Christ, our New Horizon

Ascension Year C

When I woke up this Monday and turned on my computer, I was assailed by numerous Facebook notifications and emails from friends who could only express their profound disappointment with the electoral process and the results that were announced the night before. I guess the sentiment was shared by most Malaysians across the political divide – from the victors, who did not really feel like victors, to the losers, who felt they had been robbed of a victory through fraudulent means. Unlike previous elections, there were no exuberant post-election celebrations. Like the Apostles in today’s first reading, many Malaysians remain perplexed and saddened, feel cheated and beaten, trapped in our disbelief and ruminations of the unexpected turn of events.

But just three days after Black Monday, the Church invites us to celebrate Ascension Thursday (a ‘White Thursday’, going by the colour of the vestments) with our heads raised and our eyes lifted up instead of looking down. By doing so, the Church is not planning to pull a wooly fur-lined cover over our eyes and ask us to pretend that nothing had happened. The joy which permeates today’s celebration is not the result of false optimism or neurotic denial. It’s a real joy that comes from a broadened vision. Today’s Solemnity expands our horizon so that we may gaze beyond the many disappointments, failures, discouragement, trials, and setbacks which often mark this earthly existence of ours.

The apostles must have felt like many Malaysians these past days. They had already suffered the pain of experiencing the death and loss of their Master, and now they had to endure a second parting. After the resurrection, Jesus had returned to his disciples on many occasions, breaking bread with them and instructing them. Their hopes were raised in believing that this time, things would be different; he would never leave them again, but he did. One would imagine the burning questions they had for the Lord. But the only question they could muster at the moment of Christ’s departure betrayed their deepest concern: “Lord, has the time come? Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” I am tempted to provide a liberal contextual paraphrasing in the light of what has taken place in Malaysia these last few days, “Lord, has the time come? Are you going to finally bring change to Malaysia? Will justice finally be restored to this nation?” The answer which Jesus offered would certainly disappoint anyone who would have expected greater clarity and a less ambivalent ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. But the intention of Jesus was clear, he wanted to expand the horizon of their vision, a vision which often seems stuck trapped in a hopeless evaluation of the past, the present and the future.

The apostles, just like any Jew of the first century A.D., dreamt not only of political liberation from Roman occupation but also restoration of the Davidic kingdom of old. For the Jews, "the kingdom" referred to an idealised epoch of their history, the glory days of the Jewish people: it referred to the time when King David and his descendants ruled Israel as a wealthy and independent nation. After the Jewish people were conquered and taken into captivity in Babylon it was the hope of the restoration of “the kingdom” that was the defining hope of the Jewish people. Thus when the apostles spoke of restoring the kingdom, they were thinking of it as a national entity with its centre located in Jerusalem and its domain encompassing the land of their fathers. They were envisioning a Utopian ‘heaven on earth’. It was this that they were expecting the Messiah to do for them.

What happened at the Ascension radically changed what it was they hoped for, and their whole notion of what "the kingdom" was all about. Through his Ascension, Jesus opened the minds of the apostles and expanded the horizon of their understanding concerning the kingdom and his mission. The gospels do not present Jesus as a mere political messiah. Political liberation was never part of his agenda. This would be trivialising his mission. His real mission was far greater – he had come not to restore the political kingdom of Israel but to restore mankind to the kingdom of God, to communion with the Father to whom he was now returning. What was required was not just a socio-political and economic restructuring of the whole system. The socio-economic and political woes of humanity were just symptomatic of a much deeper malaise. What was ultimately needed was salvation, and thus repentance for the forgiveness of sins becomes the primary agenda of Christ and the Church.

Jesus thus challenges the apostles and the Church to look beyond their ethnocentric concerns so often defined by earthly categories of territory, boundaries, politics, culture and language: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judaea and Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth.” The whole vast world was now open for mission, heaven would now be everyone’s destination and goal. So why would anyone settle for anything less?  

It is from this renewed vision of things, this broadened vision of an expanded horizon, that we can now find consolation. In this world, as long as we place our hopes in human institutions and solutions, we will always experience disappointment.  There will be no single human solution that would rid the world of all its troubles. There will be no medicine or treatment that will cure and prevent all diseases. There will be no political system that would fully safeguard our liberties. There will be no human leader that could prove to be Saviour of all and sundry. But failure to find this illusive ‘Final Solution’ should not be cause for despair nor an admission of defeat. On the contrary, it is this very acknowledgement that allows us to lift our eyes above and gaze at the one whom God has raised from the dead and who now “sits at his right hand, in heaven, far above every Sovereignty, Authority, Power or Domination, or any other name that can be named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come.” With confidence, we trust and believe, that God has “put all things under his feet, and made him as the ruler of everything, the head of the Church; which is his boy, the fullness of him who fills the whole creation.”

