: Richard Veras
: The Word Made Flesh Foreshadowed, Fulfilled, Forever
: Magnificat
: 9781941709504
: 1
: CHF 7.30
:
: Christentum
: English
: 200
: kein Kopierschutz
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
A life-transforming meditation on Christ's presence in the Bible and in our lives. 'Father, you talk about Jesus as if he was here. If Jesus dwells among us, then where is he?' Father Veras artfully answers this question with biblical texts that show how God chooses to manifest himself through his people-from Old Testament foreshadowing of the Incarnation to New Testament encounters with Jesus that turn ordinary men and women into missionary disciples. In his heartwarming style, Father Veras challenges us to see Jesus in others and to be Jesus for the people with whom we journey each day. When Jesus, who is fully divine, brings God's healing to the world it is wondrous; but when an ordinary person, a sinner like you or me, becomes the bearer of God's healing presence through belonging to Christ, it is even more unexpected. God's generosity and desire to be with us extends beyond the time and place of the first coming of Christ in the flesh.... What I share with you in this book is that the Good News is really that good; God is really with us in ways we can see and touch and dwell with.... Scripture promises and witnesses to us the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh, who dwells among us. -Father Richard Veras A must-have book from one of Magnificat's most beloved contributors.
FOREWORD
Once, during a high school religion class, an exasperated student said to me, “Father, you talk about Jesus as if he’s here.” I was moved that he noticed that we spoke of Jesus in our Scripture class in a different way than Washington or Lincoln was spoken about in his history class. Jesus is most certainly historical (The Word became flesh and dwelt among us); but the Church claims just as certainly that he is living and present (Msgr. Luigi Giussani prayed that phrase of the Angelus as “The Word became flesh anddwells among us”).
The student’s exasperation was understandable. If Jesus dwells among us, then where is he? And that was the student’s next question. When I told him that Jesus is with us, he didn’t let me off the hook, but insisted “Where is he? Which desk is he sitting in?” This question was neither disrespectful nor ironic; it was reasonable. I did not receive it as an objection to what I was teaching, but as a sincere inquiry from a student who was seriously engaged.
I explained that when students in the class asked questions or offered unexpected comments that brought us more deeply into the Scriptures and mysteries we were studying, this was Jesus manifesting himself through them to correct and guide me. At this point another student demanded, “When? Name names.” I proceeded to offer instances when this occurred and to name the students who at those moments were, for me, the presence of Christ. The students became eager to hear their names mentioned; for the claim that can God can be that closely and concretely present to us is ever new. This is, in fact, is the promise of Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us.
Jesus promises to bewith us always (cf. Mt 28:20), and who is Jesus? He is the Word made flesh, the Incarnation, the enfleshment of the divine, God who became present in a human face. At the Last Supper, when Philip demanded of Jesus,Master, show us the Father, Jesus responded,Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (Jn 14:8-9). Philip was the precursor of the student in my class that day. He asked essentially the same question, “Where is God?” and Jesus’ answer to Philip is that God has been and still is present to him through the very face of Jesus. And if this same Jesus promises to be with us always, his presence among us must involve faces and come to us through the flesh, not only in the time of the Apostles, but now.
In another class a student told me of his seemingly miraculous survival of a car accident that he was in as a child. He asked me if this was an experience of Jesus. I responded that it was certainly an experience of God, but I don’t know that it was an experience of Jesus. He and the other students became very upset with me. I explained that I would like each of them to have a continual and stable way of responding to and relating to God, but that surviving near death experiences would be a spectacularly inconvenient method by which to do that. What characterizes Jesus is that he is in a place, he has a face. I can seek him out, I can return to him. I can go back to that youth group, to that parish, to that sacrament, to that family,