THE CHRIST OF THE PANDEMIC

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When you can honor and receive your own moment of sadness or fullness as a gracious participation in the eternal sadness or fullness of God, you are beginning to recognize yourself as a participating member of this one universal Body. You are moving from I to we.  

- Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ, 42.

I'm taking my time reading and absorbing Rohr's "The Universal Christ." I highly recommend it. Like most of his books that I've read, it requires the reader to let go of many treasured preconceptions, beliefs and mindsets that he or she considers fundamental to his or her belief in God.  

The present book couldn't be more timely. Its thesis is that we have concentrated on "Jesus," the human person who live for thirty years in a particular time and place, and have almost forgotten "Christ," the Second Person of the Trinity, the Divine Word who existed from all eternity and through whom everything as created and is maintained in existence even today. In Colossians 3:11, Paul says "Christ is all and is in all," or "Christ is everything and is in everyone." 

Since we're so at home with the human "Jesus," we underplay the "Christ" side, leaving an imbalance that has caused countless problems for the churches ever since. One problem that Rohr keeps mentioning is that "Jesus" is small enough that various groups can latch on to Him and "own" him exclusively, leaving the rest of humanity excluded from any relationship with Him. "No one owns him and no one ever will (35)." 

"Christ Pantocrator" (All-powerful)       Cefalu, Sicily

As I mentioned in my April 4, 2020 post, the counterbalancing concept of "the universal Christ" completely bypasses every kind of limitation and division that comes with the human "Jesus" side of the incarnation and invites us to relate to the Christ who is from all eternity, who created everything that is, including worlds and maybe universes that we will never discover, We can't capture the Universal Christ and use him for our own purposes.

This way of seeing Christ seems exactly the right perspective for looking at the present pandemic. In the quotation from Colossians 3:11 cited above, "Christ is all and is in all,"  the Greek word for "all" is panta, the same root that we find in "pandemic." When in last week's gospel our Lord says "I am the way and the truth and the life," who is speaking? It would seem that at this point the emphasis has shifted from the human side of Jesus who has just washed the feet of his disciples, to the mysterious and boundless "universal Christ."

So, while we see and hear all of the beautiful human interest stories of bravery and compassion and so forth springing from the pandemic, and see them as imitations of Jesus, it is important to balance the picture with the image of the "universal Christ," who exists in everything and everyone from before time began. "The Christ is always way too much for us (35)" may sound like bad news to some people who need to be in control all the time, but it's wonderfully good news to all of us who are suffering during this pandemic because it means that Christ is immeasurably greater than any tragedy or trial or disease we can imagine.