But this does not mean that we should passively resign ourselves to our present predicament. Our sense of powerlessness to deal with the troubles of our time is no licence to abdicate our responsibility to do something. Rather, the Crucified and Risen Lord, who is now seated at the right side of the Father entrust each of us with a new mission, and the vigour to carry out the same. Just like the disciples who were emboldened by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are now called to make Christ’s presence visible by our witness, preaching and missionary zeal. We are called to make God’s Kingdom of justice, peace and love visible through our words and deeds. This is the condition of the Church, the Second Vatican Council recalls, as she “presses forward amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God’, announcing the Cross and death of the Lord until he comes” (Lumen Gentium LG 8).

The mission and vocation of the Church is far more important than any political party or NGO that seeks to bring about transformation through socio-economic and political means. Indeed, the Church is called to witness faithfully to the message of the gospel. She is to remind Man of his "supreme vocation" (Gaudium et Spes, no. 22), that every human person (is) called to the eternal life of the kingdom of God, kingdom of love, light and peace.” (Pope Benedict XVI)  The Ascension reveals to us our final destination – ‘Heaven’ and ‘Heaven’, as Pope Benedict reminds us, “does not indicate a place above the stars but something far more daring and sublime: it indicates Christ himself, the divine Person who welcomes humanity fully and forever, the One in whom God and man are inseparably united forever.”

On this day, where we remember Christ being ‘lifted up’; let us always remember to keep our hearts fixed on Christ, to prefer nothing to him. We may be tempted to look back at the past and be trapped in a prison of anger and resentment. We may be tempted to look down, beaten into submission and despair. We may be tempted to look ahead, and be lost in endless speculations and fruitless predictions. In all these, we may ultimately be tempted to experience grief and come to believe that Christ is absent in our troubled world. But today, we are reminded to look above and with hearts ‘full of joy’ see the certainty of our hope, our liberation and our peace. It is Christ, our Risen Lord and Saviour, he who “gives life a new horizon and a definitive direction”! (Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est)

A Church with Authority

Sixth Sunday of Easter – Year C

I recall my experience flying into the United States on September 11, 2008. Perhaps due to the ominous date, I left Singapore on an almost empty plane. This proved most beneficial as it allowed me to lie down across four seats in the economy section (I guess it was kind of the poor man’s equivalent of a reclining seat in the business class). But my fortune would soon change. A storm system in the United States had interrupted all flights into and out of Chicago and other airports across America. What would have taken me slightly over 20 hours eventually turned into a 32 hours hellish journey to Philadelphia. I still vividly remembered the last leg of my journey from Chicago to Old Philly. I was uncomfortably sandwiched between two large Americans who had decided to sleep the moment they hit their seats. To aggravate my nightmarish experience, the small domestic plane had to circle Philadelphia airport for another few hours as the storm system had rerouted many flights to this city. Finally, the long awaited confirmation piped over the PA system – it was music to the ears – “Ladies and gentlemen. We are cleared for landing …” And I realised that I had come to the end of my ordeal and the beginning of a new adventure.

You may be wondering what has airports got to do with today’s readings? Over the years, I’ve come to personally picture the airport as a most fascinating and appropriate analogy for the Church. Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life, is obviously the runway. Then there are the dogmatic and doctrinal aspects of Church teaching which provides the demarcation, lines and runway lights. And of course, up in the control tower, sits the Church’s Magisterium, the teaching office of the Church, as the trustworthy guide and air-traffic controller who provides the necessary direction and clearance that ensures all flights land safely. Can you imagine an airport without an air traffic controller or one who does not have the authority to direct air traffic? No one questions the wisdom of conferring so much authority on a single man who sits within the tower. But it does seem ironic that one of the most controversial points when discussing the Catholic Church in today’s world would be the Church’s claim that it is able to teach and govern authoritatively, in fact it teaches, governs and sanctifies with the authority of Christ himself. But there is still a big difference between the air traffic controller and the Church’s Magisterium. Whilst the former can claim authority from training and experience, the latter claims authority only from the Holy Spirit. The Magisterium speaks with the authority of Christ, guided and empowered by the Spirit.

