Our Christian identity

THE topic emerged in a recent get-together the Pope had with some priests of Rome . Someone, commenting on what the Pope said in another occasion about our Christian identity, asked:

“How can one propose to young people that the Christian ‘I’, once it puts on Christ, is no longer ‘I’ because there is the communal subject who is Christ?

“How does one propose, Your Holiness, this conversion, this new modality, this Christian originality of being a communion that effectively proposes the newness of the Christian experience?”

I thought the question is most relevant to us these days given our bishops’ call that we subordinate our personal good to the common good, and also their call for some communal action, given the current political controversy.

The Pope replied by saying that the question has to be asked everyday by everyone who realizes he is responsible for others. Then he went into some theologico-historical discussion of the point, very characteristic of him.

For us now we can ask the same question and see how we can effect this transformation of the ‘I’ into a Christian ‘I’ that has a strong communal character because we are supposed to have put on Christ already.

We cannot deny that this is one of our main problems. We seem to be Christians by name or by appearance only. We tend to be individualistic. We are not very consistent with our true Christian identity.

Obviously, this coherence in our Christian identity is a daily effort. It involves the interplay of God’s grace and our personal correspondence. It just cannot be frozen into some social, cultural or legal form. It has to be worked out and lived at every moment.

Much less is this Christian identity built up by transitory emotions and passions that happen to grip us because of some socio-political controversies. We as Christians have to know and behave better than that.

Our Christian identity, of course, is hitched on Christ’s identity and mission. Our ‘I’ should be in accordance with what St. Paul once said: “I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me.” (Gal 2,20)

We have to arrive at that point when we can say in all sincerity that we each are “another Christ, if not Christ himself” (alter Christus, ipse Christus)

Our thoughts, desires and feelings should be such that we become aware these are not only ours, but also Christ’s. And since they are Christ’s, then they should be lived with everyone else in mind. Love for God automatically entails love for others.

This is an ambitious goal, but not impossible. It’s both hard and easy.

In the first place, this is what Christ wants. Besides, we are given the means, and we have the capability. We are assured of God’s grace, we have Christ’s saving doctrine and the sacraments. And we have the freedom to assimilate and use them.

But we have to see to it that we are existentially connected with Christ. Our problem often is that this vital linkage is missing, and we just go on some automatic mode that show certain Christian forms absent the substantiating Christian spirit.

If that Christian spirit is truly present, any pursuit for truth will always be infused by charity, done in the spirit of meekness and humility, never confrontational, willing to suffer and even to die rather than create an agitated communal mess.

Everyone is looking for the truth, but if we are truly Christian, we also have a Christian way for doing that. This way was taught and lived by Christ himself, and is now taught and elaborated, attuned to our times, by the Church magisterium.

It’s mortifying to hear some of our Church leaders cackling in strident dissonance just because of a political issue. What kind of redemption are they working for?

The whole affair makes one wonder whether they have common sense or basic prudence, or are we already entering the end days when false prophets claiming to be Christ start appearing?

We have to start looking into the kind of formation and background of our leaders. Hopefully we won’t have a Pandora’s Box. Whatever, all of us have to help one another and do something about this bungle.