A PILGRIM’S NOTES: LET SILENCE TALK

 

When I was a student of philosophy, we had a holy and wise Master of Students, Fr. Luis López de las Heras. He gave us a lecture every Saturday morning. One lecture that lingered in my mind for life was his talk on silence, a silence he practiced in his humble Dominican life. Later on, I was moved by one of my favorite songs, “The Sound of Silence” of Simon and Garfunkel: the singers, the song, and the lyrics! It is enchanting. I love its title.

As human beings, as Christians in particular, we need to hear and listen to the sounds of silence through our life. We are invaded, bombarded today by too many words, too many noises… I invite you to listen with me to the serene sound of silence.

SILENCE, THE OTHER POWERFUL WORD

Silence is the other word. After the word, Lacordaire says, silence is the second power in the world. Word and silence are two ways of speaking; two aspects of communication; the two sides of talking. Both words complement each other. In dialogue, we communicate with each other, through mutual speaking and mutual listening.

Silence is a great value and virtue in all religions and faiths: “Renunciation, detachment, humility, simplicity and silence are considered great values by the followers of all religions” (John Paul II, Ecclesia in Asia, 23). The Church, in particular, “must discover the power of silence” (Cardinal Luis Antonio de Tagle).

We need silence to hear the wordless voice of our heart: “Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights” (Khalil Gibran).

We need silence to listen to others. Job tells his talking friends: “If you would only keep silent that would be your wisdom” (Jb 13:5). Pope Francis speaks of the importance of learning the art of listening, “which is more than simply hearing” and implies “an openness of heart”; he recommends “respectful and compassionate listening” (Evangelii Gaudium 171). Unfortunately, many of us do not listen to others but just wait for them to finish their talking and continue with ours: “People talking without speaking; people hearing without listening…”  We keep silent when our word will be hurtful to the other, or boastful or unkind. Then, as my father used to say, “La mejor palabra es la que está por decir” (the best word is the one not yet spoken).

We need silence to listen to the utterly Other – to God. “Speak, Lord, your servant listens.” We need silence, to empty our hearts of selfishness and be able to listen to God: “I hold myself in quiet and silence, like a little child in his mother’s arms, like a little child, so I keep myself” (Ps 131:2). Silence is needed “to listen to the Voice: “I will keep silent and let God speak within” (Meister Eckhart).

We need silence to speak the saving word. In his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini (2010), Pope Benedict XVI recommends that the People of God be educated on the value of silence. This is needed to speak of and listen to the word. The word, in fact, “can only be spoken and heard in silence, outward and inward”; “the great patristic tradition teaches us that the mysteries of Christ all involve silence” (VD 66). The liturgy speaks of “sacred silence,” which is recommended through the Eucharist, in particular after the homily and after communion. Pauses of silence are also recommended in the recitation of the Psalms: “The purpose of this silence is to allow the voice of the Holy Spirit to be heard more fully in our hearts and to unite our personal prayer” (General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours, no. 202). Pauses of silence are also recommended when praying the Rosary, particularly at the beginning of each mystery: “Just as moments of silence are recommended in the liturgy, so too in the recitation of the Rosary it is fitting to pause briefly after listening to the word of God, while the mind focuses on the content of a particular mystery” (John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, October 16, 2002, no. 31).

BAD SILENCE

We are speaking of good silence. There is also bad silence; the silence that does not utters words when it should speak: “We believe, and so we speak” (II Cor 4:13). The Lord says to Paul: “Do not be afraid, go on speaking and do not be silenced, for I am with you” (Acts 18:9-10). Like God’s prophet: “About Zion I will not keep silent, about Jerusalem I shall not rest until saving justice dawns for her like a bright light and her salvation like a blazing torch” (Is 62:1).

The preacher (in a true sense, every Christian is a preacher of the Word) the preacher must speak the truth when he should. The apostles Peter and John were asked by the Jewish authorities to keep quiet about the Crucified and Risen Lord. Their answer: We have to obey God, rather than men (cf. Acts 4:19). St. Gregory the Great states: “If a religious leader is afraid to say what is right, what else can his silence mean but that he has taken flight? Negligent religious leaders are often afraid to speak freely and say what needs to be said – for fear of losing favor with people” (The Pastoral Rule).

The Christian is asked by his humanity and faith to speak on behalf of those who have no voice: the children, women, the poor, the migrants, and the marginalized. Leo XIII says that at times you have to speak, as when he spoke powerfully of the poverty of workers at the end of the 19^th century: “By keeping silence we would seem to neglect the duty incumbent on us” (cf. Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, no. 107; John Paul II, Centesimus Annus 53).

