Infinite Value Of Christ's Passion And Death
by Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M.Cap.
The chronicles of the time describe with a great wealth of detail the moment when, under the stern gaze of Pope Sistus V, the obelisk was being raised up in St Peter's Square. Every year on this day, we Christians relive the moment when the true obelisk was planted at the centre of the Church, the Barque of Peter, the mainmast that is the centre of everything: the cross.
Let us meditate on Christ's word about his cross. "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself" (Jn 12,32). It is a key for interpreting the mystery that Jesus gave us before the event, or, equally valid for us, his Spirit who inspired John the Evangelist in writing it.
Hardly was that sentence spoken that an objection arises. Twenty centuries have passed since that day, and it does not seem, Lord, that you have drawn all men to yourself. How much of humanity still does not know you! Hence the prayer tinged with disappointment that one sometimes hears on the lips of the faithful: "Right now, Lord, we do not see you drawing all men to yourself; and so we pray you to hasten the day when you will truly draw everyone to yourself".
Are we sure that we have really understood? Jesus' desire was not a pious wish still waiting to be fulfilled. It has always been fulfilled, from the moment that he was raised up from the earth. Who can understand the infinite ways in which the crucified Christ draws everyone to himself?
One way is human suffering. "He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows" (Is 53,4). After Christ took it upon himself and redeemed it, suffering is, in its own way, a universal sacrament of salvation. It is universal because it does not know any distinction between the First and the Third Worlds, between the northern and the southern hemispheres; it is found in every latitude.
He who lowered himself into the waters of the Jordan, sanctifying them for all the baptized, also plunged into the waters of trial and death, making them a potential instrument of salvation. The First Letter of Peter 4,1: "Whoever has suffered in the flesh has definitively broken with sin". "To suffer", the Holy Father wrote in the Apostolic Letter Salvifici doloris, "means to become particularly susceptible, particularly open to the working of the salvific powers of God, offered to humanity in Christ.... In this redemptive suffering ... Christ opened himself from the beginning to every human suffering and constantly does so" (Apostolic Letter Salvifici doloris, n. 23-24). Mysteriously, all suffering — not only that of believers — completes "what is lacking in Christ's sufferings" for the sake of his body (Col 1,24).
Another way that Christ draws all people to himself is by drawing close to others. To those who are hungry, thirsty, sick, imprisoned, strangers, persecuted for the sake of justice, defenceless ... "You did it to me" (Mt 25,40). This way is not restricted either to believers alone.
The Council says that "the Holy Spirit offers the possibility of being made partners to all mankind, in a way known to God, in the Paschal Mystery" (Gaudium et spes, n. 22). Only God knows how this happens; but we know that it happens, if we know how to interpret Christ's words.
Now we come to the most relevant question: Can we admit that there is still another way in which Christ draws everyone to himself, namely, by using what is true and valid in the other religions? The Council and the Magisterium have not ruled out this possibility, which is now being actively explored by theology.
Indeed, those who live in direct contact with the great non-Christian religions testify to the good that millions of people can receive from them and to the profound spiritual life and prayer that they nourish among the people.
The delicate point is to know whether this recognition obliges us to detach the other religions from the Incarnate Christ and from his Paschal Mystery. Some people think we should, and place the elements of truth and goodness they contain in relation with the eternal Word and the Spirit of God. They say that as the persons of the Holy Trinity were active in the world before Christ came, these elements too were active in the world before the coming of Christ and continue to be active even after his Resurrection. They are not dependent on the mystery of Christ, but are parallel to it, in a relationship of complementarity, not one of subordination.
However, we have to ask the question. In order to recognize in other religions their dignity in the divine plan of salvation, is it necessary to detach them from the Paschal Mystery of Christ; or, instead, can we really obtain the same result by keeping them associated with it?
"A specific event", it is pointed out, "limited in time and space, such as Christ, cannot exhaust the infinite potentiality of God and of his Word". True, but it can draw what it takes for the salvation of a world that is finite too from this potentiality! If we believe that the blood poured out on the cross is the blood of a God-made-man, we do not find it an exaggeration to affirm that "just one drop of this blood can save the entire world", cuius una stilla salvum facere totum mundum quit ab omni scelere (From the hymn Adoro te devote).
Let us ponder deeply, I say this to my brother theologians, before we make a move of such incalculable importance. The philosopher who in the last century exclaimed: "God is dead. We have killed him!", when he realized the consequences of this event, wrote right away, "What were we doing when we cut this earth off from its sun? In what direction do we move now? Far away from all sun? Are we not rushing downward? And backwards, sideways, forwards, on every side?" (F. Nietzsche, Joyful Wisdom, [La gaia scienza, n. 125]). Let us avoid repeating the same error of cutting off a major part of humanity from its sun, which is Christ.
During the Jansenist controversy, the fashion was to make crucifixes keeping the arms almost parallel to the body, with a narrow space between the arms and the body. This was done to assert that Christ did not die for all, but only for the small number of the chosen and predestined. A terrible persuasion which with great toil the Church rejected. Let us not return to crucifixes with narrow arms. Let us keep the arms wide open to embrace the whole world. Let us safeguard the cosmic dimension of the event of Calvary. What was celebrated on Golgotha on the first Good Friday, which we celebrate every year on this day, is indeed a "Hymn of the Universe".