It would be self-defeating and illogical if Christ decided to leave us with revelation but not the means to interpret it. Both Catholics and Protestants would agree that the Bible (or Sacred Scripture, as the Church prefers to call it) is authoritative and inspired. But Protestants would insist on right of private judgment and interpretation – they would claim that there is no need for an external authority apart from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit which is accorded to every believer. Using the analogy of airports and planes, it would have meant leaving a manual in the hands of anyone and everyone and providing them with the absolute unencumbered freedom to make sense of its contents and be the final judge and arbiter to interpret and execute the same, including the decision to land. I presume it would be obvious that such an airport would eventually become an ‘elephant graveyard’, with its runaway littered with debris from the numerous collisions. If Christ wanted to ensure that his teachings would have the efficacy of leading humanity to salvation, he would have taken the necessary measures to ensure the same teaching would achieve this purpose, rather than become a cause for confusion and destruction. This is why Christ promised to protect the teaching of the Church by conferring this very authority of interpretation on to the Church’s Magisterium: "He who hears you, hears me; he who rejects your rejects me, he who rejects me, rejects Him who sent me" (Luke 10. 16).

We see an excellent example of the exercise of the Church’s Magisterium in today’s first reading. The issue of whether pagan converts to Christianity would have to submit to circumcision and other Jewish observances had become a major point of contention, an issue that threatened to split the leaders of the Church and the Church itself. Some men went from Jerusalem to Antioch to proclaim that the Gentiles had to be circumcised in order to be saved. Paul and Barnabas also travelled to Jerusalem to present their case. During the Council of apostles and elders, Peter strongly defended the position that the Gentiles, who were not circumcised, were accepted by God. He told about the outpouring of the Spirit in Caesarea at the house of Cornelius. After Peter, the apostle James delivered his judgment that the Gentile converts would not need to be circumcised but laid down certain guidelines that would allow Jewish and Gentile converts to live in harmony. So, at this point it was the decision of the apostles and elders and the whole church to adopt the position proposed by James and choose men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. In the letter, they wrote, "It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves ...”

The apostles and elders who had gathered at the Council of Jerusalem were conscious that the decision which they had just made, overriding the ritual law of the Old Covenant, was no mere human decision. They were keenly aware of the authority that has been given to them by Christ, and of their own need to remain ever faithful to Christ as they exercise that authority. They believed that it was the Holy Spirit who guided their decision, and so, ultimately it is God who has decided the matter.

Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to guide His Church into all truth. Jesus in today’s gospel promises his disciples that the Advocate, the Holy Spirit “will teach (the Church) everything and remind (her) of all” he had first taught His apostles (cf. Jn. 14:26).  Jesus did not leave His people vulnerable to the doctrinal whims of competing leaders. Rather, He built the Church on the solid foundation of the apostles. He gave the Church His Holy Spirit, the Advocate (Parakletos), to enable her to be “the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). Despite the cultural winds that have blown through the ages, the faithful have always had a visible, easily identifiable magisterial “rock” on which they could safely stand in all seasons. When the Magisterium pronounces definitively on a matter of faith or morals, the Holy Spirit ensures that the Church will not teach erroneously.

Throughout the centuries, the Church has also experienced many crises that threatened to shake its very foundation and unity. In the early centuries, many Church leaders were divided as to whether Jesus was God; and if he was God, was he equal to God the Father. In later centuries, there were also disagreement about many church teachings and practices. Throughout its history, the Church had to contend with schisms (splits) and heresies (erroneous teachings) but remain steadfast on its course, the course set by her Lord and Master. And yet in spite of these many centuries of crises and trials, the Church has continued to survive and grow, only because of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. His guidance ensures that in spite of all our personal opinions and ways of thinking, we can be sure of a certain authoritative position that reflects the will of God. In other words, he is the guarantee of unity within the Church. Without the Holy Spirit, the Church and unity would not be possible.

Most of us have had a problem with authority at one time or another. Every person, no matter who they are, enjoys the freedom to do their own thing without interference from others. Thus, it would be natural to see the widespread suspicion and incredulity towards the idea of the Church having such God-given authority. But it is important to see the authority of the Magisterium as something other than a simplistic being able to "boss you around." The authority of the Church, as Jesus has reminded all his disciples, is not one which seeks ‘to lord it over others’ but ultimately one of service. The Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God coming to us through Scripture and Tradition. Instead, the Magisterium is clearly under its authority–it is the servant of the Word. Its role is to faithfully safeguard the truth about God and his plan for our lives which came to full expression in the teaching and saving work of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. It is not to add to God’s revelation or to subtract from it. Only to faithfully interpret and apply it (CCC 85-86).

