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CONGREGATION FOR THE CAUSES OF SAINTS
The Face of Christ in the Face of the Church
One of the fundamental teachings found in the Apostolic Letters Novo
Millennio ineunte and the recent Rosarium Virginis Mariae, concerns the
intimate and inseparable bond between Jesus Christ and his Mystical Body,
which is the Church, through which he continues his saving mission among
men who live through the centuries. This is certainly a subject that
deserves some reflection, both for its current theological and pastoral
importance.
1. Contemporary man needs to see the Face of Christ
The human person is "the only creature on earth that God has wanted for
its own sake" (cf. Gaudium et spes, n. 24). "From his conception, he is
destined for eternal beatitude" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n.
1703), which will have its fulfillment in the future life. Really, what
God willed with the creation of the human person is that he/she reach total
fulfillment (E. Colom - A. Rodríguez Luño, Chosen by Christ to be Saints.
Elements of Fundamental Moral Theology, Rome 1999, pp. 66-67). To achieve
such a goal is the last end and unifying principle of all of human
existence. St Augustine expounds it with the famous expression: "You have
made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest
in You" (St Augustine, Confessions, I, 1).
This aspiration to the absolute good "is presented and lived by the
Christian as the aspiration to holiness, understood as the fullness of
Divine Sonship, which is realized on earth in the following and imitation
of Christ" (E. Colom - A. Rodríguez Luño, lop. cit., p. 55). St Paul is
extremely clear in this regard: God the Father "chose us in him [Christ]
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless
before him ... in love" (Eph, 1,4-5). This is the fundamental vocation of
the human person, of every human person.
Only in Christ, therefore, can we fulfill our highest vocation, and thus
satisfy our deepest desire and find an adequate answer to the many
questions which lie in our heart.
Precisely for this reason, the human person, and particularly contemporary
man, wants to see Christ: "We wish to see Jesus" (Jn 12,21). After
recalling this request made to the Apostle Philip by the Greeks who had
come to Jerusalem for the Passover, the Pope emphasizes in the Apostolic
Letter Novo Millennio ineunte that "the men and women of our own day -
often perhaps unconsciously - ask believers not only to "speak' of Christ,
but in a certain sense to "show' him to them" (John Paul II, Apostolic
Letter Novo Millennio ineunte, 6 January 2001, n. 16). In effect, without
Christ, and without the full consciousness of his original vocation, the
human person's earthly life loses its bearing and everything becomes
confused and unclear. St Peter's words have value for every age: "Lord,
to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life" (Jn 6,68), you have
the words of love.
In reality, "Man cannot live without love. He remains a being who is
incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not
revealed to him, if he does not encounter love.... The man who wishes to
understand himself thoroughly ... must ... draw near to Christ" (John Paul
II, Encyclical Redemptor hominis, 4 March 1979, n. 10), to see his loving
face.
2. The Face of Christ in the face of the Church
1. The Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium begins by affirming two basic
teachings: "Christ is the light of all nations. Hence this most sacred
Synod, which has been gathered in the Holy Spirit, eagerly desires to shed
on all men that radiance of his which brightens the countenance of the
Church. This it will do by proclaiming the Gospel to every creature"
(Lumen Gentium, n. 1). The Conciliar document emphasizes the sacramental
character of the Church: she "in Christ, is a kind of sacrament or sign of
intimate union with God, and of the unity of all mankind". In speaking of
the People of God, the text returns to this concept: "God ... has
established ... the Church, that for each and all she may be the visible
sacrament of this saving unity" (ibid., n. 9).
Henri de Lubac figuratively expresses this sacramental reality of the
Church, observing that "If Christ is the sacrament of God, the Church is
for us the sacrament of Christ" (H. de Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the
Common Destiny of Man, trans. by Lancelot C. Sheppard and Sr Elizabeth
Englund, OCD, Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 1988, p. 76). The
sacramental emphasis is, undoubtedly, the theological viewpoint which best
allows us to understand not only the Christological but also the
ecclesiological mystery. Affirming that the Church is a sacrament of
Christ, in fact, means that her sole purpose is to make present and to
reveal the face of Christ to every man; to "reflect the light of Christ in
every historical period, to make his face shine also before the
generations of the new millennium" (Novo Millennio ineunte, n. 16); in
short, to be "the perennial epiphany" of the God-man, "a simultaneously
human and divine being, in which the human is the instrument and
manifestation of the divine" (J. A. Möhler, Symbolik, 36, 6, ed. Monaco,
1985, p. 333).