Forced silence is also bad silence, such as the silence imposed by dictators and the like on others, on the promoters of human dignity and rights, on the peaceful followers of religions and faiths, on slaves, on the defenseless, on refugees, etc.

Money too may force some of us to keep silent when we ought not: “When money talks, the truth is silent” (Chinese Proverb). Nowadays, moreover, it is not hard to find people who do not talk because speaking is not “politically correct.”

GOOD SILENCE

Good silence is quiet prayer: “Remain calm so that you will be able to pray” (I Pet 4:7). It is contemplative silence: “The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room” (Pascal). Serene silence is the silence of creation: “God does not speak, but everything speaks of God” (Julien Green).

Honest silence is the one of Joseph who, feeling the hand of God, accepts silently the motherhood of Mary and the mysterious life of Jesus (cf. Mt 1:24); he does not say a word; he just talks by the good deeds of his daily life attuned to God’s will.

Virtuous silence is the silence of Mary, who kept all the things happening around Jesus in her heart (Lk 2:51): in her, “all was space for the Beloved and silence to listen” (Bruno Forte). With the dead body of the Lord on her lap, Mary says in the lovely words of St. Maximus the Confessor: “Wordless is the Word of the Father, who made every creature which speaks; lifeless are the eyes of the one of whose word and whose nod all living things move” (See Benedict XVI, On the Silence of Jesus, General Audience march 7, 2012).

Jesus invites us to pray with few words and much silence: “In praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Mt 6:7-8). Earlier, the Psalmist had condemned empty or hollow talk (cf. Ps 41:6).

Holy silence is the silence of Jesus through his public life, a silence that underlined his words, a silence the saints learned from him. We are taught by the saints to cultivate silence in our life, to appreciate the silent love of the mystics, the pregnant silence of St. Thomas Aquinas after his mystical experience on December 6, 1273; after this, no more words, no more writings – total silence after an intimate encounter with the Word! Indeed, as St. Augustine tells us, “When the Word of God increases the words of men fall.” St. Teresa of Avila puts silence in her definition of prayer: prayer is a dialogue of friendship being alone (silently) many times with the One we know that loves us (Life, VIII, 5). St. John of the Cross speaks of the silent contemplation of his Beloved without the noise of voices: The tranquil night, / silent music, / sounding solitude, / the supper that refreshes and deepens love (CB 14-15). The great mystic advises silence when facing the lives of the other: “Great wisdom is to keep silent and not to look to sayings, deeds or the lives of others” (Sayings of Light and Love, 108).

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta asked her sisters to practice first the virtue of kindness and second the virtue of silence, a silence she witnessed also by smiling – to conceal her great inner sufferings: “In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence” (Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, The Heart of the World) I remember my Japanese brother Dominican Fr. Oshida, a peaceful soul who lived a simple life in an ecumenical community he founded near Tokyo. The main focus of his life, influenced by Zen Buddhism, was prayer, but not any kind of prayer but deepening silence: “Through deepening silence we aim to get rid of the noises of the little ego, of selfish tendencies: without going out of this little ego – of the egoistic attitude – silence cannot be real” (Fr. Oshida, September 1980).

THE SILENT SOUND OF  LOVE

Word and silence, then, are two ways of speaking, the two eyes of the face of life, the two wings of a bird. Word and silence, however, are not enough to be totally healed, redeemed and saved. Word and silence need a third element, that is, action, good deeds of love. Jesus began his public life doing and teaching, and through the three-year period of his public life, He gave priority importance to action – to prayer and to compassionate deeds. Remember the healing of the blind man on his way to Jericho. Jesus – like the Rabies of his time – was teaching his disciples on the way as they walked along. When he heard the cry of the blind man, he stopped talking and asked the disciples to bring the blind man to him. He stopped talking with his disciples and instead cures the blind man: “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you” (Lk 18:42).

More important than speaking by words is talking by silently witnessing the truth in love. Practicing silently goodness, virtues, love is the most convincing word. St. Ignatius of Antioch writes to the Ephesians: “It is better to remain silent and to be than to talk and not be.”  St. Thomas Aquinas writes that good example move more than words (cf. STh, I-II, 34, 1). And it is still better – as the martyred saint proved in his own life – to be a practicing Christian and to talk, for then the word is part of witnessing the truth in love. Every Christian is asked by his faith in Jesus to proclaim him in deeds and words. When oral proclamation is not possible or prudent, then he or she must give “a silent witnessing of Christ” (John Paul II, Ecclesia in Asia 23); “A Christian knows when it is time to speak of God and when it is better to say nothing and to let love alone speak” (Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est 31).

