«WHAT SHOULD WE DO?»

The generation of the New Testament
had understood that faith in Jesus Christ
entails a conversion in this world,
because the totally other God
wants a totally different society.
H. Gollwitzer

Lev Tolstoy published in 1886 a work entitled, “What, then shall we do?” After him, Lenin, wrote, “What is to be done?” Tolstoy, however, unlike Lenin, referred to the Gospel of Luke when he tells that the common people, the tax collectors and even the soldiers, turned to the Baptist asking: «What shall we do?» (Lk 3,10.12.14). This question can also rise from our hearts, if we are willing, when they are touched by the urgency of salvation. John the Baptist’s response is differentiated, made to measure for the questioners.
The common people just need to learn to share (Lk 3:11); the publicans (tax collectors) are answered in terms of justice (Lk 3:13); the soldiers, tempted to violence, are asked to be respectful (Lk 3:14). The same question will also be asked of Peter by the crowd, who feel pierced in the heart by his preaching: “What should we do, brothers?” Peter, like the Baptist before him, speaks of baptism: “Change your lives and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 2:37-38). Conversion therefore implies an immersion, an immersion in the name, or in the total reality, of Christ. This is the path of salvation. The apostle’s announcement, the people’s question, and Peter’s counter-response are three phases of a single plan. God has placed in history a sign and a pledge as a foretaste of utopia: the risen Christ. Immersing oneself in his mindset is the only valid way to enter the flow of this utopia, which solicits a radical change to make room for the “not yet” of man. In this regard, the Roman rhetorician Gaius Valerius Victorinus said, by way of announcing his conversion to Christianity: «When I met Christ, I discovered myself as a man». And Ignatius of Antioch, on the same wavelength, asked Christians to let him die a martyr, because only in Christ would he reach his human fullness: «Let me reach the pure light; once there, I will truly be a man».

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

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves,
Prinknash Abbey