MUSINGS - If God were your father...

The next time I hear someone say, "All religions are alike," I think I'm gonna scream! I just don't get it! How have so many intelligent men and women of faith allowed this drivel to become the accepted wisdom of the day?

True, some Jews and Muslims think highly of Jesus Christ - and the efforts to promote a spirit of mutual respect and understanding among people of faith is a good thing. But just let a Jew show up at synagogue or a Muslim arrive at his mosque for prayers and be invited to worship Jesus Christ, and...well... things might get a bit testy! And, this is how it should be!

The fact of the matter is that Christianity, Judaism and Islam differ in very important ways, and those differences matter! Faithful Jews think that they read the Hebrew Scriptures correctly. But Christianity renamed that same collection of texts precisely because Christians believe that Judaism has misread those texts. Muslims presume that these same texts have been corrupted or misread by both Jews and Christians, and thus need the correctives offered in the Koran. Two certainties are present here: (1) These three convictions are not the same! and (2) They radically alter a person's approach to Jesus.

In today's Gospel, our Lord says to the Pharisees, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and am here; I did not come on my own, but he sent me" (John 8:42). In a sense, he was telling them that they had misread the Sacred Scriptures... and that the misread had staggering implications for their relationship to God. The same is true today!

"At the heart of catechesis we find, in essence, a Person, the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, the only Son from the Father. . .who suffered and died for us and who now, after rising, is living with us forever." (John 1:14, 14:6; Ephesians 3:9, 18-19; CT 5) To catechize is "to reveal in the Person of Christ the whole of God's eternal design reaching fulfilment in that Person. It is to seek to understand the meaning of Christ's actions and words and of the signs worked by him." (CT 5) Catechesis aims at putting "people . . . in communion . . . with Jesus Christ: only he can lead us to the love of the Father in the Spirit and make us share in the life of the Holy Trinity." (CT 5) [CCC 426]

Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him, "If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31).

The implication is unmistakable: Christ is life's center! Misunderstanding, neglecting or rejecting him has enormous implications for time and eternity!

Today's Readings: Tuesday, April 5th, 2006.