Keep Your Eyes on Christ

Living Hope H

one day at a time

Keep Your Eyes on Christ!

"The Lord is calling me 'out to the mountain' to devote more time to prayer and meditation, but this does not mean I'm abandoning the Church." --Pope Benedict XVI, in his final Sunday Angelus address as Pope.

I remember the last World Youth Day led by Pope John Paul II in 2002, in Toronto, Canada. I was standing in the immense sea of young adults at the end of the final Mass.

At the close of World Youth Day, it was customary for John Paul to announce where the next World Youth Day was being held by saying, “I will see you at the next World Youth Day in…” A wave of sadness swept over me when he didn’t say those words. He simply announced where it would be. Silently he told us that he would not be there.

I remember also the first World Youth Day led by Pope Benedict XVI almost 8 years ago in his native Germany, 2005. The eyes of the world were on the new Pontiff.

Perhaps unconsciously we were wondering how he would “perform” after what we had experienced with the leadership of John Paul II. I remember almost getting the goose bumps as I watched on TV the Vigil held at Marienfield the night before the Final Mass. After exposing the Blessed Sacrament for adoration, Benedict slipped away quietly, leaving all eyes on Jesus in the Eucharist, gazing on the mystery of his self-giving and limitless love by which we have been filled with eternal joy. He helped the young people there and all of us live the theme of the World Youth Day: “We have come to worship Him.” (Mt 2:2).

The message was clear and it still is. All eyes on Christ!

Now, this Lent, 2013, Benedict is repeating that lesson. In his last Angelus message he spoke about the mystery of the Transfiguration of the Lord on the mountain, that call into the mystical retreat on Mount Tabor. He said: "During Lent, let us learn to give the right time to prayer, both personal and community prayer, which breathes air into our spiritual life. However, praying does not mean isolating oneself from the world and its contradictions, as St. Peter would have liked to have done on Mount Tabor, but prayer leads us back to the path, to action."

He was telling us that prayer (i.e., a relationship with God) is supreme. It is essential that prayer precede, inform and follow "all apostolic endeavors" and "all acts of charity."

Prayer doesn’t mean being lost in contemplation, hidden away in a monastery or church or corner of our house. By prayer Benedict means an immersion in God, in God's will, in God's life. Without this connection, all action is "reduced to activism." It remains in some way on a human plane. Prayer is about allowing the Resurrection of Christ to pump new life into our dying and fading lives. It is about living on a new plane. It is about being surprised by something we could never have imagined or fabricated for ourselves.

The Pope said: "Christian existence — I have written in the Message for this Lent — means to continuously climb up the mount for our encounter with God, so that afterward we can descend again filled with his love and strength to serve our brothers and sisters with the very love of God." He was saying that he, and every one of us, should "climb up the mount for our encounter with God" in order to be "filled with his love and strength" in order to be able to "serve" with "the very love of God." "Dear brothers and sisters, this Word of God I feel in a particular way directed towards me, at this moment in my life. The Lord is calling me to 'climb the mount,' and to devote myself to meditation, reflection and prayer."

As we watch the proceedings for the election of a new Pope, let us not forget that we as others most likely see what is happening through the filter of a democratic election, power, campaigns, prestige. This is the world’s interpretation promoting disorientation, blinding our eyes to WHO WE ARE AS A CHURCH. The Church is born from the side of Christ. The Church is the mystical body of Christ.

The Church is the real presence of Christ in the world today. The Church’s source and summit is in the daily Eucharist. The Church is each of us at prayer before the Lord, listening to the word and will of the Father. The media cannot understand the Church, we barely understand the Church’s true mission, the essence of her being. We forget we are called to disrupt what is considered to be “normal” with the new “normal” which is the life of Christ in us. It is when we identify with Christ in the Church that we stretch to the fullness of our humanity. The Church lives to make others sharers in the one things she possesses: Christ, our hope of glory (Col. 1:27).

Let us not get distracted by the news media’s hype over the consistory and their commentary of those who are “in the running.” Let us keep our eyes on Christ, let us keep our feet on the ground, and let us keep our hearts immersed in God and in prayer.

And in prayer, together with Benedict, let us welcome with renewed faith the next Pope selected by the Holy Spirit.

© Daughters of St. Paul. www.pauline.org. Copies are provided free of charge and can be photocopied freely, as long as the author and Pauline logo appear. No commercial use of the copies is to be made. Any other use subject to written permission from the publisher.