The presence of Christ in the world (which has been
forgotten because Christians had lost the experience of it) is unknown.
Consciousness comes from experience. If the experience is lost, the consciousness
and the conceptual doctrine disappear. Hence, when Escriva arrived in Rome to have this charism
approved, he was told that he had come 100 years too soon. Benedict XVI and
Escriva are speaking the same language. Consider:
The Joy of the Apostles: Why? Jesus Christ disappears
after having given them a mission that could not possibly perform.
“Then he
led them out as far as Bethany ,
and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from
them, and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
and were continually in the temple blessing God”[1]
Benedict XVI: “This conclusion surprises us. Luke
says that the disciples were full of joy at the Lord’s definitive departure. We
would have expected the opposite. We would have expected them to be left
perplexed and sad. The world was unchanged, and Jesus had gone definitively.
They had received a commission that seemed impossible to carry out and lay well
beyond their powers How were they to present themselves to the people in
Jerusalem, in Israel, in the whole world, saying: ‘This Jesus, who seemed to
have failed, is actually the redeemer of us all’?”[2]
Explanation: “The disciples do not feel abandoned.
They do not consider Jesus to have disappeared far away into an inaccessible
heaven. They are obviously convinced of a new presence of Jesus. They are
certain (as the risen Lord said in Saint Matthew’s account) that he is now
present to them in a new and powerful way.”[3]
The Cloud: This is theological language. The cloud is
sign of entrance into the mystery of God. The cloud at the Transfiguration, the
overshadowing of Our Lady with the power of the Most High at the Annunciation,
the tent in the Old Covenant, the cloud leading the people out of Egypt and
through the desert. The cloud “presents Jesus’ departure, not as a journey to
the stars, but as his entry into the mystery of God. It evokes an entirely
different order of magnitude, a different dimension of being…. It does not
refer to some distant cosmic space, where God has, as it were, set up his
throne and given Jesus a place beside the throne. God is not in one space
alongside other spaces. God is god – he is the premise and the ground of all
the space there is, but he himself is not part of it. God stands in relation to
all spaces as Lord and Creator. His presence is not spatial, but divine.
‘Sitting at God’s right hand’ means participating in this divine dominion over
space.”[4]
The entire point that Benedict wants to make is that the Eschaton
is not only to take place at the end of the world, but is already here, alive,
working and powerful. He refers to Christ being off in the mountain after the
multiplication of the loaves and fish and the apostles struggling on the lake
in the storm. Christ seems to be far away, but He is not. “Because he is with
the Father, he sees them. And because he sees them he comes to them across the
water; he gets into the boat with them and makes it possible for them to
continue to their destination. This is an image for the time of the Church –
intended also for us.”[5]
Bernard of Clairvaux: The Lord comes three times: the
first is birth. The second is at the end of the world. The third comes between
the other two. “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will
love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (Jn. 14, 23). The
interim time is not empty.
Opus Dei: Escriva hears the following internal
locutions. The vocation to Opus Dei consists in becoming Christ Himself in the
middle of the world. That is the “interim” between creation and the end of the
world is the call to the transformation into Christ by everyone in the world:
August 7, 1931: Locution: “Et si exaltatus fuero a terra, omnia traham ad meipsum” (Ioann.
12, 32). “A voice, as always, perfect, clear… And the precise concept: it is not
in the sense in which Scripture says it; I say it to you in the sense that you
put me at the summit of all human activities, so that in all the places of the
world, there may be Christians with a personal and most free dedication, that
they be other Christs.”
October
16, 1931: Locution: “You are my
son, you are Christ.” And I only knew how to repeat: Abba, Pater!, Abba, Pater!
Abba!, Abba!, Abba!”
Escriva’s “The Way” (584) “Stir up
the fire of your faith. –Christ is not a figure who has passed. He is not a
memory that is lost in history.
He
lives!: Jesus Christus heri et hodie:
ipsae et in saecula! says Saint
Paul
No comments:
Post a Comment