How and why we must
get to know Jesus of Nazareth
by Mons. Mariano Crociata
Translated from the 4/6/11 issue of
Editor's Note: We publish almost in full the text of the intervention made by Mons. Mariano Crociata, secretary general of the Italian bishops' conference, in presenting Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth - Volume II at the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan yesterday, April 5.
Without being a formal act of the Magisterium, the second part of JESUS OF NAZARETH by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is a happy and mature synthesis of a long and fruitful theological reflection which the author brings even to the exercise of his Petrine ministry.
The criteria that this reflection presupposes found exemplary expression in the intervention the Pope made on October 14, 2008, at the Ordinary General Assembly of the Bishops' Synod.
On that occasion, he affirmed the need for the historico-critical method that rests on the mystery of the Incarnation itself.
"The historical fact", he said, "is a constitutive dimension of the Christian faith. The history of salvation is not a myth, but true history and must therefore be studied with the methods of serious historical research". But it is special because it is a story open to divine action, which was also at work in the process of formation of Sacred Scripture itself.
In being both the divine Word and human words at the same time, the Bible demands that it be "read and interpreted with the same Spirit in which it was written" (Dei Verbum, No. 12), thus "following a fundamental rule in every interpretation of a literary text" (Benedict XVI, intervention cit.).
The three methodological elements which must guide this interpretation are therefore, the unity of all Scripture, which gives rise to canonical exegesis; the living Tradition of the Church; and the analogy of faith, namely, the organic consistency of all the content of our faith.
The absence of any of these elements would make Scripture 'just a book about the past' leading to a secularized hermeneutic based on 'the conviction that the Divine does not appear in human history', which creates 'a profound gap between scientific exegesis and lectio divina' (ibid.).
The work which we present rtoday affirms and overcomes the separation between scientific exegesis and the hermeneutic of faith, namely, the believer's interpretation of Sacred Scripture, arriving thus at a complete theological exegesis.
In this perspective, the author takes account of the most up-to-date exegetical and theological research, but also draws on all Tradition with special attention to the Fathers of the Church.
The basic reason for elaborating this synthesis is to to be found first of all in the need to know 'the real Jesus' as Benedict XVI calls him (Jesus of Nazareth, II, p. 6). - an expression that is best understood in comparison with and distinct from 'the historical Jesus', the term used by historical researchers to the Jesus known on the basis of applying the historico-critical method to Scriptural texts.
To get to know the real Jesus is inseparable from the constitutive dimension of his identity and experience, and therefore, of his personal and unique relationship with God the Father.
This relationship can be discerned only in the light of faith - outside of this perspective, it would be hard to make sense of it. But on the other hand, the original and generative dimension of the person of Jesus is altogether a historical event, and doing without it would irremediably preclude any possibility of gaining any access to the historical reality of the man of Nazareth.
The reservations that could be raised in this respect dissolve in the face of the consideration that faith is not without reason, much less against reason. Rather, reason constitutes the vaster horizon within which faith can be freely and critically exercised in penetrating the mystery of Jesus's reality.
The other face of this consideration has to do with our approach to Jesus of Nazareth. The question of 'how' to get to know him is woven with the question of 'why' to get to know him. If faith is the indispensable condition towards a knowledge of his personal and historical reality, then there can be no knowledge of him without a relationship with him, just as only communion with him allowed his disciples to have access to his reality and then bear witness to him.
Anyone can get to know Jesus of Nazareth, but one will truly encounter and know him if one accepts the secret spring of his person from his being the eternal Son of the Father, and therefore enters into a relationship of faith and love with him, experiencing 'intimate friendship with Christ, on which everything depends" (I, p.8).
In the horizon of faith, historical knowledge of Jesus loses nothing of intellectual honesty or critical rigor, but is consolidated and widened by his identity and by personal encounter with him that the most scrupulous historiographic accuracy cannot assure.
A look at the Pontificate of Benedict XVI from the perspective of his book on Jesus confirms the intuition that has only gained ground since his first encyclical,
Deus caritas est. There is a message in his choice and development of themes - a message that indicates for the Church of our time the urgency of getting back to the essentials, to the center of the faith, and therefore, safeguarding and transmitting the integral patrimony of the faith we have received.
In the encyclical, it was God-Love; here, it is Jesus of Nazareth, eternal Son and Savior, about whom this second volume highlights his Paschal mystery. We are invited to look at him with renewed attention (
Guardare Cristo [Looking at Christ] is the title of a series of spiritual exercises held by Joseph Ratzinger in 1986 and published in Italy in 1989) - all of us, bishops and priests, all believers, you who study in a Catholic university whose name itself is a reference to Jesus.
The message of this work by the Pope is a task for you: to give rise, from thinking made fruitful by the presence of Christ, to a culture and a scientific competence that is able to renew the human being in the context of his rediscovered relationship with God.
The second part of JESUS OF NAZARETH reviews the events of the last days in his earthly existence of Jesus to his Resurrection and Ascension, following step by step the thread of the New Testament in its multiple interweavings, internally and with the Old Testament, through a penetrating look that goes beneath the text to the events themselves and their significance.