Man’s vocation is to love. “The greatest need we have to be able to profit is to keep quiet before this great God…, for the language He hears best is silent love” (St. John of the Cross, Sayings of Light and Love. 131). True love, Antoine Saint-Exupery tells us, is prayer; and prayer is silence, the holy silence of the contemplative, of the active-contemplative, of the humble and prayerful Christian, of the sinner; the good silence of those who follow Christ Jesus, who is the prayerful, contemplative and compassionate Man-for-Others, Son of God and Mary, and a Man-for-others.

Yes, therefore, to a good deed, a kind word and a virtuous silence. Yes, to these three expressions of love.

THE SILENCE OF THE CRUCIFIED LORD

On Good Friday, Jesus is silent: his serene silence to the many questions of Pilate and Herod; his calm silence to the cry of the people: “Crucify him! Crucify him!” His humble silence while he is horribly scourged at the pillar. Jesus is patiently silent through his whole passion; at times, he pronounces a few words which dramatize his talking silence. Jesus, the Suffering Servant of Yahweh “never opened his mouth, like a lamb led to the slaughter-house, like a sheep dumb before the shearers, he never opened his mouth” (Is 53:7; cf. Acts 8:32). Yes, “like a silent lamb, but in reality instead of a lamb we have a man, and in the man, Christ that contains everything” (Meliton de Sardis).

On the Cross, Jesus faced also the silence of God. From the Cross, Jesus asked his Father: “Why have you abandoned me?” God’s answer was: silence. The silence of God, the mysterious silence of God yesterday and today in the midst of darkness, of desolation, of deadly natural calamities, of war… Why this silence, God? Where are You when we hurt terribly? Why do You allow so much evil in the world? Benedict XVI asked in his visit to the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenaw: “Why the Holocaust? Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this?” (May 28, 2006). I ask you, my dear God: Why did you allow the terrible crucifixion of your Son – of your Son? St. Dominic’s favorite book is the book of charity, that is, God’s love revealed in the cross – in the silent cross. Where is our compassionate God, our Father when suffering and darkness visit us or our loved ones? “God does not want suffering; He is present in a silent way” (E. Schillebeeckx).

Dear God, “May we not forget that you also talk when you keep silent… In your silence as well as in your word, you are always the same Father, the same paternal and maternal heart, and you guide us with your love and elevate us with your silence” (S. Kierkegaard). St. John of the Cross says in his Ascent to Mount Carmel (2 A, 22, 5) that God is silent because in his Son Jesus He gave us everything (cf. Heb 1:1-2) and in the Word He has said everything (todo): “In giving us his Son, his only Word, God spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word – and He has no more to say.”

 There is a story from Norway. It is a bit long but lovely! There was a popular chapel in a small town, presided by a large crucifix. A humble old man took care of the chapel. Every day hundreds of people came to visit the Crucified Lord to ask his help, at times to pray for a miracle. One day Haakon, the old man’s name, asked Christ a favor: “I want to suffer for you. Allow me to take your place on the cross.” The Crucified Jesus opened his mouth and said: “I allow you, but with one condition.” What is the condition, my Lord? “Whatever happens, or whatever you see or hear, do not respond; keep silent always.” Haakon answered: “Yes, Lord, I promise to keep silent always.” So the Lord and Haakon exchanged places, and nobody noticed the difference! For a long time, the good old man was able to fulfill the condition on silence. One day, however, something happened! A rich man approached the Crucifix, prayed before the Lord, put some money in the box and left – he also left there unknowingly his wallet. A little later, a poor man visited and knelt before the Lord. Noticing the wallet there, he got it – and left giving thanks to the Crucified Lord and very joyful! Haakon kept silent. Then a young man approached and prayed before the Crucifix to ask the Lord for a good voyage. While the young man was praying, the rich man came back looking for his wallet; he accused the young man of stealing it. The young man denied it: “I do not have it.” “Give me back my wallet, thief,” the rich man retorted. “I did not take your wallet, please stop hitting me.” Then a strong voice came from the Cross: “Please, stop hitting the young man; he did not take your wallet.” The young man and the rich man left the chapel very humbled and amazed. That night the Lord asked the old man to please come down from the cross: “You did not keep quiet.” Haakon: “How could I, my Lord? That was a great injustice.” The Lord said: ‘You did not know that it was good for the rich man to leave his wallet, for he was going to use the money to buy the virginity of a young woman. The poor man needed the money to buy some food, so it was good for him to find the wallet. Regarding the young man, who would had been wounded seriously to the point of not been able to take the voyage, a few minutes ago his boat collapsed and he drowned. You do not know… I know, and that is why I keep silent.”

“Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness” (from an Ancient Homily), the strange silence of Good Friday and Holy Saturday. It is the silence of the naked Cross, of the hopeful Cross of Christ! Our silence before the Cross of Christ is indeed the hopeful silence that is directed to Easter: from the loud silence of Jesus’ death to the sounding joy of his resurrection.

With St. Bernard we pray to the Lord:

There is in your adorable Passion, Lord a word that moves me and speaks like no other word. It is the word you have not uttered, the word of your silence. When, Lord, when will I learn your silence, and when will I know that You, only You justify and condemn? When, my Jesus, will I learn to keep quiet, to talk little with men and much with You? When shall I imitate your silence – humble, patient, adorable silence? Oh silent Jesus, give me the holy virtue of your silence!

Fausto Gomez, OP

St. Dominic’s Priory, Macau

INITIATION TO CHRISTOLOGY, CURRENT TRENDS

(On March 27, 2014, Fr. Felicisimo Martínez, OP, pronounced an excellent lecture on “Current Trends in Christology.” The conference was organized by the Faculty of Christian Studies of the University of Saint Joseph, Macau, and it was held in the evening at the main hall of the Seminary of Saint Joseph. The public lecture was attended by a large number of students and professors of said Faculty and University, and by men and women religious from different congregations and lay faithful. The speaker, Fr. Felicísimo is a Dominican priest from Prioro in Leon, Spain, who is currently teaching the Doctrine of God at the Macau Faculty of Christian Studies. He is a well-known lecturer and writer on Christology, religious life and dialogue – The Editor)

Years ago Initiation to Christology was a simple introduction to a whole treatise of Christology, a kind of previous summary of Christology. Nowadays initiation to Christology means something a little bit different: presenting the main current trends of actual Christology; developing those topics more relevant in today´s Christological reflection and investigation. Let us, then, present some of those most relevant trends (or “keys,” “claves” in Spanish) of today´s Christology.

FIRST: THE GROWING RELEVANCE OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS.

A crucial trend of or key to the renewal of Christology has been the emphasis on the historical Jesus. For the Christian community it is a great pleasure to see the interest and the growing relevance of the figure of Jesus of Nazareth, even beyond the borders of the Church. Machovec wrote: “If I had to live in a world that could forget Jesus message, I would not want to live.” This author was a Marxist and atheist. Another author, who was not Christian, E. Bloch wrote referring to Jesus: “Here is a good man with all capital letters, in every sense of the word, something that had never happened”. For the Church this growing interest for the person of Jesus is also a challenge and a responsibility, especially if we consider that the credit of the Church is not at the same rate of that of Jesus.

To the rediscovery of the historical Jesus contributed especially biblical studies, the renewal of exegesis. Exegesis has not changed Christian creed, but has helped to improve many interpretations of its articles. For a long time the historical Jesus had been covered by many dogmas. A literal interpretation of the evangelical texts forgot that these were not a simple report of news but mainly a catechesis. And therefore historical features of Jesus swelled too much. But, at the same time, paradoxically, the historical Jesus had no influence at all in Christian dogma. The historical Jesus served only as spiritual and moral exemplar or model, but hardly had an impact on theological reflection, on the formulation of Christian faith. “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried…”: this is the most direct reference to the historical Jesus in the Apostles’ Creed. Thanks to modern exegesis, the historical Jesus was released from the bonds of dogma, like the Gospel text was released from the literal reading.

After the first exegetical studies many other studies have uncovered the historic core or nucleus related to the person of Jesus beneath the evangelical catechesis or kerygma. Archeology, sociology, cultural anthropology, history… have come together to offer firm conclusions about the historical Jesus. Neither it is possible to write a biography of Jesus, as intended by the liberal theology, nor is it totally impossible to approach the historical Jesus. Moreover, the historical Jesus should never be negligible for Christian faith, as theologians like M. Kähler and R. Bultmann pretended. An impressive effort has been made to identify the historic core around the person of Jesus and about Christian origins.

Many Christians find disappointing the results of that research. It is understandable. They have been forced to give up many false securities that had fed their piety and spirituality, and perhaps their faith, for long time. Certainly the results are modest. However, we must recognize that these modest results of so enormous research are extraordinarily useful to Christology and therefore to Christian faith. The conclusions about the historical Jesus are not theological conclusions; but theology cannot honestly be done without considering these conclusions.

