Jesus Is a People Person
With all the news about our new pope (shout out to Pope Leo XIV!) I’ve been thinking a lot about our beautiful church. Not the church as a building, although many churches are indeed beautiful, but the church as a community of believers in Jesus Christ.
One of my favorite popes, John Paul II, in his encyclical letter Fides et Ratio, shares with us:
“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.”
Of course, I couldn’t say it much better than that! But, it does bring to mind how our church is constantly a composition of two things. Not just two random things that are separate from each other. Instead, two whole things that, when put together, make something beautiful. A piano solo on its own can be good, as can a violin solo be when played on its own. Each separate piece of music is wonderful to our ears. But when played together, in harmony, a new creation is made, and it is very good. It is something more beautiful than when it was two separate pieces. On their own, the beauty of harmony is absent. It is only when they are joined together that we hear harmony.
In the church, as Saint John Paul II writes, we have faith and reason. We believe in things we cannot see and we try to make sense of the things we can see. We are human and divine, spiritual and physical. Two things that, when put together, make the one whole even more beautiful. Our faith is the spiritual aspect, and reason lies in the physical world we live in. In scripture, Jesus doesn’t focus just on one of these aspects. He heals us physically AND spiritually. He feeds us physically AND spiritually. Our Lord sees us as we are, he comes to us just as we are, both body and soul. It is not just faith. Although our faith in things unseen is still very good. Our church is not simply built upon the foundation of our faith in Him as Lord. It is founded upon two things, our faith and our humanity. The spiritual and the physical. “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 16:19). YOU. Christ gave to Peter, the physical human being, not to the statement Peter made. Our church is built up on people, upon the creation of beings in the image and likeness of God. Upon God’s most beautiful masterpiece.
“In him we live and move and have our being,” Paul writes in Acts (17:28). “The God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands” (Acts 17:24). He lives in us. He lives our physical bodies here on earth! And in us he entrusts his church. Not be cause we are perfect, but because he loves us in the most perfect way.
Of course, Peter’s profession of faith in Christ is still very good. But, we are reminded, in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, 13:2, “If I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.” It is not just our faith… love is required of us as well. But, we might wonder, what love? What kind of love should we seek?
Well, we hear in 1 John 4:8, “Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.” Ah-ha! God is love.
To look even deeper, we hear Jesus tell his disciples, time and time again, that He is God. Even when they don’t fully understand it, Christ reveals who he is. In just one example, John 10:30, “The Father and I are one.” So… if God is love, and Jesus is God… is my scatter plot starting to make sense?
To add another point in the plot, we hear in John 1:1-3 ,”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Okay, so “the Word” was in the beginning, it was with God, and it was also God! Sounds like Jesus!
“And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory.” (John 1:14). And the WORD became FLESH. Woah…
The everlasting Word of our Father in Heaven did not remain there. God became man. God, who created the heavens and the earth, who has known you for all time, became a physical person just like you. Not because humanity was created evil, but for the opposite reason. “God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good” (Genesis 1:31). We, in fact, aren’t just good, but VERY good. Our physical bodies, our humanity, were created very good. We have only forgotten about the harmony, a harmony beyond all beauty, that we have with God. Instead, we have tried to play it solo.
So, in a very roundabout way, as I myself am overcome with the awesome glory and love of God, this is why the joy of a new pope reminds me in a profound way of the beauty of our church. God and man, the spiritual and the physical, found in each and every one of us: the church founded by Jesus Christ, entrusted to humankind.
“And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).
Join me in praying for all our priests, bishops, and of course, Pope Leo XIV!
St. Peter, pray for us, the Church!