2. In what way does the Church make Christ present and reveal his face?
What should we respond to those who, like the Magi who came from the East
to Jerusalem to adore Jesus, ask today as well, "Where is he who has been
born king of the Jews?" (Mt 2,2).
The Church accomplishes her work of making him present when she exercises
her three-fold office of teaching, sanctifying and governing.
In the office of teaching, she makes present the face of Christ the
Teacher, since he is present in his Word read in the Church and by the
Church and interpreted by the Magisterium (cf. Dei verbum, n. 10,1-3;
Lumen Gentium, nn. 24-25; Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 7,1). The authority
of the Magisterium is exercised in the name of Jesus and is at the service
of the Word of God, never above it (cf. Dei verbum, n. 10,2). It is Christ
who speaks through the mouth of the Church.
In the office of sanctifying, the Church makes present and reveals the
face of Christ the Priest. It is enough to recall a text from the
Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium: "Christ is always present in his
Church, especially in her liturgical celebrations. He is present in the
sacrifice of the Mass, not only in the person of his minister, ... but
especially in the Eucharistic species. By his power he is present in the
sacraments, so that when a man baptizes it is really Christ himself who
baptizes" (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 7,1).
Finally, in the exercise of the office of governing, the Church makes
present the face of Christ the King (cf. Lumen gentium, nn. 21,1-2 and
27,1. See G. Philips, L'Église et son mystère au II Concile du Vatican, T.
I. ed. Desclée, Paris 1967, pp. 248-252 and 349-354. Regarding the
relativity and fallibility of concrete measures in the government of the
Church, cf. the reflections of Ch. Journet, Il carattere teandrico della
Chiesa, in G. Baraúna [dir.], "La Chiesa del Vaticano II", ed. Vallecchi,
Florence 1965, pp. 359-360). This is perhaps the place where the human
element emerges with greatest clarity; but seeking to diminish its
importance or relegate it to a secondary level would be nothing else than
a refusal of the lex incarnationis. For this reason, the Constitution
Lumen Gentium recalls that the Bishops govern the particular churches
entrusted to them "as the vicars of Christ" in his name (Lumen Gentium, n.
27,1).
In sum, the Church is called to reflect his Face, the face of Christ
Teacher, Prophet, Priest and King, in order that we can say of her in
relation to Christ what Christ said of himself in relation to the Father:
"He who has seen me, has seen the Father" (Jn 14,9). The basic mission of
the Church is to be the transparence of Christ and of his face. Human
beings have the inalienable right to be able to see the face of the Lord
in the face of the Church, in order that in her and through her they can
see and contemplate him.
We need to be accurate in what we mean. The Church, to whom the sublime
mission has been entrusted to make present and reveal the face of Christ
to the human person, is not only constituted by her structures, but also
by all the members of the People of God. With the Incarnation in a certain
sense Christ united himself to every human being (cf. Gaudium et spes, n.
22,2), but He is present, in a special way, in each of the faithful. Such
an intimate and profound presence can be explained in terms of
identification.
St Augustine expresses this with his usual concision: "Let us rejoice,
therefore, and give thanks to God: not only have we become Christians,
but we have become Christ Himself. Do you understand, brothers? Are you
aware of the grace which God has poured out upon us? Be glad and amazed:
we have become Christ! If Christ is the head and we the members, he and we
are the complete man" (St Augustine, In Iohannis evangelium tractatus, tr.
21, 8).
In effect, baptism confers upon the one who receives it a configuration
with Christ that here on earth is already real, though at the same time
imperfect as a goal that is to be reached. The Christian has the face of
Christ imprinted in his heart in an indelible fashion. He is not only
alter Christus, but ipse Christus, in the classic, well-known expression.
The ultimate end of every human person essentially consists in a full and
total identification with Christ, in being an ever more perfect reflection
of his face. In thus expressing ourselves, we repeat one of the
fundamental chapters of Pauline theology. Speaking of Christ's intimate
and vital relationship with those who are reborn in the baptismal waters,
St Paul is extremely clear and precise, affirming: "it is no longer I who
live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2,20), words which apply to every
baptized person (cf. II Cor 13,5; Col 3,4).
