IN THE LIKENESS OF CHRIST

Holiness means being molded in the likeness of Christ. By his very nature, Christ possesses a childlike attitude toward the Father to which he adhered throughout his life.

Christ is perfect self-surrender to the Father.

The first words which we hear from the lips of Christ are: “Did you not know I had to be in my Father's house?” (Lk 2:49).

“The One who sent me is with me, he has not deserted me since I always do what pleases him” (Jn 8:29). Can you sense what that means? These words reflect the patrocentric lifestyle, the fundamental attitude characteristic of Christ.

It is a rewarding task to examine the gospels and observe how Christ indeed takes all his bearings from the will of the Father. He walks to the Jordan and into the desert; he chooses the twofold circle of people (the disciples and apostles), he teaches, works, suffers whenever and as long as “his hour has come.” Because the Father determines that he should be baptized with the baptism of blood, he courageously goes to Jerusalem among his enemies and allows himself to be handed over to them. And what anguish he feels till it is over (cf. Lk 12:50).

What was the great guiding idea to which Christ adhered throughout his entire life? I speak the words which the Father inspired me to say. I work the works which the Father wants me to work. I go to suffer and to die so that the world might see that I do the will of the Father.

How did Christ act toward his Father? He did not want anything for himself. He knew only the wish of his Father. One passion filled his soul: “Doing the will of him who sent me and bringing his work to completion is my food” (Jn 4:34).

Christ knows only one thing and that is the Father's loving will. It is his only guideline. He likes to express this by saying: “My hour has come...” (Mk 14:41).

As long as the Father's loving will is not completely clear to him, he says: “My hour has not yet come” (Jn 2:4).

When Christ accounts for his life, he coins the significant expression: “I have given you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do” (Jn 17:4), the work you gave me to do and no other. Just think what Christ could have done with his divine powers during the thirty years that he, as it were, lived in obscurity. Why did he live in Nazareth for so many years? “I have come to do your will, O God” (Hebr 10:7).

His quiet, hidden life and his public life were just as great as his suffering because everything was always the answer to the Father's wish.

St. John reports a revealing statement by Our Lord which is the key to understanding the ultimate tragedy and the glory in the life of the Redeemer. The passage is in chapter ten (17 ff). We will read it slowly and seek to exhaust its profound content, bit by bit: “The Father loves me for this: that I lay down my life to take it up again. No one takes it from me; I lay it down freely. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

Indeed, he suffers because he wants to. He dies because he wants to. He rises gloriously from the dead because he wants to. - Because he wants it! And why does he want it? Because such is the Father's wish.

In essence, the humility of Christ consists in his father-centered attitude, in his total dependence on the Father.

Christ stands before us as the man of one single idea: The Father's loving will be done in the kingdom of God. Indeed, his loving will ... After all, God is love. Whatever he does and wills, is born of love, through love, for eternal love. These are the familiar, musical sounds praising the fundamental law of the world, which is love. This song is hardly sung or understood anywhere nowadays and, therefore, one hears it less and less. Our ranks should take up the song and sing it in harmony until the end of time. We take the words and the melody from the lips of the dying Savior and give it on from one generation to the next. The ultimate cause of the Father's will is and remains love. This is the great secret which the Son clearly unveils in his last hour. “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Live on in my love. You will live in my love if you keep my commandments, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and live in his love” (Jn 15:9).

In his high priestly prayer, Christ gives a very clear account of his mission. What is his mission? “I have made your name known to those you gave me out of the world” (Jn 17:6). What was his mission? Making the Father's name known to the world.

God's person of light and love is especially close to us in the image of his Son. The Father dwells in unapproachable light (cf. 1 Tim 6:16). No one ever saw him but he who is from God (cf. Jn 6:46), the Son. The Father is completely inaccessible to us. We know about him only through the Son, both through his words and through his being and action. The Son is the only full revelation of the Father. Therefore, he was able to say, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9).

God wants us to love him with our whole heart, our whole soul and with all our mind, and he wants us to decide freely to love him. It is fitting, then, that he shows us his love in an effusive and convincing manner through Christ. The greatest love, however, is that born of sacrifice. We are told so by practical experience, by experts, and by Christ himself. We know his distinct and clarifying statement: There is no greater love than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends, for those dear to one's heart (cf. Jn 15:13).

Many Catholics, priests and religious have a one-sided, distorted and hardened concept of God because they do not know the Son sent by God. Therefore, they cannot understand when God's fatherliness leads him to hurt us, to wound us, to send us disappointments, suffering and persecution of all kinds.

“Father, give glory to your Son” (Jn 17:1) is Christ's request. What is the nature of that glory which the Father gave to the Son? Here on earth it is the glory of an immeasurable peace amid suffering, a deep awareness of two-in-oneness with the Father amid all difficulties. What an immeasurably deep peace a conviction like this can bring about! Christ always lived in this awareness because he saw only the Father's wish. Christ's soul was filled with endless peace because it always enjoyed the visio beata. Christ wants to let us share in his peace and joy. Therefore he asks us not to drink of all the other little sources of joy which the world offers. We should seek but him.

What is holiness? Holiness means being formed in the likeness of Christ. What do we mean by that? We should put on the form of Christ, we should assume the shape of Christ. What is the form of Christ? It is the childlike surrender to the Father. Holiness is not knowledge, but childlike surrender after the example of Christ. This applies both to man and woman. Naturally, this childlike surrender should be deep and if it is deep, it will involve our wills and our feelings.

We will be all the greater and more perfect, the more intensively we choose the childhood and childlikeness of the God-Man as the model for our own lives and striving. The greatest child among us should thus be the greatest saint as well.

In the ontological sense we are members of Christ. Are we that in life, too? Do we represent Christ? Are we images of Christ? Let us become fully aware of our task to be crucified with Christ. Let us embrace and fulfill it with great love and fervor. We should be proud when we may experience with Christ on the cross, the breakdown of our human powers and the breakthrough of divine powers to the glory of the Father and the salvation of immortal souls.

The new person in Christ knows only an ontological union, a union of attitude and life with the suffering and dying Christ as well as with the glorified Christ (cf. Rom 8:17).

Do we speak out of conviction when we repeat the words of St. Paul: “I have been crucified with Christ, and the life I live now is not my own: Christ is living in me” (Gal 2:20)? How deeply St. Paul must have experienced the mysterious two-in-oneness between himself and Christ!

The more completely we give our hearts to Christ, the more certainly we become children in Christ in a singular manner.

Christ is our way to the Father to the extent that we love him with all our heart.

The Father loves me for the sake of Christ. Therefore, I may never be separated from him.

We want to be one with Christ. On the one hand, we want to be children in him in a unique way and, on the other, the Father may and can look upon his children with benevolence because they are drawn into the sonship of his only-begotten Son.

Childlikeness should always be something great for us; it should always show itself in the same wonderful self-surrender that we find in the life of Christ in a singular manner.

Christ said: “I am the way, and the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6). He is the way to the Father not only through his life of sacrifice and the heroic endurance of persecution, but also through the splendor of his childlike virtues. They should be for us the norm of all childlikeness.

Christ is the Head of the entire world. All creation should praise and honor the Father in him and through him (cf. Eph 1:10, 12). This idea lent wings to St. Paul, it gave him superhuman strength. The boundaries of narrow Jewish conceptions had to be expanded because they hindered Christ's complete sovereignty. The whole world must be incorporated into him. Consequently, the Apostle of the Gentiles felt compelled to visit town after town, continent after continent.