Christ, the Church and the Believer

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - May 18, 2007

Prior to Benedict XVI's arrival in Brazil, there was much speculation about how he would address some burning issues for the Church in Brazil and throughout Latin America. These are the issues that will comprise much of the conversation of the decennial General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM) which Benedict had come to inaugurate: the exodus of many Catholics to Pentecostal movements; a drastic shortage of priests, especially outside of cities; the false but popular politicization of the Gospel by some theologies of liberation; the presence of increasingly dictatorial regimes, of left and right, to which Latin America seems prone; and the pressure on Latin American cultures to accept a secularist agenda on moral issues coming from forces outside the continent.

Benedict's response to these challenges surpassed all expectations. Ever the master teacher and synthesist, he first identified a common cause for all of them and then a global solution. What he proposed ought to be more than a matter of mere curiosity for Catholics in Massachusetts. It's relevant not just because one out of every two Catholics in the world now lives in Latin America or because tens of thousands of Catholic immigrants from Latin America now live and worship in our diocese. His global solution is relevant as well because it provides the foundation for a truly Christian response to the challenges we face closer to home.

The Pope said that the problems that the Church in Latin America faces all stem ultimately from a weakness and confusion about the faith. Therefore, the first and most important step in remedying those problems, he proposed, must be to clarify the identity of Christ, the Church and the Catholic believer.

He first focused on Jesus Christ. Contrary to the ideas of Marxist liberation theologians, Jesus was not a political messiah with a mission to topple the Romans and establish an earthly kingdom. Instead, Benedict stated, he was the "missionary of the Father" with the task "that all men … be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth." The "core of his entire saving message" and salvific means was a genuine love that overflows in deeds. "No one has greater love than to lay down his life for his friends," Benedict stresses, pointing to Jesus' words and action. Christ is the missionary of God the Father's love and saves us through love.

The Church's identity flows directly from Christ's. "The Church's mission, Benedict says, "exists only as a prolongation of Christ's mission: 'As the Father has sent me, so I send you'" Since Jesus was sent by the Father to reconcile sinners to himself, Benedict concludes that "this, and nothing else, is the purpose of the Church: the salvation of individual souls." Our motivation for that mission, like Christ's, must be love. Jesus "loved even to the extent of giving his life for us on the Cross," Benedict accentuates, and "the action of the Church and of Christians in society must have this same inspiration." He succinctly adds, "The Church has been sent forth to spread Christ's Love throughout the world, so that individuals and peoples 'may have life, and have it abundantly.'"

The believer's identity flows from the reality of the Church. Each of us is called to live in Christ's love and to spread it, to be a "disciple and missionary of love." The first step, that of "authentic Christian living," is to seek genuine "holiness of life." The second step is to "evangelize" which is to spread God's love to others. These flow directly from love of God and love of neighbor, respectively. Benedict emphasizes that the Church "does not engage in proselytism" or pressured conversions, but rather grows by "attraction" to the "irresistible missionary power … of holiness," which is the light of Christ's love radiating through translucent believers.

The mission of believers, therefore, must be to introduce others to the living, loving Christ encountered in his Church. "Being Christian," Benedict writes in his first encyclical, "is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction." For this reason, he comments during his visit, "Christians should be aware that they are not following a character from past history, but the living Christ, present in the today and the now of their lives. He is the living one who walks alongside us, revealing to us the meaning of events, of suffering and death, of rejoicing and feasting, entering our homes and remaining there, feeding us with the bread that gives life." The God in whom we believe is not "merely imagined or hypothetical, but God with a human face; he is God-with-us, the God who loves even to the Cross."

So many of the problems facing the Church and society in Latin America and North America flow from Catholics' never coming into contact with this living Jesus Christ. Some people walk away from a Jesus whom they think is either dead or boring. Others stay, but live an unattractive discipleship grounded on following some man-made image of Jesus. Others leave the Church to seek him in places where they think he abides. Benedict says all these problems come from a flawed evangelization. "Those who are most vulnerable to the aggressive proselytizing of sects … and those who are incapable of resisting the onslaught of agnosticism, relativism and secularization are generally the baptized who remain insufficiently evangelized; they are easily influenced because their faith is weak, confused, easily shaken and naive, despite their innate religiosity."

Once that happens, in large enough numbers, all of society suffers. "If we do not know God in and with Christ, all of reality is transformed into an indecipherable enigma," the Pope charges. "Wherever God and his will are unknown, wherever faith in Jesus Christ and in his sacramental presence is lacking, the essential element for the solution of pressing social and political problems is also missing." Without seeing "God with the human face of Jesus Christ," society "will not find the necessary consensus on moral values or the strength to live according to the model of these values." Stated positively, "The presence of God, friendship with the incarnate Son of God, the light of his word: these are always fundamental conditions for the presence and efficacy of justice and love in our societies."

The fundamental mission and service of the Church's believers, Benedict says, it to help society solve its "indecipherable enigma" through contact with the God, "who has shown us his face in Jesus Christ." The "most precious inheritance" Latin Americans have, is the "priceless treasure of faith in God who is love." Benedict calls them to rejoice in this inexhaustible inheritance and spend it in addressing urgent ecclesial and social problems. We will turn to those applications in upcoming weeks.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.