The historical Jesus is so important in Christology today that some authors consider the historical Jesus the starting point for Christology. Perhaps this statement is too strong and absolute. The core of the kerygma and the first confessions or professions of Christian faith was undoubtedly the Easter experience, confessing that he who had died on the Cross was resurrected by God. But it is clear that the memory of the historical Jesus was definitive for the disciples to identify the Risen Lord with the Crucified, to maintain the continuity between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith, to recognize Jesus of Nazareth in the Risen Lord.

This reference to the earthly Jesus puts realism in the faith of the apostolic community and in the faith of the “next generation” we are. This is exactly the value of the historical Jesus for Christology. If this reference to the story of Jesus and to the Jesus of history is missing, Christian faith would become a myth devoid of purpose, would miss base and could be reduced to a purely subjective experience, an exercise in self-suggestion, in the most negative sense of this term. If the Crucified disappears, the resurrection has no subject, God the Father has none to resurrect; if there was no historical Jesus, Easter experience is nothing but an illusion for the first disciples and we, the next generations, are relying on a false testimony. The discontinuity between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith cannot be affirmed at the expense of ignoring continuity. Any discontinuity between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith must have the statement that this is the same person in two different stages.

In addition, the historical Jesus allows us to put a great emphasis in the confession of faith in God’s incarnation. Jesus is more than a spiritual teacher, a moral model, a wonderful man … He is “the man who came from God” or the incarnation of God, the revelation of God in his humanity. This fact alone makes of the historical Jesus a new key to Christology.

 SECOND: THE RECOVERY OF THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST.

Christology has always balanced between the two extremes of Christian confession: Jesus Christ is “true God and true man.” As usually happens to human beings- and we Christians are also human- it is not easy to balance between the extremes, to find the midpoint between the polarities. So we swing between the extremes. When Christian community wanted to defend the divinity of Christ has always been exposed to excess and to exaggerate, if one may say so, the divinity of Jesus. And when the community wanted to defend the humanity of Christ has always been exposed to excess and to exaggerate, if you can talk like that, the humanity of Jesus. At which point is the current Christology?

For the apostolic community it was difficult to prove and explain the divinity of the man Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified they confessed as the Risen Lord. This difficulty stemmed mainly in the rigid Jewish monotheism. The Christian community, the community of the followers of Jesus, was born in a Jewish religious and cultural context in which monotheism was deeply rooted. “Listen, Israel: Yahweh our God is the only Yahweh” (Dt 6, 4). So it was very difficult for the Jews to accept a Trinity in God, and it was even more difficult to accept that a man could be at the same time God. In fact, in the trial that took the life of Jesus, the Jewish authorities argued that Jesus “made ​​himself the Son of God” (Jn 19, 7). How can Christian community explain that confession of faith in the divinity of Jesus?

This question triggered a huge effort from the earliest Christian times, and it had already involved the Apostolic Fathers and the Apologists in the difficult task of confessing and explaining the divinity of Jesus. The debate lasted for centuries and led to the very famous Trinitarian and Christological disputes and the great Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon… The purpose of the Trinitarian and Christological debates was to clarify the identity of Jesus, according to Christian faith, and to defend their salvific significance for humanity. The result of these intense theological debates was an affirmation of the “divinity and humanity of Christ, the two natures in one person, without confusion or change, without division or separation”. Christ is “true God and true man, consubstantial with God and consubstantial with us.”

Once the Church was firm in the assertion of divinity, this aspect was very much strengthened both in theology and especially in Christian piety and spirituality, subduing the humanity of Christ. The effort that had gone into the claim of divinity was probably the reason for a dark, weak and short affirmation of humanity in Christ. This preeminence of the divinity of Jesus, forgetting his humanity, led to several heresies, which perverted Christian faith and Christian life. First, Docetism, which sees the humanity of Jesus as a mere appearance of humanity. In that case his life and, above all, his passion and his death would be a sort of theatrical performance. And secondly, Monophysitism, which actually only considers in Christ his divinity, so that the human condition is completely absorbed and diluted. It is the triumph of divine omnipotence over the weak or frail human freedom, of divine power over the kenosis and human weakness.

This kind of “Monophysitism” scores, over centuries, the spirituality and life of Christian community. Important theologians like K. Rahner, have repeatedly denounced this heretic deviation and its implications for Christian life and Christian spirituality. The Monophysitism highlights so much the divinity of Christ that his human condition virtually disappears. And so the mystery of Incarnation and its saving power are absolutely distorted. If only it is saved what is assumed, then humanity is unredeemed and hopeless. Jesus does not even help as an example of life, because He is God and we are simple human beings. There is, therefore, no comparison between Him and us, when it comes for us the challenge to face the trials of life, suffering and disease, temptation and failure, passion and death… This is the reaction of many Christians when Jesus is presented to them as a model of faithfulness, strength and patience … unto passion and death. “Yes, -people react- but He was God.”

