Christ Happens to Me Now!

      The following is a running reflection on two paragraphs from an address by Fr. Julian Carron entitled "Christ Is Something That Is Happening To Me Now". It was published in TRACES  magazine, and first delivered at the presentation Fr. Luigi Giussani's book At The Origin of The Christian Claim in Milan on Jan. 25, 2012. The address in its entirety can be found  on the Communion and Liberation website, in English and Spanish. I read the whole article twice, slowly, before it began to sink in, and the two short paragraphs below several times more before their depths started to unfold. You might benefit from reading the bold print only,  before reading my thoughts on the text, which are in italics. How does Christ happen to you?


     "In order for man to be able to grasp fully what Jesus Christ means, he has to stand before Him with all his humanity. That means me, of course, and you. I have to stand before Him with "all of my humanity". How in the world do I do that when I scarcely know myself and am far from fully aware of myself? 

Without this humanity, without this attentive, tender, and impassioned awareness of myself, I will not be able to recognize Christ. Why? Why won't I be able to recognize Him? Why must I have this "attentive, tender. and impassioned awareness of myself"? Why isn't my normal, distracted, strung out, rough, unfeeling self enough for recognizing Him?

The reason is simple - because Christ presents Himself as an answer to what I am. I like that. He is the answer to what I am. I am a human being. But as a human being I am not fully alive. Nor can I say that I am totally  fulfilled, in spite of all the help psychology and technology give me. I  am a puzzle to myself,  a question that I cannot answer, an unknown. So my temptation naturally is to think there is no answer, instead of thinking that He is the answer.

Without this awareness, even the name of Jesus Christ ends up becoming merely being a name. I end up reducing Him when I  approach Him as if  my humanity were the measure of Him, instead of acknowledging Him as the full measure of me.
     
        It's hard to find a higher estimation of the person than that offered by Christianity. Hard? That word isn't strong enough. 'Impossible' would be better. I defy you to find a 'estimation of the person' anywhere that is 'higher' than Christ's.

Christ does not mean to secretly enter into a person's life, as if taking advantage of a distraction. He is not going to slip in on me when I'm not looking, or take me over in a moment of weakness when I let my guard down.

He wants to enter a man's life through the main door, passing through his humanity, a fully conscious humanity, made of reason and freedom. Wow! a humanity, a human being, (me, you) that doesn't use reason and freedom to become as conscious as it can is less than human, is subhuman!

Christ submits Himself to scrutiny by man's inborn criterion, his heart. Okay, now think I see where he is going: to the heart of the matter, the human heart, my core, what is deepest in me, where my reason, freedom, and His Grace meet in my yes and become one, or where I say no and we separate. Coming into me any other way would be an invasion, an intrusion, or a takeover.

Without this scrutiny, there is no Christian experience, and Christianity would have no chance of succeeding. If I do not scrutinize Him, examine, question, and explore, ask and seek and knock, ponder and wonder, with all that is in me, I am doing Him and me and injustice, treating both of us as less than we are, and giving Him less than his due.

The American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr pointed out the reason clearly:'Nothing is more unbelievable than the answer to a question that is not asked'. Proposing Him as the answer to humanity makes Him an irrelevant, preposterous, transcendental cliche, if He is not happening to me now. If  I am  not reaching out to Him with all the reason and freedom of my head and heart, then He is only a historical footnote from the past, an abstract value I try to live by, but not really my Lord. I show his irrelevancy to me when the empty way I mouth His name reveals He has no place in my life.