Our faith, the work of our Church, are one thing: Christ!
The majority of people who have gone through the “done the sacraments scene” may not know that their life is meant to be energized and motivated by the very person of Christ. The person of the Son of God is alive and working through us.
The founding event of the Church, the Pentecost, is the outpouring of the very spirit of Jesus Christ to us, that we may become the living hands and the living face of Jesus.
Be patient with anyone within the Church who thinks that just being good is equivalent to being a Christian person. There is a lot more than just being a decent human being.
As a faith community we are trying to be re-centered in the mystery of Christ. God has become human in Jesus Christ. He was a working man with callouses on his hands, dirt between his finger nails and suffering under the hot sun. There are many people today who have not come to grips with the humanity of God in the skin of Jesus Christ.
Now, his life was salvific. His suffering and death on the cross were a sacrifice of service and love for the redemption of humanity. All are now brought before God in the great love and outpouring of the cross.
The other side of this mystery of redemption was the resurrection which is the outpouring of the life and person of Jesus Christ to the believers. The actual person of the Son, the second person of the Trinity, is poured out into the people of the Church. Now, the believers are meant to live and incarnate Jesus Christ.
Do not be surprised if your sister who identifies herself as a staunch Catholic does not know this. You may register her look of surprise when you spell out the truth about Jesus Christ.
This Sunday (5th Sunday of Easter) we are given the life-giving image of the vine and the branches. This Gospel selection is all about you. This teaching of Jesus indicates what you are to be in this world. “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.” (n. 15,4)
Teresa of Avila, one of the great mystics of our Christian faith gives us words to understand the mystery of Christ.
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
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