THE NEW HUMANITY

Pavel Evdokimov wrote that the “Christ is the most shocking revelation of the holiness of God in the human; it is the very mystery of divine life placed as the archetype of the economy of the human being”. If Jesus Christ is the archetype (the original model) of the holiness of God in the human, it means that God constitutes the ultimate truth of human nature itself.   Christ, as an archetypal icon, shines in a particular way in the Beatitudes, which trace his face and biography (cf. Mt 5:1-12). Looking at Christ, the new man, we thus understand the divine plan for humanity and at the same time its redemption and its beauty. Yes, because cursed realities (poverty, tears, persecution…) or perceived realities, if not suffered as impracticable (meekness, purity of heart, justice…) are transfigured in Christ to the point of becoming Beatitudes. We are faced with a great paradox, certainly, if we compare Jesus of Nazareth with the logic that regulates and conditions our lives as men and women. Yet, in every historical era, this paradox has been embodied in an innumerable host of people from all social classes. For all of them, the Beatitudes have not only been an inspiring principle or a life program, but a humanizing factor and for this very reason genuinely evangelical. The existence of Christians should therefore be the historical form of the new world inaugurated by Christ. In a word, the life of every baptized person should anticipate the great novelty inaugurated by the Lord with his resurrection. Christ is the efficient cause of the new man, the one who, by rising, was able to resurrect those who believed in him. But Christ is also an exemplary cause, the image into which we are transformed by the action of the Spirit. What often scandalizes non-believers are not the saints, but the fact that Christians are not all saints. And Simone Weil, reflecting on the need for a new sanctity for our times, wrote: “The current world needs saints, new saints, saints who have genius”.

Commentary by b. Sandro Carotta, osb
Abbazia di Praglia (Italy)

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves,
Prinknash Abbey