The Word Made Flesh

FOREWORD Once, during a high school religion class, an exasperated student said to me, "Father, you talk about Jesus as if he's here." I was moved that he noticed that we spoke of Jesus in our Scripture class in a different way than Washington or Lincoln was spoken about in his history class. Jesus is most certainly historical (The Word became flesh and dwelt among us); but the Church claims just as certainly that he is living and present (Msgr. Luigi Giussani prayed that phrase of the Angelus as "The Word became flesh and dwells among us"). The student's exasperation was understandable. If Jesus dwells among us, then where is he? And that was the student's next question. When I told him that Jesus is with us, he didn't let me off the hook, but insisted "Where is he? Which desk is he sitting in?" This question was neither disrespectful nor ironic; it was reasonable. I did not receive it as an objection to what I was teaching, but as a sincere inquiry from a student who was seriously engaged. I explained that when students in the class asked questions or offered unexpected comments that brought us more deeply into the Scriptures and mysteries we were studying, this was Jesus manifesting himself through them to correct and guide me. At this point another student demanded, "When? Name names." I proceeded to offer instances when this occurred and to name the students who at those moments were, for me, the presence of Christ. The students became eager to hear their names mentioned; for the claim that can God can be that closely and concretely present to us is ever new. This is, in fact, is the promise of Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus promises to be with us always (cf. Mt 28:20), and who is Jesus? He is the Word made flesh, the Incarnation, the enfleshment of the divine, God who became present in a human face. At the Last Supper, when Philip demanded of Jesus, Master, show us the Father, Jesus responded, Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (Jn 14:8-9). Philip was the precursor of the student in my class that day. He asked essentially the same question, "Where is God?" and Jesus' answer to Philip is that God has been and still is present to him through the very face of Jesus. And if this same Jesus promises to be with us always, his presence among us must involve faces and come to us through the flesh, not only in the time of the Apostles, but now. In another class a student told me of his seemingly miraculous survival of a car accident that he was in as a child. He asked me if this was an experience of Jesus. I responded that it was certainly an experience of God, but I don't know that it was an experience of Jesus. He and the other students became very upset with me. I explained that I would like each of them to have a continual and stable way of responding to and relating to God, but that surviving near death experiences would be a spectacularly inconvenient method by which to do that. What characterizes Jesus is that he is in a place, he has a face. I can seek him out, I can return to him. I can go back to that youth group, to that parish, to that sacrament, to that family, to that priest, to that friend. That student cannot return to that car accident; and if he does not find God in the flesh here and now in his present and as a promise for his future, then that accident does not become a point of change and conversion, but a curious and moving incident to bring up in religion class or when dinner conversation might take a spiritual turn. Saint Bernard once preached, "Before the Son of God became man his goodness was hidden, for God's mercy is eternal, but how could such goodness be recognized? It was promised, but it was not experienced, and as a result few believed in it."1 I was raised Catholic, and received witness from my parents and family. I was brought to the sacraments, and I received further witness and catechesis from teachers and priests. Thus, Christ was forming me and calling me through the flesh of my family, through the faces of those he placed in my path in the parish, the school, and the religious education program. But, like Philip, I had been with Jesus for a long time and did not know him. I thought of him as somewhere in the heavens, loving me, but from afar. I admired him greatly and worshipped him, sometimes formalistically and sometimes sincerely. And I believe I loved him, too, but from afar. As a young college graduate living and working in Manhattan, I was certainly seeking him. And one day a priest recommended to me a group of young workers who met at Saint Patrick's Cathedral. In March of 1988 I went to my first meeting. These were my peers; they were like me. However, there was a joy among them that was evident that first day. As time went on, I discovered that these young men and women had become friends and saw each other outside of the weekly meeting. They were sharing life together. As I remained and entered into this friendship, I noticed that it was a friendship different than what I had experienced in high school or college or among co-workers. It somehow reached to the core of who I am. The experience was that of being welcomed as you were, and at the same time being invited to something truer. There was a sense of belonging that went deeper than our ability to be kind to one another or to agree with each other. It is difficult to describe, which is why the earliest Christian proposal was to "come and see." This is what Jesus proposed to John and Andrew, and what they proposed to Peter, and what Philip would propose to Nathaniel (Jn 1:35ff). The group to which I was referred is Communion and Liberation, a lay movement that arose from the faith, missionary zeal, and genius of the Servant of God Monsignor Luigi Giussani. Msgr. Giussani was an expert educator who tirelessly pointed to the fact that the exceptionality of Christ was something noticeable to any human being, even if you were not religious or "spiritual"; and that this exceptionality continues among the members of his Church, which is the continuation of his presence in history. It is an exceptionality that cannot always be explained, but whose existence is palpable, real, in the flesh, something that can be pointed to, returned to, experienced, lived with. Giussani reminded his original high school students that Jesus said, where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Mt 18:20). He proposed that they meet outside of class time and share life together, whether playing games, or discussing art or politics or science, or seeing movies, or going on vacations or retreats. He told them to do this keeping Christ in mind, and to verify whether they see something different in the way they are friends and in the way they approach reality around them. If they experience something different, then they must take seriously the possibility that the difference is Christ present in their midst. That proposal reached me through those young workers at Saint Patrick's Cathedral, and that initial and impressive encounter did not become a nostalgic memory for me, but a way to experience and eventually to recognize the presence of Christ in his Church. It is as if Jesus spoke to me as he spoke to Philip and said, "If you have seen the exceptionality of this friendship, the love and belonging of these people who are flawed sinners like you, then you have seen me present in their midst, and through me you have seen the face of the Father.. I am with you." Saint Paul speaks of this real presence of Jesus in the midst of his Church as a treasure in earthen vessels (2 Cor 4:7). Jesus began to be an experience in my life through Communion and Liberation. It has happened for others through another movement in the Church, or a vibrant parish, or an active youth group, or a faithful campus ministry, or an alive religious community, or a family. Growing up my parents had a number of friends who were not of our faith and lived life very differently from us, but who loved to visit our family and be around us. Was it possibly Jesus in our midst that so attracted them? As time went by my involvement in Communion and Liberation led me to love Jesus more and more, or rather, to respond more and more to his love for me, which was continually verified as I followed this particular place in his Church. I discerned a call to the priesthood through Jesus' presence in our midst. Through the ensuing years, when students have asked me why I became a priest, I tell them it is for the same reason that a man falls in love with a woman and asks her to marry him. I met Jesus and fell in love. It is that simple and that mysterious; it is the Incarnation. When I began my seminary studies, especially my Scripture classes, I wondered if my youthful enthusiasm would be tempered and I would be shown that Jesus, the Word made flesh, is not really quite so close to us. Perhaps I would have to "grow up" and see that I had overdone it a little, or perhaps Msgr. Giussani had exaggerated a bit. What I share with you in this book is that the Good News is really that good; God is really with us in ways we can see and touch and dwell with. In class after class that I took in the seminary, and in preparing for class after class that I have taught throughout my priesthood, I see that, over and over, Scripture promises and witnesses to us the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Word made...