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Jesus Master

Queen of Apostles

St. Paul

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the crucified
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JESUS IS MASTER OF LIFE
Sr. Veritas Grau, FSP

What is life for each of us? What image does the world evoke? What symbol would we fix on, to express not simply life but abundance of Life? Nature furnishes a wealth of images: growing things, obviously, like budding tress and greening fields as well as the fruits that speak of life fulfilled. But even things that are not considered alive can convey the energy, dynamism, potency which which are essential to life: fire, rushing cascades, storms, earthquakes, as well as the slow, imperceptible power of drops of water that through centuries carve out canyons and caves from solid rock. And more than all these are images of human life on all levels, images that prove that wisdom of the statement: "fully human, fully alive."

At the back of these considerations is an assumption: that life is good, precious, desirable. Living creatures cling to life, even in the most adverse circumstance. Death is considered the greatest tragedy, to be resisted with all means we have at hand. And even one who gives up on life and chooses death testifies to this truth: he turns away from life only because he perceives that it has lost its meaning, it is no longer what it should be and it appears impossible to hope that it can ever be what it should be.

There is another basic assumption about life: that it is a gift. No creature ever willed itself into being. THe giver of life then, has power over the deeper springs of one's existence. And to call someone 'master of my life' is to acknowledge that he or she holds the key to my person and my destiny. He has the power to make me happy, fulfilled, forever.

Jesus appeared with this fantastic claim: that not only is he giver of life, he is Life itself, just as he is not only truthful, he is Truth itself, and as he is not only guide along our way, he is that very Way. "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). Words by which Jesus can rightfully claim to be absolute Lord and Master of human destiny and of all reality. But what exactly is the Life that Jesus is, the fullness of which is shared to us unstintingly, "good measure pressed down, shaken together, running over" (Luke 6:38)? We all dream of "the good life," a life in which our deepest desires are fulfilled, in which we suffer no lack, no hurt, no pain, no fear. A life of heart's ease, security, joy. A life that brings out the best out of every situation, not only for our own good but for the good of those we love. The "good life" is best described as a life transformed, fulfilled in love.

Someone has said that for the Filipino, fullness of life -- which is what the more technical term 'salvation' is all about -- can be expressed in one word: ginhawa. Jesus' concern for his fellow human beings was to bring them ginhawa on all levels. He was tireless in healing physical and psychological and spiritual ills, feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty; offering acceptance, understanding, friendship, forgiveness to all, bringing hope to the hopeless, and even raising the dead to life. He went about doing good, raising the quality of human life and giving it a higher purpose -- so high there could be no higher, he offered to all the power to become children of God himself, living the very life that makes God what he is.

And lest that seem to become an abstraction, he showed in his own person what that life translate to, in human terms. "This life became visible; we have seen and bear witness to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life that was present to the Father and became visible to us in Jesus" (1John 1:2).

Not only did it become visible. It became attainable, on one condition, that we unite ourselves with the Source of life: God who is Love, made visible, made incarnate in Christ his Son. This is why Paul holds as the ultimate meaning of his life what Alberione sums up in one word: CHRISTIFICATION; "I live now not I, but Christ lives in me." (Gal. 2:20). Or more simply still: "Life to me is Christ." (Phil. 1:21).