The crisis that has afflicted the Catholic Church since the middle of the 1960s has been a crisis of both faith and morals, that is, a crisis that has made many Catholics no longer know what to believe or what kind of conduct God expects of us. What is needed as a remedy for this is a firm standard, a reliable guide or teacher who can tell us both what we must believe and what we must do. Therefore, the importance of the Magisterium is in fact the importance of our life as Christians. We need a Church who can ensure that the light of Christ’s saving Gospel will shine on every generation. We need a Church that does not only provide us with good ideas and opinions but who teaches authoritatively, who is able to give us great light & clarity in a world that seems often enveloped in the darkness of sin; in a world enamoured and confused by the fallacious philosophy of relativism which provides so many competing false lights. We need a Church who has authority to convey to us the very means of salvation and guide us to a safe landing. And as G.K. Chesterton, one of the most famous converts to Catholicism of recent times, said, “I don’t need a church to tell me I’m wrong where I already know that I’m wrong; I need a Church to tell me I’m wrong where I think I’m right.”

The Novelty of Love

Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year C

Novelty is alluring. Well, that’s actually an understatement. Novelty is addictive. We get excited quite easily over new things and most new things catch our interest for a while. But it never lasts. Eventually, we end up getting bored of people, of activities, of ideas, of things and even of religion. The new always promises to surpass the old - and let’s face it, there is always a thrill when we get that new smart phone, or tablet or those new clothes. Our brains are wired for finding immediate reward. With technology, novelty is the reward. You essentially become addicted to novelty. But the new quickly becomes old, and so novelty creates an inexhaustible desire. We can’t stop because the brain has no built-in braking system.  Our love of novelty can even take on the appearance of a search for truth, when in fact it is only a form of distraction.

Today we live in a modern Areopagus, that ancient court in Athens which had become a marketplace of religious products during the time of St Paul’s visit. The Acts of the Apostles provides us with the following social commentary of the Athenians of the first century: "all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new" (Acts 17:21). The city was "full of idols" - each new god, each new philosophy added to the last, so that the streets (not unlike our own) offered a plethora of religious products ready for consumption. If one god failed you, or just bored you, there was always another. Today we live in a global marketplace of ideas, philosophies, religious thought and spiritualities. The reason for this proliferation of spiritual ‘goods’ is the incessant demand by the masses for meaning, but more specifically, for novelty in meaning.

In today’s gospel, Jesus also promises a ‘novelty’ – “I give you a new commandment: love one another; just as I have loved you, you must also love one another.” For many of us, the commandment of love has become so familiar to the point of being treated contemptuously. It’s almost impossible for us in this day and age to appreciate its ‘newness.’ What is so new about this commandment? Loving each other is not a new command per se. It was already there in the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”). So, what is the novelty in today’s gospel passage? Pope Emeritus Benedict sheds light on the mystery: “This commandment has become new because Jesus makes a very important addition to it: “just as I have loved you, you must also love one another.” What is new is precisely this “loving as Jesus loved.” All our living is preceded by his love and refers to this love, it fits into this love and is achieved precisely through this love. The Old Testament did not present any model of love; it only formulated the precept of love. Instead, Jesus gave himself to us as a model and source of love a boundless, universal love that could transform all negative circumstances and all obstacles into opportunities to progress in love.”

Thus the principal reason why the commandment is ‘new’ is, evidently, the standard by which one was to ‘love one another’: “as I have loved you.” The new commandment of the Johannine community does not mean the love command itself, but the criteria by which the community will judge that love. No longer does the believer love the neighbour as oneself. Love of self, perhaps the most important benchmark by which we humans judge many things, will need to step aside for something far greater. Self-love no longer becomes the criteria but Jesus’ love for us. Jesus sets himself as the new norm and measure of Christian love. He himself loved ‘to the end’. Therefore to love one another as he loved is to give oneself wholly and fully here and now to the other. So it is in this totality of self-sacrifice and self-giving that the new element in the commandment of love is to be found.

In his monumental treatise on the theological virtue of love, Deus Caritas Est (God is Love), Benedict XVI tells us that the Bible as a whole presents us with a new image of God that can only be understood from a perspective of love. According to him, the height of Greek Philosophy is also only able to grasp through human reflection the object of love, but in itself does not love. The Bible, on the other hand presents a profoundly different image of God. The one God in whom Israel believes loves with a personal love. Thus, the newness presented by the Biblical image of God is this – God loves man. But a greater novelty awaits us in the New Testament. The real novelty of the New Testament lies not so much in new ideas as in the figure of Christ himself, who gives flesh and blood to this concept. Already in the Old Testament, we do not only have abstract notions of God’s love but we discern it in his unpredictable and in some sense unprecedented activity in human history. This divine activity now takes on dramatic form when, in Jesus Christ, it is God himself who goes in search of the “stray sheep”, a suffering and lost humanity.

