"Jesus, Christ, sole Savior of the world, yesterday, today and always"

THE SACRAMENT OF THE "CHRIST AMONGST US"

Cardinal Giacomo Biffi

The Pope's proposal

With the desire to prevent the recurrence of the jubilee from turning into superficiality or left to improvisation, John Paul II proposes an itinerary of three years which seriously prepares us for the year 2000. The first year is of particular interest to us because it is also the year of the National Eucharistic Conference in Bologna. «The first year - says the Pope - 1997, will thus be devoted to reflection on Christ, the Word of God, made man by the power of the Holy Spirit. The distinctly Christological character of the Jubilee needs to be emphasized, for it will celebrate the Incarnation and coming into the world of the Son of God, the mystery of salvation for all mankind» (Tertio Millennio Adveniente 40).

The Churches of Italy - to cordially enter in this project and not dispel the commitment of the faithful in a variety of directions - could not have but assigned to their National Eucharistic Congress the same general theme indicated for 1997 in the Papal document: «Jesus, Christ sole Savior of the world, yesterday, today and always» (ib.).

Jesus the Savior

An "intrinsic savior"

The Son of God incarnate is intrinsically a "savior". In his name "Jesus" - a prophetic name, in which both the Gospels on the infancy assign a celestial origin - the mission of saving is constitutionally written. «Here was born a Savior» (Luke 2, 11): in these terms it is the angelic proclamation of his coming on earth.

Since, like everyone, he was from the beginning of the centuries called by name, just as "Savior" it was thought and wanted from eternity as a correlation to us, who were thought and wanted from eternity as "creatures to be saved." He and us are indissolubley tied together to one sole divine project of mercy.

Poverty and grandness of man

The theme of salvation evokes and presupposes - to get ourselves back to the pascolian language - the "poverty" and the "grandness" of man. The poverty of man is due to his foolishness, so that he leaves himself open to be fooled and diverted by futility, by falsities, by error; it is due to the fatal course towards the catastrophe of death; it is due to his state of injustice and by his invincible propulsion to moral transgression, that is to sin.

It is a Grande poverty, a tragic poverty, uneludable poverty, that however already contains in itself the footprint and the witness of nobility and of the unique value of man amongst all the creatures: the foolishness accompanied by a thirst of truth; the mortality survives to become one that believes it was made for a live without limits; the inclination of guilt does not reach to suffocate the radical aspirations to an existence according to justice.

Instead, it is exactly the grandness of the human soul that grows and renders more poignant our poverty: an "knows" that he is silly, "knows" that he must die, "knows" that he is not innocent; and all this knowledge sharpens the pain, it renders the thing dramatic and leads to an objective state of imploration, those which are its words, its explicit thoughts, its known feelings. The human being invokes with all its fibers the freedom of the emptiness and of insignificance, from ruin and extinction to guilt and weakness in front of evil.

The contents of salvation

The Salvation of Christ encounters exactly this kind of mulitformed poverty. That is why it does not refer to "something" of man or to "some part" of his existence, but to the whole man and to his definitive state. It is a salvation that is given to us with the light of truth, the infusion of a new capacity to love, the remission of sins, the restoration of freedom in front of the forces of evil, the participation to the divine nature, the victory over death through the resurrection, to eternal life.

To assign the salvation of Christ as a direct and primary content some of the social, political and cultural changes is not only against all the explicit affirmations of the Apostolic Church and against the same words of the Lord, but it is not composed of the profound logic of the Christian event: an event that is so extraordinary as the mission of the Word and his incarnation cannot but touch the profound being of man and of all things.

Naturally, this does not mean that Jesus, saving us in our most substantial reality, had not done from his own Gospel and of his grace even the principal renewal of the world and above all of man, in all the aspects of his existence, of his joining and of his working. The redeeming energy is so powerful, and which was invested in us, that noting of all that is human - in the public and private compartments, in the cultural activity, in the social problematic, in the political commitment - can legitimately be subtracted from the impetus of this rebirth.

The sole savior of everyone

The sole Savior

The design of the Father is not schizophrenic: all is unified in Christ, in which all things exist (cf. Col 1, 17). That is why there are not different "saviors". To say that Jesus is "the sole Savior" is equivalent to saying that he is the necessary Savior of all men without exception.

This is a point today that is a little foggy in the minds of many Christians, who, with the right appreciation for the various values which are found in the extraecclesial and extra-Christian reality, reach the undeserved conclusion that there are a plurality of roads which lead to salvation. And they do not realize that in this way they confine the Son of God between that which is superfluous and marginal.

And yet, it should be abundantly clear that the Father did not think of the crucified and resurrected Christ as an "option" of a multiformed mechanism to renew the world, but as a necessary and substantial Redeemer.