One thing is certain and this must be the starting point for every Christian theology of religions: Christ gave his life for love of all humanity, because all are creatures of his Father, all are his brothers and sisters. Christ made no distinctions. His offer of salvation, at least that, is certainly universal.
In removing such a great part of humanity from him, the greatest wrong is done to that portion of humanity, not so much to Christ nor to the Church. It is not possible to start by affirming: "Christ is the supreme, definitive and normative offer of salvation which God made to the world", without recognizing at the same time — as Christians — a requirement and a right of all to belong in some way to this way and to benefit from this salvation.
"Is it realistic", you might ask, "to continue believing in a mysterious presence and influence of Christ in religions that existed long before him and feel no need at all, after 20 centuries, to receive his Gospel?". There is in the Bible a thought that can help us respond to this objection: the humility of God, the hiddenness of God. "Truly, you are a hidden God, O God of Israel, the Saviour" (Is 45,15, Vulgate).
God is humble in creating. He does not put his label on everything as men and women do. It is not written on creatures that they have been made by God. It is left to them to find it out. In a poem by Hölderlin, there is an important truth: "God creates the world as the ocean creates the continents: by withdrawing". How long did it take for man to recognize to whom he owed his being, to recognize who had created the heavens and the earth for him? How long will it be before everyone succeeds in recognizing him? For this reason does God cease to be Creator of all things? Does he stop warming with his sun those who know him and those who do not know him?
The same happens with the Redemption. God is humble in creating and in saving. Christ is far more concerned that all people be saved than whether or not they know who is their Saviour. Latens deitas, a hidden godhead (from the hymn, Adoro te devote), who is also Christ in the Eucharist. The greatest wonder, at the moment of passing from faith to vision, will not be to discover the omnipotence of God, but his humility.
On this day of God's greatest concealment of himself on the Cross, "let us hold fast to our confession", as the Second Reading exhorts us (Heb 4,14). Let us proclaim with John: "He is the victim of expiation for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world" (I Jn 2,2).
After describing in the first three chapters of the Letter to the Romans, the desperate situation of the Hebrews and the Greeks (that is, all humanity), prey to sin and to the wrath of God, in the third chapter, St Paul has the unheard of courage to affirm that this situation is now radically changed because of one man, whom "God put forward as a means of expiation by his blood" (Rom 3,25). Why does the Apostle call Christ the "New Adam" (Rom 5,12-19), and why does Luke move the beginning of Christ's genealogy from Abraham to Adam (Lk 3,38), than to prove that Christ is not the head of this or that people, but of the whole human race?
"One has died for all" (II Cor 5,14); "By one man's obedience many will be made righteous" (Rom 5,19). The courage that we need today to believe in the universality of Christ's Redemption is nothing compared to the courage needed at that time.
A Psalm says of Zion: "Behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia: all were born there.... The Lord records as he registers the peoples, 'This one was born there'" (Ps 87[86],4-6). All of this was fulfilled in the event on Calvary: we have all been born there. Hence the universal scope of the rites of Good Friday. In the "universal prayer" we will pray for all the people of the world, so that they may believe that Christ died for all.
Jesus' mandate: "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation" (Mk 16,15) is still binding. The mission to the gentiles remains open; it would have no validity if the Gospel were not addressed to all peoples. We have to move from the negative motivation to the positive. We should rely less on the thought that if people do not know Christ they will not be saved, and rather, on the desire to share with all humanity the immense gift for the world that is Christ.
Religious pluralism does not consist in claiming that all religions are equally "true" (this would be relativism), but in recognizing each person's right to follow his conscience in professing and spreading his own religion, as long as he uses the peaceful methods worthy of a religion. "With gentleness and reverence", the First Letter of Peter recommends to Christians (I Pt 3,15). We may also add: in the spirit of the meeting in Assisi last 24th of January.
We must not only be concerned with the salvation of those who do not know Christ, but also — and even more — with the salvation of those who know him, but live as though they had never known him, forgetful of their own Baptism, of God, of everything. Today the Church extends her pressing invitation to them: "Be reconciled with God. In those open arms, brother and sister who are distant, there is also room for you".
Let us end with a prayer. Continue, O Lord, to draw everyone to yourself; those who know you and those who do not. May your Spirit continue to bring every man and woman into contact with your Paschal Mystery of death and resurrection.
And since "Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia, were all born there", we pray to you especially for the Palestinian people and for the people of Israel. May violence cease in the city that was bathed in your blood. "A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rachel is weeping for her children and she refuses to be comforted for her children" (Jer 31,15; Mt 2,18).
Rachel weeps for her children, but Haggar, the mother of Ismael also weeps for her children.... In the face of such tragedy, may the powerful of the earth not imitate Pilate, who washed his hands. Bless the initiatives being taken to restore peace to your land, and to all the rest of the world. Lord, hear us! Lord, hear us!
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