When Jesus speaks in his parables of the shepherd who goes after the lost sheep, of the woman who looks for the lost coin, of the father who goes to meet and embrace his prodigal son, these are no mere words: they constitute an explanation of his very being and activity. His death on the Cross, in which he gives himself in order to raise man up and save him, is the culmination of God’s incomparable love. This is love in its most radical form. By contemplating the pierced side of Christ (cf. 19:37), we can understand the starting-point of the profound theological statement: “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). It is there that this truth can be contemplated. It is from there that our definition of love must begin. In this contemplation the Christian discovers the path along which his life and love must move.

Thus, love is never just a human choice or effort, where couples need to find new excitement and novelties to reignite the flame of their romance, or where we strive to move beyond ourselves to penetrate the cloud of mystery that veils our eyes from the Transcendent God. Love is ‘divine’ because it comes from God and unites us to God; through this unifying process it makes us a “we” which transcends our divisions and makes us one, until in the end God is “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). In Christ, the Transcendent God has truly become Immanent. Through his descent, the divine love is now united to the human, and thus when we love in and through Christ, never apart from him, we would perform something totally new which we would never be able to accomplish on our own.

In the first letter of St. John, where he speaks so much of love and where he names God as Love, we find these beautiful words “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.” (1 Jn 4:10) Our weak, limited, imperfect and inadequate ‘love’ for ourselves no longer becomes the standard by which we should love others but rather Jesus’ love for us. In contemplating love, we turn our attention away from ourselves or even from the object of our love, our neighbour. Rather, in contemplating love, we must always raise our eyes above to contemplate God. Only God loves perfectly because God is LOVE himself! And this is the love of God – that he is prepared to become man, suffer and die for us. This is the love of God, that he is prepared to become one of us, to share our pains and sorrows, to experience our sufferings and give us hope and encouragement in the midst of all these. This is the love of God – that he will “wipe away all tears from (our) eyes”, destroy death and sadness. This is the love of God – that he will make all things new. It is a novelty that we will never be tired off. It is a novelty that will never grow old. Because it is a novelty that does not just entertain or excite us but one which ultimately save us.

"Catholic, Truly Christian"

Fourth Sunday of Easter Year C

It would be no exaggeration to say that the catchy “Malaysia Truly Asia” tagline has become embedded in the public’s consciousness and proven to be our country’s most important tool in its tourism marketing campaign. Maybe it’s because of the frequency of the highly stylised commercials, or because it just rhymes so well, or the susceptibility of the mind to retain banal stuff, but whenever I hear the word “Malaysia” I feel like following up with “…truly Asia” right away. I was shocked to discover that it had even reached the shores of Israel, a country isolated from the rest of the world, a country which Malaysia still deems an enemy state. This is what appears on the home page of Tourism Malaysia: “There is only one place where all the colours, flavours, sounds and sights of Asia come together – Malaysia... Nowhere is there such exciting diversity of cultures, festivals, traditions and customs, offering myriad experiences. No other county is "Truly Asia" as Malaysia.”

The above review certainly conjures images of a tropical multicultural paradise, the crystallisation of the Utopian ideal. Of course, the average Malaysian would find this amusing. By swinging slogans such as “Malaysia, Truly Asia”, we seem to be declaring that we have successfully embraced our multicultural demographics. The smiling faces of the multi-ethnic models on our public service ads, however, are unable to conceal the deep wounds that form impassable chasms that separate one community from the other. Yes, we do live in a multicultural society, but it takes more than a juxtaposition of different culture. We are nowhere near celebrating it. Today, the so-called truly Asian melting pot of cultures is more divided than it could ever be. What we often do is to pay empty lip service. Just because different cultures live together does not mean that they multicultural.