The Savior objective

Therefore, must we sustain that he who is not explicitly Christian must then because of this, be fatally destined to perish? Certainly not. Jesus is "objectively" the Savior of everyone, from the moment in which he is capable with the effusion of the Spirit, to eliminate and sanctify every conscience which is not positively closed, even those who ignore his existence and his renewing energy, his centrality. Christ saves even only through an implicit adhesion to him, who is the truth and justice of God.

The yearning for evangelization

However, we must worry ourselves and get busy so that even subjectively he is known and loved by all our brothers. In fact, even from that limpid understanding that he is the necessary Savior of all, urges us to the yearning to evangelize.

Even to presume that at the end, everyone falls «in the bosom of immense piety» (to use the words of Alessandro Manzoni) and they are objectively reached by the action of the sole Redeemer, it is incomprehensible for us the thought that throughout the length of their terrestrial existence they never openly encounter the Savior and do not enter with him in a conscience and personal communion.

Our anxiety - even with the serenity of he who knows he is capable of counting on a universal saving will of the Father - is to bring every son of Adam to the faith, expressly in the Resurrected Cross. Because, if man does not reach an act of faith fully bloomed, a real tension and illumination towards the Kingdom, an experience of love transformed, his days pass without the true sun, things are not perceivable by him in their true meaningful beauty, the human pilgrimage transpires in melancholy of he who no longer remembers which is his half, nor why he has begun the walk.

Without Christ, men are arranged in a condition of sadness, in which they maybe can withstand with the help of the grace diffused in everyone by the Holy Spirit, but which remains nothing less in contrast with the more profound aspirations of their hearts and with their dignity as knowledgeable creatures.

The Savior of the world and of history

The "cosmos"

The expression "Savior of the world" - taken from the fourth Gospel (John 4, 42) reaffirms the universality and the necessity of the redeeming action of the Lord Jesus to the advantage of the entire humanity. But, it is undeniable, that the term "cosmos" has a wider meaning: the entire universe is here indicated as a destination of renewing work of the Resurrected.

The reason for this cosmic dimension of salvation is seen in the revealing reality which «all things were created through him and because of him» (Col 1, 16): «of him» that is «Beloved Son, by whose power we have redemption» (Col 1, 13-14). The incarnate Word in the plan of God preexists the creation and is the foundation of goodness and the orientation towards him in the entire universe.

It is part of the Christian vision, this positively of wisdom with regards to the terrestrial reality and the attitude of faith and of admiration with which they must be seen: if it is true that they were shaken and disturbed by sin, it is also true that «through him all things were reconciled» (cf Col 1,20).

Nature

Even "nature" is therefore dear tot he disciples of Christ. We do not idolize it, because it infers dignity and value especially from the fact that it is at the service of man: «all things are ours» (cf 1 Col 3, 21). We love it and respect it because even in nature there is a reflection of the reverberation of the beauty of the Lord, and even on it, the will of the Son of God is exercised, made man to unify and transfigure all according to the sole design of the Father. And faith does not come any less to us, which through the conscientious work of redeemed man, can even be brought to Christ.

The "history"

«Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and always» (Hebrews 13, 8). These words from the letter to the Hebrews teaches us how strong and typical the relationship of the Lord Jesus was with history.

With his intervention, in fact, with his same reality, he grasps history - which in itself is so volatile and transitory - to the Kingdom which never sets. Actually, as John Paul II notes - «In Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, time becomes a dimension of God, who is himself eternal» (Tertio Millennio Adveniente 10).

So in this way even history is saved. It is saved from the insignificance, because in Christ every happening comes to the forefront, not to then dissolve itself in nothing, but to signal itself and to build eternal life. It is saved from the absurdity, because in Christ it is no longer without an aim or a purpose but it has a strong finale in which all the human event, today somewhat shadowed, will become illuminated. It is saved from injustice, because with the advent of the Son of man as a judge, all the checks that do not add up, will finally be equal. The counter proof of all of this is the evident square which has always humiliated every philosophy of history - be it idealistic or Marxist - which hoped to find some rationality in the lessons of the facts, independent from he who is not sense and is the Lord.

The Christ "today"

"Today"

«Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and always» (Hebrews 13,8). This suggestive phrase from the letter to the Hebrews has, so to speak, as its key, the word "today". The phrase evokes, certainly all that has already happened ("yesterday") and it looks out to the eternity which awaits us ("always"). But that which determines its originality and constitutes the fullness of the affirmation is the belief expressed which we can now put ourselves in communion with that which has happened and we can now anticipate all that will happen.

The reason for this mysterious condition (which renders us in some way owners of the entire history of salvation) is our Savior, Jesus, who is "the same" and that is he who is placed in a "today" without decline, and involves and brings together even us in this "being" which does not suffer danger or discoloration.

Because he "is", that is, that he was and was saved by annihilation and continues to have a presence. Because he "is," that is he will be and is saved from being for us only an object of foolish ambition or utopia; and he already is substantially given.

