Another Christ, Christ himself

THAT’S what we are all meant to be. We have to be “alter Christus,” if not “ipse Christus,” another Christ, if not Christ himself. This may sound fantastic and delusional, but that is the naked truth about ourselves. We may not be aware of it, or worse, may not like it, but that’s how God, our Creator and Father, has designed us.

That’s why, at one point, Christ, the son of God who became man to offer us the way, the truth and the life, told his apostles, the epitome of how Christ’s believers and disciples should be: “He who hears you, hears me, and he who despises you, despises me, and he who despises me, despises him who sent me.” (Lk 10,16)

Christ went further. He told his apostles: “Whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do...If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.” (Jn 14,12-14)

We need to deeply meditate on these words, words of faith, the ultimate source of truth about God and about ourselves, so that they become the animating principle of our life, our thoughts, words, and deeds.

They certainly are mysterious words, impenetrable by our human intelligence alone. More than to be understood, they need to be believed. Thus, more than wracking our brains to figure out the whys and wherefores of these words, we need to make an act of faith.

We need to believe in God and trust in his words, articulated by Christ and re-echoed with living effectiveness all throughout time in the Church. We need to be like Peter who, when he asked that he goes to Christ walking on the water, believed and started to walk also on the water, until he wavered in his faith and then started to sink.

It’s all a matter of faith which is not a matter of going against our reason and senses, but rather of going beyond them, avoiding being trapped and entangled in them. That’s our problem. We tend to confine ourselves to what our senses can discern and our reason can understand.

This simply cannot be, since we all know that the reality that we have to contend with and in which we are living every moment is filled with mysteries. Even the most obvious things around us, if we look at them more closely, are actually shrouded in mysteries.

This, of course, is not a call to go into superstitions, going on a rampage by indiscriminately exercising acts of faith not based on an objective and living reality. Rather, this is to listen to the God incarnate who is Christ and who is extended all throughout time in the Church established and duly empowered by Christ himself, in spite of the warts and all of the human elements involved in the Church.

That’s why, the Church always pounds on the need for us to strengthen and nourish our faith in Christ, to such a point that we become “alter Christus,” if not “ipse Christus.” She offers the doctrine of our faith, the sacraments and the liturgy, and the hierarchy.

We need to have the humility to let go of the undue grip that our senses and reason can have over us. Yes, we always need them. We cannot be without them. But we simply cannot be restricted by them. By allowing ourselves to be entirely dominated by them narrows and even distorts our appreciation of things.

The problem of those who are into agnosticism and atheism is that they make their senses and reason the primary and ultimate arbiter of what is true or false, what is real or fake, what is good or evil, moral or immoral. They cannot seem to detach themselves from that stranglehold.

We need to be humble to be simple and obedient, and thus put ourselves in condition to be united with God. It’s pride that leads us to complications and disobedience, and separates us from God and isolates us from others. It’s pride that leads us to live in a fantasy.

Again, like Peter, we should just obey what Christ, and now the Church, would tell us, so that even if things appear impossible, we can expect to have a bountiful catch of fish and the multiplication of the loaves of bread and fish.

This is how we can become “alter Christus,” if not “ipse Christus.”