The Christian's identification with Christ should be expressed in everyday
life. He/she is called to make Christ present and to manifest his Face to
others with a personal witness. Paul VI's words are ever valid:
"Contemporary man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, or
if he listens to teachers, it is because they are witnesses" (Paul VI,
Discourse to members of the "Council for the Laity", General Audience, 2
October 1974; ORE, 10 October 1974, p. 1). John Paul II also affirms:
"Today people are slow to trust verbal affirmations and amphatic
declarations, but they want deeds; so they look at these witnesses with
interest, with attention and also with admiration. It could even be said
that in order to function properly, the much desired meditation between
the Church and the modern world needs witnesses who can infuse their own
lives with the perennial truth of the Gospel and at the same time make it
an instrument of salvation for their brothers and sisters" (John Paul II,
Discourse to a group of scholars, authors of the hagiographical series
"History of the Saints and of Christian Holiness"; ORE, 11 March 1992, p.
4).
3. The Face of Christ in the Saints and Witnesses of the Church
1. The face of Christ shines most intensely in the saints and witnesses of
the faith, since in the virtue of their docility to the Spirit, the
conformity with Jesus received in baptism appears most clearly in them:
they have become more ipse Christus in participating in his life and
mission.
But the face of Christ which is reflected in the Saints, and which they
have in turn revealed to the world, is that of the Lord who died and rose
again, of whom the Pope speaks in Novo Millennio ineunte: "As on Good
Friday and Holy Saturday, the Church pauses in contemplation of this
bleeding face, which conceals the life of God and offers salvation to the
world. But her contemplation of Christ's face cannot stop at the image of
the Crucified One. He is the Risen One.
Were this not so, our preaching would be in vain and our faith empty (cf.
I Cor 15,14).... It is the Risen Christ to whom the Church now looks....
Gazing on the face of Christ, the Bride contemplates her treasure and her
joy. "Dulcis Iesus memoria, dans vera cordis gaudia'" (ibid., n. 28).
This is what the saints have done. In the variety of their charisms and
the plurality of their vocations, they have had the humble boldness to fix
their gaze upon the face of the risen Christ, totally living their radical
evangelical way of life as a fascinating adventure of the Spirit. They
have reached the highest peaks of sanctity, contemplating him with love.
This is certainly the basic task of every Christian, who is called to be,
first and foremost, one who contemplates the face of Christ. John Paul II
emphasizes this forcefully in
his recent Apostolic Letter Rosarium
Virginis Mariae, signed in St Peter's Square, on 16 October 2002. In the
Letter, the Pope is extremely clear and precise: "To look upon the face
of Christ, to recognize its mystery amid the daily events and the
sufferings of his human life, and then to grasp the divine splendour
definitively revealed in the Risen Lord, seated in glory at the right hand
of the Father: this is the task of every disciple of Christ and therefore
the task of each of us" (RVM, n. 9). The Saints are those who understood
and lived intensely this mission as a true requirement of their Baptism.
They have been the outstanding contemplatives of the face of the Crucified
and Risen Lord.
By contemplating the face of Christ, moreover, they have "become open to
receiving the mystery of Trinitarian life, experiencing ever anew the love
of the Father and delighting in the joy of the Holy Spirit" (ibid.).
By acting in this way, the saints have realized Paul's words: "And we
all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being
changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this
comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (II Cor 3,18; cf. RVM, n. 9).
2. By contemplating the face of Christ, the saints and witnesses of the
faith imitate the Virgin Mary, who is the perfect exemplar of one who
contemplates the face of the Lord. The Pope strongly emphasizes this in
his Apostolic Letter on the Rosary: "In a unique way the face of the Son
belongs to Mary.... Mary's gaze, ever filled with adoration and wonder,
would never leave him. At times it would be a questioning look, as in the
episode of the finding in the Temple.... It would always be a penetrating
gaze, one capable of deeply understanding Jesus, even to the point of
perceiving his hidden feelings and anticipating his decisions, as at Cana
(cf. Jn 2,5). At other times it would be a look of sorrow, especially
beneath the Cross.... On the morning of Easter hers would be a gaze
radiant with the joy of the Resurrection, and finally, on the day of
Pentecost, a gaze afire with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts
1,14). Mary lived with her eyes fixed on Christ, treasuring his every
word: "She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart'" (Lk 2,19;
cf. 2,51).
With the help of grace, the saints and witnesses of the faith have tried
exactly to do this: to contemplate the clear and glorious face of Christ,
and to make it shine before the world of their time. They have done this
with their personal testimony, and often with the sacrifice of their
lives, which, for the Christian, is always the supreme testimony of faith
in the Risen Lord.
3. For this reason, as the Pope notes, the Saints have always been the
true makers of human history. "The real history of humanity is comprised
of the story of sanctity...: the saints and blesseds all appear as
"witnesses', that is as persons who, confessing Christ, his person and his
doctrine, have given concrete consistency and credible expression to one
of the essential elements of the Church, namely sanctity.
Without such continual witness, the moral and religious doctrine preached
by the Church would risk being confused with a purely human ideology. It
is instead a doctrine of life; that is, it is applicable to life: a
"livable' doctrine based upon the example given to us by Christ Himself,
who proclaims "I am the life' (Jn 14,6), and affirms that He has come to
give this life and to give it in abundance (cf. Jn 10,10)".
Sanctity is not a theoretical ideal, but understood in the fundamental
sense of communion with the One who is the incarnate holiness of the
Father, it "is a particularly urgent need in our time" (John Paul II,
Discourse, 15 Feb. 1992 op. cit.). Presenting sanctity to the faithful
today more than ever, is for the Pope an urgent need of the pastoral
action of the Church (cf. NMI, nn 30-31).
Yes. It is saints that the Church and world need. Saints who, after
"having seen" the face of Christ, considered in its historical traits and
in the ineffable mystery, have given "witness" to it (cf. Jn 19,35). The
need is of saints who live with absolute consonance a bold evangelical
style of life and Christian virtues.
"We wear ourselves out", Archbishop Chiaretti of Perugia observes, "We
wear ourselves out following the people to speak to them about Jesus
Christ. On the contrary we should become saints ourselves, and then it
will be the people who will seek us. We have seen this many times, for
example, with Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Pope
John XXIII.... How many people were attracted to them. They loved them,
followed them, and not out of a morbid curiosity ... but rather because
they saw in these individuals the signs of the presence and the love of
Jesus through their prayer, meekness, generosity, help for the needy, and
love of the Church" (Archbishop G. Chiaretti, Archbishop of Perugia,
Pastoral Letter for Lent 2001).
As the philosopher Jacques Maritain observed, Christian holiness is the
fitting way to demonstrate the existence of a loving and merciful God to
unbelievers, it is the only Gospel which contemporary man still reads,
listens to, and understands.
"It is with holiness of life", writes Archbishop Chiaretti, "that the
Christian becomes "interesting'; even for a distracted public opinion.
Interesting not because he works "miracles' ... but because he has the
courage to go against the tide, he is not ashamed of his faith, rather he
speaks of it with joy and enthusiasm, he shows consistency in all of his
choices, he knows the personal price of the social marginalization to
which he may be condemned, forgiving and loving those who place him upon
the cross" (cf. ibid.).
John Paul II says in Novo Millennio ineunte that, strengthened by the
experience of the face of the risen Lord, the Church continues on its path
today with renewed hope, proclaiming Christ to the world at the beginning
of the third millennium. This has been the constant path followed by the
saints and witnesses of the faith. This is the path that we are called to
travel, to live fully the Paschal Mystery of the risen Lord and to make
his resplendent face known to the men of our time.
Christian holiness essentially consists in this: in being a reflection of
the holiness of God which shines on the face of Christ. This is our duty,
as Cardinal Newman emphasized in one of his meditations: "Stay with me,
and then I shall begin to shine as you shine: so to shine as to be a
light to others. The light, O Jesus, will be all from you. None of it will
be mine. No merit to me. It will be you who shines through me upon
others.... Make me preach you without preaching - not by words, but by my
example and by the catching force, the sympathetic influence, of what I do
- by my visible resemblance to your saints, and the evident fullness of the
love which my heart bears to you" (Prayers, Verses and Devotion, John
Henry Newman, Ignatius press, San Francisco, p. 389).
Cardinal José Saraiva Martins
Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints
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