Between memory and prophecy?

It is necessary to well understand, therefore the relevance of the today, without ever losing sight of it. Even more so, than a certain common habit, the knowledgeable Christians often talk of "memory" and of "prophecy" as though they were the only categories of the life of faith, unknowingly forgetting the primate of the "presence."

"Memory" and "prophecy" are, without a doubt, indispensable concepts which qualify the spiritual situation of the believer in relation to the non-believing humanity, which can be characterized as "forgetful" and "without hope." But, they become empty concepts, if they are not linked to the "nunc" of ecclesiale existence. Between "memory" and "prophecy" lived the Ancient Alliance, before Christ, "fullness" of everything (cf. Col 1, 1 9), filled with the saving thing, bringing it into our own present. Between "memory" and "prophecy". Only those who could resign themselves to living like this are those who have completely lost the Sacramental dimension of Christianity, that is its actuality.

Jesus "present"

Rising to heaven, Jesus did not become "absent": he just removed himself from incredulous eyes. We are always with him, misunderstood and hidden just as he has worldly glances - for this reason it is said that «our life is by now hidden with that of Christ in God» (Col 3, 3). The Risen Christ is always present in the hearts of those who believe in the Church, in the history of men; and it is also perceivable, even if it is only with the eyes of faith.

The real statute of ecclesial existence is the knowledge of communion with the "Christus hodie" in "Christus hodie" we have objective and efficient memory of all the saving interventions of God - in "Christus hodie" we already contemplate, in he hope of our future destiny of glory.

The attention to saving "hodie"

Our communities, which are often soured by sad spectacles of the world without Christ in the world, according to the words of Saint Paul «without sense, without consistency, without love, without mercy» (Rm 1, 31) - they must realize the fundamental and primary character of this attention to the redemption that is always taking place, which already supports us, it reanimates us, it enriches us spiritually, from those worldly squalors that surround us.

The "Eucharistic today"

The Sacrament of "Christus hodie"

To help us in this adhesion of mind, of heart, of all our being to the renewing reality and to the renewed reality, it was thought and wanted in the eternal design of the Father, the gift of the Eucharist. The Eucharistic Congress of 1997 in particular, brings us back to this primary attention: that of the "Christus hodie" which for us exemplifies in the rite all that was undertaken for our benefit and all that will constitute our reward and our total realization.

The Eucharistic Presence

He is really present in a way in which cannot be thought of more intensely. He is present with his body, that is with the concreteness of man, divinely personalized, in the truth of his double nature; with his blood, that is with his whole life, his energy, his capacity to renew, to make grow, to strengthen in grace; with his state of sacrificial victim, which sanctified the new alliance; with his gift to the Father and to his brothers, who touched the summit by giving himself to the passion and the death; with his priestly prerogative, which constitutes him as an eternal mediator between divinity and creation; with his regality, which renders him guide, head, Lord of the universe.

Really in the Eucharist it happens, with a fullness, that we, with our lack of fantasy could not even have begun to imagine, the last promise made to his on the Resurrected Cross: «Here, I am with you everyday, until the end of the world» (Matthew 28, 20).

Eucharistic presence and ecclesial serenity

From this rediscovery, everything can bloom again: every doubt is won, every pessimism is debilitated, every ecclesial sadness dissolves in joy, in gratitude, in the proudness of being all that we are by the mercy of the Savior.

The Daughter of Zion - the redeeming humanity is nobilitated by the blood of Christ - the delight, the hope, the certainty of his fortune never fades; because it knows to have «in its viscera» the «powerful "Savior"» (cf Sof 3, 14-17), the «God is with us» (cf. IS 8, 8-10), the Savior and King of the universe (cf. Ap. 1, 5-6).

We are - we have always been - the "people of God" not because we continually repeat, maybe even banalizing a little, this great expression which qualifies us, but because we have - we have always had - the presence of the Lord, who put up his tent amongst us and in virtue of the Eucharistic rite he arranged himself and remains at the heart of ecclesial life.

No earthly power is able to intimidate the "holy nation," which knows that it has the "Lord of the multitudes" on its side. No infidelity of ours can depress us to desperation, from the moment that we possess the inexhaustible source of forgiveness and of reconciliation. No weakness of ours can exasperate us, if we do not forget that he lives with us, he who know how to take on weak things to confound the things that seem strong (cf. 1 Corinthians 1, 27). No experience that apparently seems barren of our message of our action, no impenetrable belief of the society in which we live, can leave us astounded, if we remember that the Resurrected Christ is present in his Church and continues to disperse the Holy Spirit, the divine energy which is capable of reaching even the farthest souls and knows how to get into the consciences which seem impenetrable; even if he does not always give us the benefit and the consolation of clearly and positively perceiving his divine efficaciousness.