Uniting people from different nations, tribes, peoples and languages is a formidable task. Some would admit from the outset that it is impossible. Others attempt to do so by denying differences, by insisting on assimilating everyone into a single culture and language. We have seen how such human experiments have failed with disastrous consequences. Both Yugoslavia and Iraq have descended into violent sectarian conflicts and fragmentation of society in the aftermath of the fall of the dictator that had kept its people ‘united’ solely by force. Maoist China attempted a Cultural revolution to stamp out any trace of cultural individuality so as to create an entirely new culture based on the ideals of the Red Book. Others, like Canada, have chosen the path of territorial and legal segregation, and divided its territories between the English-speaking and Franco-phone communities. Still others, like many cities in the United States, have managed the ‘problem’ through ‘red-lining’ neighbourhoods, where people naturally choose to reside in self-made ghettoes.

Many seem resigned to accepting sociologists’ pessimistic conclusion that multi-cultural societies are inevitably characterised by conflict and rivalry. So, what we had just heard in the second reading may seem to be an unattainable Utopian ideal, a dream conjured by the hopeless to fool themselves. St John the Seer in the second reading, taken from Chapter 7 of the Book of the Apocalypse, paints a spectacularly vivid picture of what we can anticipate at the very End. He sees a multitude from “every nation, race, people, and tongue” worshipping God. They will not experience hunger nor thirst, nor will they be plagued by the heat of the sun. This is no mere rhetoric or just some fancy marketing.

The vision of the New Jerusalem from the Book of the Apocalypse was inherited from Isaiah 65:17-25. It represents the longing of all humans since the beginning of time: when there will be no more tears and suffering, but only abundance and joy. To most people it seems just an impossible dream or something that we can only experience in heaven after death. For the early Christians it was a description of the world after being renewed and transformed by God. The New Jerusalem was something that many Christians expected in their own lifetimes — the frightening and violent world that they knew simply could not continue any longer.

How could this be possible? How could this materialise as concrete reality where other ideologies and ideologues have failed? The answer lies in knowing who stands at the very centre of this scene. It is the Lamb who has shed his blood for the multitudes, the Lamb who now shepherds them and leads them to springs of life-giving water.  

Each time when we reflect on Church unity and communal integrity, we ask this simple question, ‘What must we do to be build communion and unity?’ A whole array of answers is advanced in answer to this problem. Today, being Good Shepherd Sunday, we are reminded of the answer – an answer so simple, it often eludes us (it’s ironic how we often miss the simplest and most fundamental answers to faith by being distracted by innovation and creativity). The answer is that Christ must be at the centre. Jesus is the centre of our whole universe. He is the centre of our world. We date all the events of world history in terms of the day that he was born. More important to us, he is the centre of our lives. He is the centre of everything that matters. We obviously know that he is the centre, for as Christians we wear his name and wear it proudly.

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Obviously we believe in Christ as the centre of our lives. Even though we consider Christ as central in our lives I wonder if perhaps sometimes, even in religious activities in which we engage, we do not crowd Christ into the background of our thinking. We think so often in terms of our personal space, rights. We make demands of the Church and of each other. We often place our own individual concerns and ideas over everything else. We think so often in terms of groupings which distinguishes ‘us’ from ‘them.’ In other words, it’s either ‘I’ or the ‘world’ which is at the centre, not Christ. In the midst of all the details we forget that the Church is not our own construction. No one can possibly claim that they were responsible for building Church. That would be audacious. The Church belongs to Christ. It is founded on Christ. It is his Body. Thus, undeniably it him who must be at the centre.

Thus the vision of St John in the Book of the Apocalypse is a reality that can only be attained in one manner – conversion. Conversion means learning to listen to the voice of the Shepherd rather than to the many other voices which try to crowd out his presence. Conversion means that we must ultimately be prepared to die to our selfishness, and perhaps even shed blood, so that we may be washed clean and pure by the blood of the Lamb who shed his blood for us.

The Apocalypse assures us that there will be a time when Christians will be able to celebrate authentic multiculturalism or in the language of the Church, or ‘Catholicity’. The Lord Jesus Christ is building a Kingdom from every tongue, tribe, and nation of the world, and those distinctions will continue and be perfected in heaven. So where is the New Jerusalem? We see it already in the Church, the Body of Christ. But the eschatological dimension of the Church maintains that it is both ‘already’ and ‘not yet’ the New Jerusalem. The path that links the two is the path of conversion and sanctification. Whenever someone is baptised and becomes a Christian, he sheds his past identity. We receive a new one defined only by Christ who is now at the centre of his life. We become ‘Catholics, Truly Christians.” But Christ has not ceased his work at baptism: he continues to work in us renewing us. That is the key: when we truly live in Christ we begin to experience the newness of the world to come. Jesus begins the transformative work in us that will be completely fulfilled at the end of time.