Fortunately, a special key of recent Christology has been the recovery of the humanity of Christ or the insistence on the relevance of his humanity. Christian creed never ceased to confess the humanity in Christ. But perhaps the theology had not dared to draw practical consequences of that confession, of the confession of faith in the mystery of the incarnation of God. Christology does not become Christian life until it descends from the heights of metaphysic speculation into the arena of everyday life of believers. This is what recent Christology has sought: drawing practical conclusions from that statement of Christ’s humanity. The incarnation of God not only means that God assumed human nature in the abstract; it means and implies that God took in Jesus of Nazareth the human condition, the historical condition of human beings, with all its consequences, except sin, that is not human but inhuman, not part of human condition. Difficult task to convince people that sin is something inhuman! Ninety nine percent of the believers continue thinking that sin is part of the true human nature.

This Christology recent effort to strengthen the humanity of Christ has given back special interest to some features of the life of Jesus with vital importance for Christian faith and life. For example : the place of his limitations and suffering, the question of his knowledge and ignorance and its impact on the fulfillment of his mission, the place of temptation throughout his life and, mainly, at the end his life (“If you are the Son of God …”), the faith of Jesus as a real exercise of filial trust and confidence in his Father throughout his life and in the midst of trial; the dramatic reality of his passion and his death as the supreme test for his faith and his incorruptible faithfulness.

The recovery of the humanity in Christ has profound implications for the understanding of Christianity. Based on the incarnation of God, Christian faith invites all the churches to assess positively this creation and human history, as they have been assumed by God when his Son has been incarnated and has assumed the human condition in all dimensions but sin. The mystery of the Incarnation invites Christian community to be fully engaged in the fight for the dignity of human beings and the full humanization of individuals and peoples. Faith in the Incarnation invites churches to consider, according to the will of God, all that is truly human and humane, wherever it comes from. Humanity is true sacrament of God. Moreover, the human condition of Jesus allows Christian spirituality to recover a familiar face of God and to contemplate in Jesus an example for our discipleship and imitation. You can only follow and imitate God, if he is incarnated and humanized.

THIRD: SALVATION BY LOVE AND FIDELITY; LIFE, PASSION AND DEATH OF CHRIST.

Christology was always concerned about the matter of salvation of mankind. This has always been considered as the main reason and purpose of the incarnation of God in our history. This was also the purpose of the Christological and Trinitarian debates in old days: defending the saving work of Christ, since, according to the universal principle of Christian theology, “only what is assumed is just saved”. But those debates reached such level of metaphysical speculation, that Christology itself was many times locked in Hellenic philosophy. And from that moment on a metaphysic and ontological orientation prevailed in Christian dogma. Medieval theology, with Anselm to the head, and after centuries Reformed theology made ​​a remarkable effort to recover soteriology or to adjust and combine Christology and soteriology. That’s why special relevance was given to so called “functional Christology”. Modern theology, more sensitive to history, has given priority to this functional and soteriological orientation of Christology.

In this direction there have been some important contributions of contemporary Christology.

First, special salvific value has been recognized to all stages of the history of Jesus. Very often the salvation of mankind had been associated, especially and almost exclusively, to the passion and death of Jesus. This position was proper of a theological orientation too sacrificial and too prone to associate salvation with mere suffering and sacrifice. Current Christology has undergone a profound change in orientation. The salvific value is not necessarily associated with suffering and sacrifice; it is mostly associated with love and faithfulness. So, modern Christology has underlined the salvific value of all moments and all mysteries of the history of Jesus. The incarnation of God is already an expression of God’s love for mankind; God lovingly took flesh, human condition, history of mankind … in the flesh of Jesus. All the mysteries of Jesus’ life are an expression of God´s love, of his faithfulness to mankind. All those mysteries have saving and healing power, as well as his passion and death, and his resurrection. All those moments have theological depth; those moments represent true interventions of God in human history, with saving purpose. God wanted to save humanity from within and from below. This is the meaning of the Incarnation. This is the meaning of the history of Jesus Christ.

Second, the current Christology has made a special effort to reinterpret the salvific value of the passion and death of Jesus. Christology has been forced to rethink the theology of the Lord’s passion and death, especially in two points.

