Ours is an historical religion. It not only unfolds within the joys and disappointments of time and place, but it is rooted in actual events that took place in the lives of real people. The Christ to whom we commit ourselves is not a mythic character, a figment of communal religious imagination. He is someone who was born into history, at a specific period of time, in a particular place. He was known by real people like John the Baptist; he submitted himself to historical rituals like baptism. He had followers who testified to the truth of both his existence and his life. Jesus was a man of history.
Like Paul, we too have been called to be apostles. We received this call when we were baptised. The beginning of the year, with its custom of making new resolutions, is a wonderful time to remember to what we have committed ourselves. At times it seems that our own apostleship is no less daunting than was Paul’s. However, it is no less immediate either. Whether the period of history is the first half of the first century, as was the time of Jesus, or the second half, as was the time of Paul, or the twenty-first century, as is our time, salvation unfolds within the events of time. Furthermore, the followers of Jesus always return to the events of his life in order to discover the meaning of the events in their lives. These past events are reinterpreted in the ongoing present. Discipleship is never otherworldly.
© Dianne Bergant CSA, https://www.liturgyhelp.com/calendar/date/2026Jan18/0/RefDiBer