Conversing with the world

“They are in the world…(but) they are not of the world, as I am not of the world.” (Jn 17)

Words of our Lord, with a slight rephrasing, to highlight our relation with the world. We are in it, but we are not of it. We are in the world but we are not supposed to be worldly, since we are not of the world.

This may sound like petty quibbling but it’s actually a crucial fine distinction we have to make. On it depend not only our temporal and earthly destiny but also our eternal one.

We have to remember that the way to our supernatural end passes through our natural world. How we conduct ourselves in our earthly affairs becomes the ticket either for eternal glory or eternal damnation.

Our human perfection, our redemption and salvation, while having its definitive state in heaven, is forged through the things of this world. The supernatural grace, which perfects us and brings us to God, never annuls our human and natural condition. Rather, it always works on it, purifying it and elevating it to the order of God.

In this regard, we have to know how to deal with the things of the world. This is done through a continuing conversation with the world in all its aspects. But in this, we have to strictly follow the example of Christ.

As the Son of God who became man, Christ is the image of God who assumed everything human, except sin. We can derive from that truth that Christ engaged the world in its totality while never forgetting the supernatural mission that he had.

His whole earthly life, his words and deeds, and especially that culminating act of his passion, death and resurrection, indicate his complete immersion of our human and earthly condition and yet transcending it to show us the way to our supernatural end.

This kind of situation involves a combination of active and passive involvement, patience and intolerance, leniency and strictness, openness and firmness, and other sets of apparent contrasting qualities that are unified if one closely follows Christ.

We have to know when to speak and when to keep quiet, when to act and when to wait, when to move and when to stay put.

Since Christ is “the way, the truth and the life” to us, we have to realize that we need to follow or imitate him in his attitude and understanding of the meaning and purpose of our life here on earth.

In our relation with the world, we need to learn how to infuse the Christian spirit in it, never allowing ourselves as much as possible to be dominated by the worldly spirit of materialism, secularism, relativism, and many other isms.

For this the Church has articulated the social doctrine to guide us—clergy, religious and laity—on how to deal with the world in ways proper to each one. Everyone of us, according to his own state and possibilities, should do all he can to engage the world in all its affairs in a Christian way.

Here are some relevant words about the Church’s social doctrine taken from the presentation page of the Church’s Compendium of Social Doctrine:

“To the people of our time, the Church offers her social doctrine. In fact, when the Church fulfills her mission of proclaiming the Gospel, she bears witness to man, in the name of Christ, to his dignity and his vocation to the communion of person. She teaches him the demands of justice and peace in conformity with divine wisdom.”

This prophetic mission of the Church has to be done in a more consistent way especially these when we are faced with all sorts of issues, controversies and challenges in the areas of business, politics, environment, culture, etc.

The disturbing impression is that in our temporal affairs, it seems the Church is silent or is mainly upstaged, sidelined and displaced by purely worldly ideologies and merely human reactions.

There seems a disconnect between the proclaimed Gospel and our concerns, both the small, daily and immediate kind as well as the big and long-running ones.

When Church leaders try to make some interventions, they are often seen as outsiders or clueless due to a host of factors like incompetence, lecturing style, etc.

Of course, it has to be understood that much of the Church’s continuing conversation with the world is done by the laity who have to be aware of their responsibility to the world and have to be properly trained and motivated for this mission.