The first one concerns the relationship of the passion and death of Jesus with his life. It was common in the classical theology to establish a direct relationship between the passion and death of Jesus and the will of God the Father. The death of Christ was the result of a decree of God Father. An unfortunate interpretation of Saint Anselm famous argument led to theology and spirituality to these extremes conclusions: the passion and death of Jesus is the infinite sacrifice that the Father demanded from his Son in order to pay the infinite debt owed ​​by mankind because of sin, infinite offense to God. Thus, the passion and death of Jesus have primarily a sacrificial character, and are seen as a kind of punishment inflicted to his son by his own Father. This sometimes led to believe that the God of Jesus is a cruel and unjust God, which vents his anger on an Innocent, adding injustice upon injustice. And it made Christian salvation to be defined as a “redemption”, a commercial act, a legal deed of sale between God and the devil, rather than as an act of God’s love for humanity.

Current Christology has rather located the passion and death of Jesus in relation to his life, and has presented them as the “logical” consequence of a faithful life. Neither the Father nor the Son wanted Jesus´ death, but it came obliquely, as unintended consequence of the faithful life of the Son. Therefore, the passion and death of Jesus is not a mere accident; they are the fulfillment of a life given or offered in fidelity. Therefore, the salvific value of the passion and death of Jesus is to be found in what they have of faithfulness and love.

This is the second point that characterizes the current Christology or soteriology: to place the salvific value of the death and passion in what they have of love and fidelity, not simply in what they have of suffering and sacrifice. Undoubtedly, the passion and death of Jesus were with much suffering and sacrifice. It would be false to any Christology to sweeten the passion and death of Jesus. But it is not the same suffering as a goal sought that suffering as an unwanted cost of love and fidelity. It is not the amount of pain and sacrifice in the tragic end of Jesus what gives salvific value to his passion and death. What gives salvific value is what is in them of surrendered life, fidelity and consummate love. That gives them all the revealing and saving power. This simple statement forced the Church to reinterpret and redirect all Christian asceticism and mysticism, all Christian life. Christian ideal is not resignation, denial, pain, death. The ultimate ideal of Christianity is affirmation, joy, life. Yes, the passion and death of Jesus made it clear that neither joy nor life…, neither fidelity nor love can happen without delivering one’s life … sometimes even until blood shedding.

The most impressive result of this new interpretation of the passion and death of Jesus, is that it has revealed to us a God crucified. In Jesus, God identified himself with the human condition as far as to become himself a victim. Waiver of power, omnipotence, and annihilated completely, down to the lower depths of humanity. God confronts injustice with love and faithfulness. In the Cross of Christ God faces the mundane power with love; renouncing violence conjures her. So the current Christology recognizes in the Cross of Christ one God who committed himself with the victims becoming victim himself. This Christology does not renounce to watch the scandal of evil, injustice, Cross … But, faith in the Crucified God opens a window of hope for the victims. If God has chosen them, God will do justice to them. And so we approach at the gates of the Easter experience, of faith in the resurrection, which is the very core of Christian life and the event that illuminates Christology.

And the current Christology has gone further. It not only attributed salvific value to life, passion and death of Jesus. It has also regained the salvific dimension of the resurrection. But this point deserves a separate chapter.

FOURTH: THE SALVIFIC AND THEOLOGICAL DIMENSION OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS: GOD DOES JUSTICE JUSTIFYING.

The resurrection is the central mystery of Christian faith. It is certainly a matter of faith; it is not easy to share and dialogue about this topic with people who do not share Christian faith. Christology should be very much aware of that. It is not the same to talk about the Crucified Jesus than to talk about the Risen Lord. But this does not mean that the resurrection of Jesus Christ does not contain a message that Christianity can and must offer to mankind. First, it is an essential article of Christian creed: the history of following of Jesus had begun around the historical Jesus, but it was consolidated only around the Eastern experience of the disciples. The Eastern experience is the definitive starting point for Christian history.

Jesus resurrection is a central mystery of Christian faith. But it has been subject to various interpretations along the history of theology.

Very often Christian theology has been too inclined to a materialist or physicalist interpretation of the resurrection. This interpretation complicates Christian faith and above all empties resurrection of his true theological meaning. Resurrection is not a physical or historical fact belonging to this stage of history; it is a meta-historical fact that belongs to another trans historic stadium, to another dimension of reality. So the current Christology insists that it is a real fact and objective, that affects the person of Jesus, not just a mere subjective experience of the disciples. But at the same time it also insists that it is a meta-historical and eschatological event. So many questions that have been made concerning the resurrection of the dead like: what happened to the corpse, if we will be resurrected older or younger, when and where we will be resurrected so far, if…. etc. … have no any meaning at all. These are questions asked from our space-time categories. If we understand the resurrection in a materialistic an physical way, we will be subject to a new death, as the Gospel story of Lazarus , who returned to this life wrapped up in his own shroud. This is not to be really resurrected.

