Transformation before planning (The Baptism of the Lord 2019)

The early Christians were convinced that, in order to follow Jesus, baptism by water or a similar rite is not enough. Their lives must be imbued with the Holy Spirit. That is why these words of the Baptist are recorded in the gospels in many different ways: “I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit”[1]. No wonder they especially remembered in moments of crisis the need to live guided, sustained, strengthened by his Spirit. The Book of Revelation, written at a critical time when the Church lived under the emperor Domitian, repeats time and again to those Christians: “Whoever has ears ought to hear what the Spirit says to the churches”[2]. The unprecedented cultural change in which we are experiencing is asking of us Christians today an unprecedented faithfulness to Jesus’ Spirit. Before we think of strategies and pastoral prescriptions in the face of this crisis, we need to ask ourselves how we are welcoming Jesus’ Spirit. Instead of lamenting again and again the secularization that keeps growing, we need to ask ourselves what new paths God keeps looking for today in order to meet the men and women of our time, how we need to renew our way of thinking, speaking and living the faith so that God’s Word can reach out to the questions, doubts, fears that arise in their hearts. Before designing projects thought out down to their last detail, we need to transform our outlook, our attitude, our relationship with today’s world. The words that a few days ago the Holy Father Francis addressed to the American bishops gathered in a few days of retreat go in this line, and they are prophetic[3]. We need to look more like Jesus, to let the Spirit work in us. Only Jesus can give the Church a new face. Jesus’ Spirit also continues to be alive and well today in the hearts of people, though we may not even ask ourselves how the Spirit relates to those who have drifted away definitively from the Church. The time has come to learn to be the “Church of Jesus” for all, and only he can teach this. We do not have to speak only in critical terms. Conditions are also being created in which what is essential in the Gospel can resonate in a new way. A Church that is more fragile, weak and humble can make Jesus’ Spirit be more truly understood and welcomed • AE

---

[1] Mark 1:8.

[2] Rev 2:7.

[3] http://www.usccb.org/about/leadership/holy-see/francis/upload/francis-lettera-washington-traduzione-inglese-20190103.pdf  

Ilustration:  Kintsugi (金継ぎ, "golden joinery", also known as Kintsukuroi (金繕い, "golden repair", is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, a method similar to the maki-e technique. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.