04/16/00

Jesus: born of a woman, crucified and risen

If one goes to Mass daily during Lent, which Catholics often try to do, the Scripture readings for each day’s Eucharistic liturgy bring one into the dynamics of sin and forgiveness in order to allow one to enter more deeply into the mystery of Christ’s death for our salvation. The power of these texts to transform us, especially when read in Eucharistic context at Mass, rests upon their being truthful witnesses to who Jesus really is.

The Jesus we meet again this Holy Week in the liturgy is the only Jesus there is: born of a woman, crucified and risen from the dead. How do we know this? On the strength of the living witness to him from within his body, the Church, and the written witness to him in the Scriptures inspired by the Holy Spirit. Jesus did not write a book. He left a community shaped by the belief that God’s promises made to the Jewish people have been fulfilled for all peoples in his rising from the dead. This faith was given life and power by the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; and the faith community was given visible unity by the pastoral ministry of the Twelve and those they appointed to succeed them.

Knowledge of who Jesus truly is comes through this living, visible community. The written witness to Jesus in the books which the Church tells us are inspired and truthful is best understood when these writings are proclaimed in a Eucharistic assembly which is in communion with the universal Church. Even when read privately by a baptized Christian, the Scriptures are still read and interpreted in the light of the Church’s faith, the same faith that tells us that the Scriptures are, in fact, God’s holy word. Outside of that faith, interpretation of Scripture is at the mercy of personal preferences, social trends and particular agendas. All of these can contribute in their own way to reflection on God’s word, and they can even be used by the Holy Spirit to bring something to the Church’s attention; but each of them must finally be judged by the faith that comes to us from the apostles.

Over the centuries, and especially in the last two hundred years, some biblical interpreters have tried to reconstruct a Jesus “prior” to the Church’s doctrines. Others have gone on to search for a Jesus “prior” to the Scriptures themselves. The suspicion is that doctrine and even Scripture distort or hide Jesus rather than present him as he truly is. Sometimes commentators find a “real” Jesus beneath Scripture and the Church’s interpretation of Scripture because they want to make him serve some goal good in itself but not equal to encompassing all of revelation: assuaging loneliness or personal guilt, political liberation, the empowerment of women and other goods which then become the primary key to interpreting and using Scripture until another interest comes along.

The “real” Jesus turned up by most of these methods is always partial, as much projection as objective reality. He turns out to be, in personality and interests, remarkably like the expert or professor doing the Scriptural interpretation. The Church, if a church remains at all in these interpretations, is reduced to a movement or spiritual club. Meanwhile, the Church herself continues to proclaim the Jesus of Nazareth who is the Christ of faith: born of a woman, crucified and risen. It is this proclamation that the crucified Jesus is the risen Christ and that the kingdom proclaimed by Jesus the preacher is, in embryo, the Church called together by the risen Lord that makes the Gospel a scandal in every age. In proclaiming this Gospel in its entirety and wholeness through the centuries, the Church shows herself to be truly the Body of Christ.

The Church enters Holy Week with the prayer that we may all become more like Christ. We discover who Christ is by entering fully into the mysteries that the Scriptures bear witness to. We enter into those mysteries by worshiping God together and receiving his grace through the sacraments. Let us do so in Holy Week, confident of meeting and uniting ourselves with the only Jesus there is: born of a woman, crucified and risen from the dead. Every Catholic in the Archdiocese will be in my heart during the Holy Week ceremonies; please keep me in yours.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Francis Cardinal George, OMI
Archbishop of Chicago

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