It was also frequent an apologetic interpretation of the resurrection. Appealing to all kinds of arguments theologians have tried to prove the fact of the resurrection of Christ. But that is not an empirical fact, it cannot be subjected to empirical testing and scientific demonstration. It can only be object of faith, even if it is a faith based on personal experience and on the testimony of other believers. There were eyewitnesses of the life, passion and death of Jesus. There were no eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. Only there were and continue to be witnesses of the Risen Lord.

But the failure of apologetics consisted not only in trying to prove “scientifically” the fact of the resurrection of Christ. Maybe it was not minor fault to reduce the resurrection to his apologetic dimension and deprive her of her deeply theological dimension. The emphasis in this apologetic dimension made ​​the resurrection of Christ a mere argument to prove that Jesus was God and that his message was a divine message. In this sense, the resurrection says much about the person of Jesus and his mission, but says almost nothing about the God of Jesus and the theological and soteriological significance of Christ’s resurrection.

Current Christology has recovered this double dimension of the resurrection: both the theological dimension and soteriological or saving dimension.

The statement about the resurrection of Christ is ultimately a theological statement; it is a statement about God who raised him. The latest exegesis insists on the use of the passive form in the New Testament texts about the resurrection: “Jesus was resurrected” “He was resurrected, exalted, raised up by God and placed at the right hand of the Father” “God raised him up, exalted, lifted …”. It’s like saying that the subject agent of resurrection is God Himself, and therefore to affirm the resurrection is to say that the God of Jesus is the God of life. This is the theological dimension of the resurrection: it reveals God. The God of Jesus is the God of life, who returns dead to life, who makes life triumph upon death. Resurrecting Jesus God Father says Jesus was right; confirms his life; does justice to him; definitively he was no wrong in his preaching and in his mission. He did not fail. Thus understood, the resurrection is more than an apologetic argument about a dead person who came back to life. It is a theological statement about God who gives life and makes life triumph definitively over death. In the resurrection of Jesus the most brilliant, powerful and loving face of God Father is revealed to us.

Accordingly with this theological interpretation of the resurrection, modern Christology also emphasizes its salvific dimension. Soteriology should be not more exclusively connected with the merits of passion and death of Jesus and with the merits of mankind. Indeed, salvation of mankind is not only or even primarily about God’s response to merit acquired by Jesus Christ and by other human beings. God saves graciously; God takes the initiative to save by pure love. God saves doing justice to triumph, not doing merits to succeed. For God cannot allow injustice and death to triumph. He would be no more God and his project would fail completely. Resurrecting Jesus God exercises the final saving act: doing justice to the victims, justifies them, and makes life triumph over death, to make it clear that God is the God of life and to make it clear that what he wants for all men and women is fullness of life.

This salvific dimension of resurrection has today special meaning for a humanity very much needed for justice, for a lasting and definitive justice. The cries of the victims of yesterday and today will not stop until justice is done, both to the dead and to the living ones. That’s the extraordinary message of our faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and our hope in the resurrection of the dead. It is not an exercise in alienation, which leads to irresponsibility. It is a real commitment to justice, which gives meaning to human history. Mankind will be only fully humanized when all victims have been humanized, when justice has been done to them, when they have been raised from their humiliation. In this sense, the resurrection of Jesus, who is an iconic victim, is a promise of meaning and salvation for all mankind.

Then it is not a surprise that the current Christology has found in the cries of the victims a fundamental key for theological reflection. Doing theology, thinking of God, regardless of the scandal of evil, puts us on the edge of cynicism. Doing Christology, thinking of Jesus Christ, regardless of the drama of historical injustice and the plight of the victims, renders Christology meaningless and discredits the Gospel of Jesus. Therefore, faith in resurrection must be, ultimately, faith in God of life that does justice justifying, not punishing. It implies a deep trust that in the end justice will triumph over injustice, so that humanization of the victims will result in humanization of the executioners. Faith in the resurrection is the confidence that human history will end well for everyone, not by a simple naive optimism, but by the grace of a God who loves his creation and will bring it to perfection.

Felicísimo Martínez, O.P.

Faculty of Christian Studies

University of Saint Joseph

Macau, March 2014