The incredibly humble character of John the Baptist (whom
Christ called the greatest of men) leads him to contrast his own ministry with
our Saviour’s, easily recognising his own poverty in contrast with our Saviour’s
greatness. John uses the contrast between heaven and earth. John is from earth,
he says, whereas Christ is from heaven. For John the priority is clear; we must
have faith in the One whom God has sent from above, namely, our Saviour Jesus
Christ. For Christ does not speak earthly words, but the word of God. And John
says, the Father has given the Son the Holy Spirit without measure (Is 11:2),
and the fullness of the Spirit’s graces (see Jn 1:16).
So John the Baptist establishes that we should be centred on
Christ; it is from Him alone that we can receive grace upon grace, which is
what we need to be saved. This we call Christocentrism – to be Christ-centred.
We ‘connect’ with Christ not just by listening to Him, but
by having faith in Him. Now we need to be clear that from a Catholic point of
view this is not merely an assent of the mind. It is not merely being able to
say “I believe in Him”, and really feeling a sense of trust, or really thinking
Christ has the answer to our problems. From the Catholic point of view saying
or feeling that I have given my heart to Jesus is not enough! Faith is
exercised when we trust God and
entrust ourselves to Him. Faith involves both
the assent of the mind and consent
of the will. Faith can never be just an intellectual decision that exists independently
of our behaviour (see James 2:14-16). Or to put it another way: faith and
faithfulness are two sides of the same coin. That is why the prophet John says,
“he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests on
him.” (v36b)
It can be helpful to think of sinful deeds as effectively
professing the opposite of faith: “I do not believe in God.” We can then begin
to see the great significance of even the smallest sin, and that we need to
battle against these as well as the big sins, for they are all effectively
witnessing the same thing: “I do not believe in God.” When we sacrifice
ourselves to grow in virtue then we effectively declare, “I truly believe in
God.”
The battle against sin, and the promotion of virtue in our
lives, is about conforming our will to that which we say we believe. We may say
we believe in Jesus Christ our Saviour, but do our lives reflect this? The
prophet John is clear we need to have faith and to be faithful in order to come to eternal life.
Fr Ian
