completion only in
eternity. Nevertheless, it does have very real beginnings here in
this life.
It is therefore apparent why the Church's
life is directed to the liturgy, especially the eucharistic liturgy.3
For it is within the liturgy culminating in the Mass that the
death-resurrection of Christ is constantly renewed in a special
manner. In the Mass the People of God have the constant opportunity
to assimilate the death-resurrection of Christ more and more into
their lives. As they do so collectively and individually, the People
of God are continuing Christ's life and mission upon earth.
The Christian life, then, is a response to
God's gift of Himself. God in love gives us a life of grace, a share
in His own divine life. We respond in love by giving ourselves to
God and our fellowman, by dynamically living out this life of grace,
this Christ-life, in the pattern of death-resurrection. This life of
grace is meant to be exercised constantly, as the Christian loves
God and man, in Christ, according to the will of the Father. Also,
to reiterate, God intends that our life in Christ be lived out in
the community of the Church. The Christian life can never solely be
an individual's response to his God.
As the Christian lives out this life of grace
in community, he is offering Christ a new humanity through which He
can reincarnate Himself. It is not only through the Church as a
whole that Christ reincarnates Himself, but also, ideally, through
each Christian within the Church. Each Christian has a special
responsibility and privilege. No one else can offer Christ the
unique opportunity of reincarnating Himself as can this or that
particular Christian. For each Christian is a unique, created
imitation of God never again to be repeated. Each Christian has a
unique humanity to offer Christ. To the extent that he fails to do
so, to that degree Christ has lost this opportunity to
reincarnate Himself through this humanity.
Consequently, the Christian life can be
conceived as the Christian permitting Christ to live more and more
through his total person. Christian holiness is continual growth in
the assimilation of that great thought of St. Paul, ". . . I live
now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in
me." (Ga 2:20).
There are many ways in which the Christian
can permit Christ to live in and through him. Love of the Father and
love of all men, of course, are the two great themes which will
channel this reincarnation of Christ. These were the great driving
forces in Christ's life, and consequently they will be so in the
life of the Christian.
If the Christian is to grow in projecting
Christ through his Christian personality, he must be aware of the
many various ways in which Christ loved His Father, and His will. He
must be aware of the various ways in which the Father's will comes
to him, and thus he will realize the multiple ways in which he is to
love the Father in embracing that will. The Father's will can come
to him in joy and happiness or in pain and sorrow; in work or in
relaxation; in a life of great obscurity as well as in a life which
commands public attention; in frustration or in success. These and
many other channels of the Father's will offer the Christian the
opportunity to continue this witness of Christ's life: no matter how
easy or difficult, the Father's will must be lovingly embraced in
all things. This is how Christ radically saved the world. This is
how the Church, living according to the same principle, cooperates
with Christ in furthering His redemptive work.
Christ's great love and concern for men must
also be continually reincarnated through the Christian. Contemporary
spirituality makes considerable use of personalism.4 One
basic way we can apply personalism to our present theme is as
follows: God revealed His love to men in a concrete way, through a
Person possessing a tangible, visible human nature. Although this
tangible, historical Christ is no longer with us upon earth, the
basic plan of the Father continues. To a considerable degree He
still continues to give Himself, His love, through tangible, visible
human natures. It is through the Christian united with Christ that
God continues in many ways to make His love tangible, visible – and
human – to mankind.
Through these brief indications we can
realize the various and many possibilities through which Christ
lives again in the Christian. As the Christian in this manner
projects Christ to his contemporary world he relives the total
mystery of Christ. All the mysteries of Christ's life will be
apparent somehow in such a Christian existence. But as the Christian
puts on Christ more and more, death-resurrection will be especially
apparent. For the Christian will be more and more going out of a
self-centered existence, dying to that which is not really life at
all, and increasingly passing over into a greater existence, into
the life of Christ Himself. In this manner the Christian continues
that transition process of passing from a lower to a higher mode of
existence. We have seen this transition process to be at the heart
of salvation history. We saw it in the exodus-event of the Jewish
people. We saw it in the death-resurrection of Christ. We continue
to find it in the life of the Christian as he prolongs the paschal
mystery of Christ.
Yes, we live a new life in Christ. Christ,
therefore, wants to share everything relating to our existence – sin
alone excepted. When He united us to Himself in assuming human
nature, He united to Himself all our authentic concerns, values and
interest. He is truly a man, and He wants to share with us all our
truly human experiences. He and His grace want to touch these
experiences. Nothing which is really human is alien to our life in
Christ.
We enjoy the freshness of a bright clear day,
the stillness of the night, the innocence of a little child, the
companionship of a friend, the relaxation or stimulation of a good
movie. Christ wants to share these joys with us. In our daily work
there is a sense of satisfaction, accomplishment and joy – there
also can be pain, disappointment and misunderstanding. Christ wants
to be there in the midst of all.
A strong, young American, the pride of his
father, and full of promise, goes off to war. One day he fights his
last and is no more. His father is in anguish and sorrow, and we
sympathize. We observe the hatred and suspicion which exists between
many white men and many black men, and our hearts grieve. Science
achieves a great new discovery, and we are glad for this progress of
the human race. A young man and woman are deeply in love, they
marry, and their joy is great. And we rejoice with them. All these
human experiences Christ wants to share with us, for He, too, is a
man. The Christian actually is in Christ, and we must be bold enough
to apply this reality to all the authentic areas of our existence.
Christ wants it no other way.
The chief source of strength for the
Christian as he lives in Christ is the liturgy, for this is the
heart of the Church's life. Yet participation in the liturgy alone
will not make certain the Christian's progress in holiness.5
The Christian must be constantly living out his previous
participation. His life in Christ necessitates various types of
activity which complement his liturgical life. . .
_______
1. Cf. Bernard Cooke, "Synoptic Presentation
of the Eucharist as Covenant Sacrifice" in Theological Studies,
Vol. 21, (1960), p. 36.
2. The Mystery of Christ is essentially one reality. Any of
the individual mysteries implicitly contains the others. For a
treatment of this, cf. L. Bouyer, Liturgical Piety (Notre
Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame University Press, 1955), pp. 189-190.
3. Cf. Second Vatican Council,
The Constitution on the
Sacred Liturgy, No. 10.
4. Cf., for example, E. McMahon and P. Campbell,
Becoming a Person in the Whole Christ (New York: Sheed & Ward,
1967).
5. Cf. Second Vatican Council,
The Constitution on the
Sacred Liturgy, No. 12.
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© 2014 Shepherds of Christ.