TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?
Whoever comes to Jesus, frequently has the impression of meeting up with someone strangely current and more present to our problems of today than many of our contemporaries.
There are gestures and words from Jesus that still impact us today because they touch the nerve of our most vital problems and concerns. They are gestures and words that resist the passing of time and change of ideologies. The intervening centuries haven’t lessened the power and life contained therein, at least if we’re attentive and open our hearts sincerely.
However throughout these 20 centuries there’s a lot of dust that has inevitably accumulated about his person, his actions and his message. A Christianity full of good intentions and venerable fervor has sometimes hindered many simple Christians from encountering in a fresh way that’s full of life the one who forgave prostitutes, embraced children, cried with friends, spread hope and invited people to live freely the love of God’s children.
How many men and women have had to listen to the digressions of well-intentioned moralists and the expositions of illustrious preachers without succeeding in meeting up with him.
It shouldn’t surprise us to hear the question of the French writer Jean Onimos: «Why are you going to be the private property of preachers, doctors and miscellaneous learned people, you who have said things that are so simple, so direct, words that keep being words of life for all people?».
If many Christians who have gone drifting away from the Church over the years had known directly the Gospels, they would have felt once again what was expressed one day by Peter: «Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life. We believe».
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
