Many people admit that they believe in God. Having said that they are not qualified as Christians. They can best be defined as theists. In fact a theist is one who holds that God is in heaven. But the true Christian believes that this God is physically present in this world. He abides inside each and every human being. For the theist God is transcendent. He is aloof from the here and now. The Christian God is not just transcendent but also the foundation of being. He has a physical body in this world. The Christian God is so visible and interacted with that he can be seen, heard, felt, tasted and smelled. The Christian God has flesh and blood.
The Christian God is in-carnus. “And the Word (who) was with God, and... was God... became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (Jn 1, 1. 14). The consequences of God’s incarnation in his Son Jesus Christ have a strong impact in the way we relate to God and other people. It influences the manner with which we pray, we seek healing and reconciliation, we search for guidance as well as how we comprehend community, religious experience and mission.
The evangelist Matthew connects prayers of petition with concrete action within the Christian community. Matthew is a Christian theologian, not just a theistic one. Hence, according to Matthew, prayers of petition are intricately linked with concrete action within a community of faith and love and the other way round. Thus, “if any one says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 Jn 4, 20).
In the Christian faith our prayers are ended with the following formula: “We ask this through Christ our Lord”. When prayers are prayed “through Christ” we are praying through the Body of Christ, that is Jesus, the Eucharist, and the Church (the community of believers) here on earth. We are presenting our prayers to God by means of this Body. On the other hand we are undertaking our responsibility in seeing these prayers answered. We do that by serving our brothers and sisters the best we can. God, in Jesus Christ, works through us when we carry out acts of solidarity and care for our brethren in need. Therefore, Christian prayer is enfleshed and brought to life by works of mercy. The prayer attributed to the Carmelite nun, Doctor of the Church, Carmelite reformer, mystic and writer Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), explains it all: “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
When confronted with such a powerful reality that God has become man, would you opt to keep being a theist or happily change to a Christian?
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap