In 1971, Frank Sheed published a book entitled What Difference Does Jesus Make? In chapter one, “The Dimming of Christ,” he writes, “Christ is in eclipse for many Christians in many Churches.” He then goes on to say, “I was talking to several hundred first- and second-year boys and girls from the Catholic high schools of a town whose name is irrelevant. I put a question: ‘Apart from obeying the law of the Church, is there any point in going to Mass?’”
He describes the ensuing discussion, which was quite open and friendly. He says of the students that they “had all lived through eight years in the parochial schools and a year or so in high school.” However, even with all that instruction, “not one of them could think of anything gained by going to Mass, or anything lost by staying away.” Even those who appreciated the Mass saw no point to it.
What struck Sheed was that, “nobody mentioned Christ till I did.” Even when he introduced the subject of Christ and explained that “In heaven Christ offers himself – once slain, now forever living – to God the Father that men individually may receive the Redemption he won for our race,” there was no enthusiasm. “Those with a devotion to the Mass were glad, it made the Mass so much more than a ‘commemorative meal’…But most, I think were unmoved, and for a reason of horrifying simplicity: Christ Our Lord is no longer sufficiently real to them. He is a name, a word, an echo from long past. Redemption is hardly even a word, just ten letters. They do not deny Christ, but he is not alive to them.”[1]
Before someone exclaims, “Well, what do you expect from Vatican II?” I want to quote a passage from a book published 10 years earlier, in the year that Vatican II began, so before the Council had any effects on the Church. In 1962, Fr. William McNamara published “The Art of Being Human.” In it he wrote:
To date, the biggest hole in our educational system is the failure to convey to young students a meaningful, vital awareness of Christ. This conclusion is the result of years of experience, during which Catholic high school and college students and adults in all parts of the country were examined as to their impressions and knowledge of Christ and as to the part He played in their lives. The general response was not good.
Their ideas were vague, general, unreal, sentimental, impersonal, academic. To many Christ was a myth, to others merely a historical figure; to others divine all right, but quite remote and not an influence in their everyday life. But a religion without Christ is a corpse; an education that does not convey ideas of Christ that are vital, real, precise, and compelling is a farce. If people are ready to worship a hero and follow a leader, then it is a mistake to obscure the person of Christ behind a welter of abstractions. If they are going to be raised to a higher stature, it will not be by moral coercion or intellectual persuasion, not even by the high ideal of becoming perfect, a saint.
Such an ideal is too abstract; and most people need something concrete, dynamic, highly personal to shape their thinking and influence their behavior. They need the infinitely attractive personality of Christ…
It is impossible to look into the face of Christ without being drawn into the action of Christ. That is what Francois Mauriac meant when he said: “Once you get to know Christ, you cannot be cured of Him.’…
All must be taught, therefore, to believe not only in a creed but through a creed in a person. Faith must come to mean to them what it meant to St. Bonaventure: ‘a habit of the mind whereby we are drawn and captivated into the following of Christ.’ Religion will thus cease to be a moral code, a list of forbidding commandments, a dull, drab affair. It will take on the thrill and excitement of a love affair between God and man. It will mean, above all, a friendship with Christ.”[2]
I grew up during the “years of experience” of which Fr. McNamara wrote. I remember that in Catholic schools we were encouraged to develop of devotion to the Sacred Heart, but it was made clear that to see Jesus as “our personal savior” was Protestant. I remember thinking in 1962 that “Protestants have Jesus and Catholics have the Church.” This separation between Christ and the Church shows how much I misunderstood both Jesus and His Church, a mistake that I was probably not the only one to make. In fact, in one of the major Council documents, “Lumen Gentium,” the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, the Council Fathers begin by making it clear that “the Church is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race.”[3] Or as Joan of Arc stated to her judges, “About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing, and we shouldn’t complicate the matter.”[4]
Yet we are not baptized into the Church. We are baptized by the Church into Christ. We are a member of the Church because we are a member of Christ. We are used to hearing that “a priest is another Christ.” This is the union of ministry, but the union of grace goes much further. This identification of the Christian with Christ images the identification of the Son with the Father. St. Paul could say that “anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him”[5] just as husband and wife become “one flesh.”
John of the Cross says of this union between the believer and Christ: “When there is union of love, the image of the Beloved is so sketched in the will, and drawn so intimately and vividly, that it is true to say that the Beloved lives in the lover and the lover in the Beloved. Love produces such likeness in this transformation of lovers that one can say each is the other and both are one. The reason is that in the union and transformation of love each gives possession of self to the other and each leaves and exchanges self for the other. Thus each one lives in the other and is the other, and both are one in the transformation of love.”[6]
St. John, in his first epistle, says that “God is love.”[7] If “everyone loves a lover,” it seems even more irresistible to love Love Himself. But do we? Do we believe that God is love? John (with those who quote him) is the only person in all world literature to make this claim. Have we found something greater to love? It doesn’t seem so. Do we mistrust this claim that Love Himself has become one with us?
In 1962, I and my schoolmates were being prepared for confirmation. I remember that our teacher, an excellent religious, taught us that by Baptism we share in the nature and life of the Trinity. I remember thinking, “Does she realize what she is saying???!!! That we share in the life of the Trinity! That is absolutely mind-blowing!!! If she realizes what she is saying, how can she say it so matter-of-factly, as if it is just something that we have to believe??!!” Then I made the mistake of thinking, “Well, she is the teacher and she should know. So I guess it is just something that you have to believe. That’s all.” With that decision, to accept as the norm the lack of enthusiasm with which the faith was taught, religion became for me just a lot of things that you have to do and a lot of things that you have to believe. It would take me more than 10 years before religion became more than a leaden cape wearing me down.
But unwittingly, I had put my finger on the problem when I asked: does she realize what she is saying? We can believe, but do we realize what it is that we believe? That is the point that Frank Sheed makes at the end of his book: the difference between belief and realization. ““How is it possible for a man, reborn into Christ, who has all the powers sanctifying grace gives, to act as if he hadn’t?…This is not one of the questions people ask us, because they haven’t a notion of rebirth or of what sanctifying grace means to us; it is one we ask ourselves desperately…It may puzzle us, but it is quite undeniable that, illuminated by such truths, nourished by such sacraments, we are so horribly like everybody else…If we are serious, we have to try to find out why. One way or another, the answer lies in the distinction between knowing and realizing…The acid test of belief is the willingness to die for it. The acid test of realization is ability to live by it.”[8]
The early Christians not only believed but they realized what they believed. St. Peter wrote to those who first believed in Jesus, “Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”[9]
It is said that the students of St. Thomas Aquinas found his lectures on theology so enthralling that they threw their hats up in the air in their enthusiasm! They knew the indescribable and glorious joy of the first believers!
To such believers, Jesus definitely matters, for they realize who it is “in whom they believe.”[10] The Bishops of the United States have proclaimed the National Eucharistic Revival. May we realize Who it is Who abides in the tabernacles and monstrances that we reverence during this time of devotional renewal. May we too rejoice with indescribable and glorious joy in Him who “delights in the human race.”[11]
Notes
[1] What Difference does Jesus Make?, Frank Sheed, Sheed & Ward, New York, 1971, pp. 3-5
[2] The Art of Being Human, by Fr. William McNamara, O.C.D., The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1962, pp. 27-28
[3] LG 1
[4] Acts of the Trial of Joan of Arc
[5] 1 Cor. 6, 17
[6] Spir. Cant. 12, 7
[7] 1 Jn 4, 8 & 13
[8] What Difference does Jesus Make?, pp. 234-6
[9] 1 Pet. 1, 8-9
[10] 2 Tim. 1, 12
[11] Pro. 8, 31
Image: Catholic parish church of St. Matthäus in Alfter, relief at the high altar: Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. By Prof. emeritus Hans Schneider (Geyersberg) – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71048103
Sr. Gabriela of the Incarnation, O.C.D. (Sr. Gabriela Hicks) was born in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, in the Gold Rush country of California, which she remembers as heaven on earth for a child! She lived a number of years in Europe, and then entered the Discalced Carmelite Monastery in Flemington, New Jersey, where she has been a member for forty years. www.flemingtoncarmel.org.
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