FAUSTO GOMEZ OP
The spiritual life of a Christian is sequela Christi, or the following of Christ.
In the Synoptic Gospels, to follow Christ means “to walk after Christ.” He is the Master, the Rabbi, and therefore His disciples must follow Him physically (cf. Mk 3:13-15) like the Apostles and the 72 disciples, or follow Him in faith like His disciples through the ages, like us. Following Christ, entails knowing Him, and knowing Him, entails loving Him; and loving Him, entails keeping His words, practicing His commandments (cf. Jn 14:21-24), and telling the world of His boundless love.
In truth, to be a disciple of Jesus implies basically two things: To believe in Him (faith in Him creates the community of believers) and to practice the new commandment of love (Jn 13:34-35). The disciple believes, and his/her hopeful faith finds its expression in love.
St. Paul says to Timothy: “Remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead, a descendant of David – that is my Gospel” (2 Tim 2:8): remembering always His life, His teachings, His love, His forgiving, His death for us, and His resurrection from the dead. Paul uses more the term “imitation” than “following.” Why does he do so? The probable reason is because he had not followed Jesus “physically.” Imitation of Christ refers to the imitation of Jesus’ life and example (cf. 1 Pet 2:21). Jesus asked the Apostles: “Follow me.” “Follow me” meant “imitate me” – “not by the movement of the feet but rather by a change of life. For whoever says he is following Christ ought himself to walk as Christ walked” (St. Bede the Venerable). St. Francis of Sales tells us: “Whoever has Jesus in his heart will soon have him in all his outward ways” (Introduction to the Devout Life).
For St. Paul, in particular, the imitation of Christ means identification with Christ: a life in and with Christ, our model. For Paul, the life of the Christian is “life in Christ”: “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Christ then is the center of the Christian spiritual, moral, liturgical and prayer life of every Christian. We, Christians, are asked to live as Jesus lived.
Romano Guardini writes: “Before Pentecost the disciples had lived ‘in the sight’ of Christ, now they live in him; before they had spoken about him; now they spoke through him.” He adds: “Paul is the privileged messenger of this doctrine “[applicable to all believers in Jesus]. “Because Christ lives in the Christian” (The Lord).
“You are Christians and that very name means
that you believe in charity”
Imitation in itself implies copying another. Christ cannot be really copied: He is the Only-Begotten Son of God. Besides, we do not live in the time of Jesus. Hence, it is preferable perhaps to speak of following Christ, which is a dynamic and never-ending movement of life: to be closer and closer to Christ, the Way.
Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life (Jn 14:6). Jesus is the Way to walk on, the Truth to be proclaimed and the Life to be lived. Kempis writes: “Without way there is no possibility of walking; without truth, we cannot know; without life no one can live; I am the way you have to follow; the truth you have to believe; the life that you have to hope for. Without the Way, there is no going; without the Truth, there is no knowing; without the Life, there is no living. I am the Way you must follow; the Truth which you must believe; the Life which you must hope for. I am the Way inviolable, the Truth infallible, and the Life interminable” (Imitation of Christ).
The Lord ought to be our only Way. St. Augustine explains powerfully: “I am the Way. Whereto does the Way take us? It takes us to truth and life.” Christ is the way that leads us to God. For St. Thomas Aquinas, He is “the primordial example, with an exemplarity which is not only moral (imitation of his life and virtues), but also ontological (conformity to the image of Christ through the grace that comes from God through Christ in the Spirit): it is divinization (a share in God’s divinity), and Christification (becoming like Christ).
A Christian follows the life-style of Jesus. For all, faith is, Jacques Ellul writes, “a direct and existential encounter with God.” The God Jesus reveals is an “all-encompassing love, Trinity – one God in three persons. (Creation is by the Father, the incarnation by the Son, and transfiguration by the Spirit). The encounter with God in Jesus is an encounter that is lived out “through love,” compassion, and the refusal to bow down to today’s idols. We are told by St. Asterius of Amasea: “You are Christians and that very name means that you believe in charity. You must imitate the charity of Christ. Meditate carefully on the richness of Christ’s charity.”
Thus, the spiritual life – in reality our whole Christian life – is centered on “living with Christ,” in becoming like “another Christ” today. Living in Christ means basically a filial, fraternal and charismatic life – a Trinitarian life. It is, furthermore, a “life in mission”: “As the Father has sent me I also send you” (Jn 20:21). The spirituality of the Christian is also a missionary spirituality, that is, a spirituality “to live the mystery of Christ as sent” (John Paul II, RM, 88). As Christ was sent by the Father in the Spirit to preach the Good News, so His disciples – priests, religious women and men, lay faithful – are also sent to the world, in a special way the missionaries on the frontiers.
Following Jesus truly means following Christ faithfully and dynamically. Faithfully – like the men who received five and two talents (cf. Mt 25:14-30). And dynamically – always being pilgrims on the journey of continuing conversion from sin to God, and progressing in the eradication of vices and the acquisition of virtues.
Following Jesus leads us to being seduced by him. The prophet Jeremiah: “You seduced me, Lord, and I let myself be seduced” (Jer 20:7). As God seduced Jeremiah, the authentic followers of Jesus are seduced by Him. May we be among them!
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