The feast is a good reminder to all of us, Christian
believers, that we have a duty to present Christ to everyone as he
truly is to us—the pattern of our humanity and the savior of our
humanity that has been damaged by sin.
While this duty is incumbent on every Christian believer,
it is more so to clerics and other consecrated and religious persons.
The priest, for example, is sacramentally conformed to Christ as head
of the Church. It is his concern that the sacramental Christ in him be
transformed into the living Christ—obviously with the constant help of
God’s grace. Otherwise, he will be an empty suit.
He has to assume the very mind and heart of Christ, the
sentiments, mission and concerns of Christ. As the sacramental image
of Christ as head of the Church, a priest has to act like a mediator,
a bridge that connects two ends—God and men. He therefore has to be
intimately identified with both God and men, which is a never-ending
task that requires grace and everything that a priest can do.
Like Christ, he has to have the mind of God and assume the
conditions of men, since this is the very heart of Christ. This, of
course, can be hard and very demanding, but it is not impossible. With
training and determined effort, this can be done. On God’s part, his
grace is never lacking. In fact, it is poured out abundantly.
We who believe in Christ should feel the need to make
Christ alive everywhere. And given the new normal we are having these
days, we have to learn how to present him by making use of the new
technologies we are having these days.
We should feel the same urgency that St. Paul felt when he
said, “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel. (1 Cor 9,16) It’s a
cry that also has to spring in each one of us, who now participates in
the abiding duty of preaching and teaching the word of God according
to our personal circumstances.
This is the challenge we have today. How do we craft a new
approach, style or strategy for the continuing need of evangelization
these days? How do we keep them adapted to the new sensibilities of
the men and women of today? How do we make Christ alive in the new
technologies?
For sure, the Holy Spirit continues to animate the Church
and inspire certain people, giving them the relevant charism, so that
the Church’s vital activity of evangelization continues. But all of us
have to do our part.
First, we need to sharpen and intensify our awareness of
our duty to evangelize. This task involves all of us. We cannot keep
on living only for our own interests. We have to be men for others.
And that can happen when we go all the way to doing the task of
evangelization, among many others.
The problem with how to make Christ alive among ourselves
today centers on how to make our preachers and evangelizers—from the
clergy down to the religious and committed lay faithful—credible!
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