WHAT DOES JESUS HAVE TO CONTRIBUTE TO US?
«Who do you say that I am?» I don’t exactly know how today’s Christians will answer this question from Jesus, but maybe we can guess a little what it could be for us at this time if we achieve encountering him more deeply and truly.
Jesus can help us above all to know ourselves better. His Gospel makes us think about and obliges us to ask the most important and decisive questions of our life. His way of feeling and of living out existence, his way of reacting in the face of human suffering, his unshakeable trust in a God who is friend of life: all this is the best that he has given human history.
Jesus can teach us about this whole new style of life. Whoever comes close to him doesn’t feel self so much attracted by a new doctrine, as invited to live differently, more rooted in the truth and with a horizon that has more dignity and more hope.
Jesus can also free us from unhealthy ways of living our religion: blind fanaticisms, legalistic detours, selfish fears. He can above all introduce into our lives something as important as the joy of living, a compassionate gaze toward people, the creativity of someone who goes about loving.
Jesus can redeem us from sick images of God that we drag along without measuring the damaging effects that they have on us. He can teach us to live God as a close and friendly presence, an unending source of life and tenderness. If we allow ourselves to be led by him, he will take us to encounter a different God, one that is greater and more human than all our theories.
That’s the case. In order to encounter Jesus on a more authentic level we need to dare to leave behind our apathy and paralysis, recover inner freedom and be ready to «be born again», leaving behind the routine and dreary observance of a conventional religion.
I know that Jesus can be the healer and liberator of many people who live trapped by indifference, distracted by modern life, paralyzed by an empty religion or seduced by material wellbeing, but without a way to go forward, without truth and without life.
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