From the beginning, the reader gets the impression that in the details as well as in the general picture, the author illuminates Scriptural text with a clarity that renders the explanation convincing and even fulfilling, responding perfectly to one's expectations of intelligibility.
It is the effect produced by an
opus rotundum, a work that is well proportioned and complete in its overall articulation, in its contents, and in its attention to detail.
It asks us, above all, to enter ever more deeply into a contemplation and assimilation of the mystery of Christ, in a loving knowledge, and in an intelligent relationship of love with him as he is presented in this book.
In this sense, the two categories which are introduced to interpret Jesus washing the feet of the Apostles - a sacrament
ad exemplum (by example) - assume a paradigmatic value in reference to all the actions of Jesus in his paschal mystery.
Let us listen to what the Pope writes in this regard:
By sacramentum they [the Fathers of the Church] mean, not any particular sacrament, but rather the entire mystery of Christ — his life and death — in which he draws close to us, enters us through his Spirit, and transforms us. But precisely because this sacramentum truly “cleanses” us, renewing us from within, it also unleashes a dynamic of new life. The command to do as Jesus did is no mere moral appendix to the mystery...It follows from the inner dynamic of gift with which the Lord renews us and draws us into what is his. This essential dynamic of gift, through which he now acts in us and our action becomes one with his...Jesus’s action becomes ours, because he is acting in us. (II, pp 61-62, English ed.)
One of the reflections that we can spontaneously grasp from this renewed look at Christ is doubtless the appeal to Christian responsibility in our time, and with it, our pastoral task. Among other possible points, I would like to cite three in this sense.
First of all, the eschatological dimension of Christian life, starting with the resurrection, about which we read:
...The essence of the Resurrection (is) precisely to burst open history and usher in a new dimension commonly described as eschatological. The Resurrection opens up the new space that transcends history and creates the definitive" (II, p. 275, English ed.).
The Ascension of Jesus means that
Through Baptism, our life is already hidden with Christ in God — in our current existence we are already “raised” with him at the Father’s right hand (cf. Col 3:1–3). If we enter fully into the essence of our Christian life, then we really do touch the risen Lord, then we really do become fully ourselves. [ibid., p. 286, English ed.).
This new condition confers a special character to awaiting the return of the Lord during what we might call the 'interim time'. "Christian prayer for the Lord’s return always includes the experience of his presence... He is with us now.." (ibid., p. 289, English ed.).
We must speak, as St. Bernard did, of an
adventus medius, of a coming of Jesus between the first and the last, abd therefore, of "an eschatology of the present... (since) the interim time is not empty... This anticipatory presence is an essential element
in Christian eschatology, in Christian life" (ibid., p. 291, English ed.).
To this one can link the theme of the time of the Gentiles with the t time of the Church "the message given by Jesus to his disciples
before his Passion. The time of the Gentiles — 'the time
of the Church' — proclaimed in all the Gospels, constitutes an essential element of Jesus’s eschatological message" (ibid., p. 44, English ed.).
In an eschatological horizon that is thus understood, which encompasses the time of Christian existence, two tasks face us which Christ's sacramentum and exemplum demand andd make possible.
The first refers to our personal dimension as it emerges in the prayer of Jesus at Gethsemane, in which he experiences that deeply intimate conflict between the human will and God'ss that has afflicted the human condition since the original sin.
He overcomes this conflict in himself since the will of his divine person encompasses the will of his human nature.
And this is possible without annihilating the specifically human element, because the human will, as created by God, is ordered to the divine will. In becoming attuned to the divine will, it experiences its fulfillment, not its annihilation"(ibid., p. 158, English ed.).
And even if, after sin, man's orientation towards cooperating with God was transformed to opposition,
The obstinacy of us all, the whole of our opposition to God is present, and in his struggle, Jesus elevates our recalcitrant nature to become its real self. (ibid., p 160, English ed.).
The second task derives from the trial of Jesus and the reason for his being condemned to death. The trial in fact brings out the political concerns that were at the origin of the proceedings against Jesus by a priestly aristocracy and the Pharisees who were united in this instance.
Yet this political interpretation of the figure of Jesus and his ministry caused them to miss completely what was most characteristic and new in Jesus: Through the message that he proclaimed, Jesus had actually achieved a separation of the religious from the political, thereby changing the world: this is what truly marks the essence of his new path (ibid., p. 168, English ed.).
In how the events developed, the divine plan emerged which, beyond the reasons that had led to the death sentence on Jesus, was fulfilled on the basis of human decisions. This demonstrates how the separation of politics and faith could only take place through the Cross.
Only through the total loss of all external power, through the radical stripping away that led to the Cross, could this new world come into being. Only through faith in the Crucified One, in him who was robbed of all worldly power and thereby exalted, does the new community arise, the new manner of God’s dominion in the world (ibid., pp. 170-171, English ed.).
In front of Pilate, Jesus acknowledges his kingship, but as an absolutely new concept, structurally linked to the power of truth. God is the measure of being. In this sense, truth is the real 'king' which gives light and grandeur to everything.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/04/2011 21:46]