-Fr. John Roche, SDB
Browsing for a greeting card some years ago, I came upon a section of cards that had no particular greeting on the inside. These cards were labeled “Birthday, blank inside” or “Thank You, blank inside,” etc. I took a moment or two to linger in this aisle looking at the various photos and cover art wondering if these depictions conveyed the proper sentiment for a given occasion. While I was musing and wondering, there was a section of cards which struck me between the eyes. That section was labeled, “Christian, blank inside.”
What a jarring notion. I understood that the cards in that section would have some image or photo depicting some religious idea and that there would be no caption inside, but that label stayed with me long, long after leaving that card shop. I began to wonder just how many of us might be labeled the same way. Looking at us, would people know what we believe and would they find our actions and our ways of interacting with others consistent with those beliefs?
Long ago, the philosopher and scientist Friedrich Nietzsche despaired of finding any true meaning or faith in the world, and not because “God Is Dead” — as he boldly declared at the dawn of the 20th Century.
What is curious is the fact that this man was not an atheist because he was a scientist or philosopher. He was not an atheist because he grew up in a repressive religious environment that wrung the life out of his experience of faith. No, Nietzsche slowly grew into atheism and existentialism — and despair, too — because he looked around him and found no evidence of a believable God in those who called themselves believers. He saw Christians who were empty inside. They were often full of themselves, full of their own importance, their daily rituals and their normal occupations, but nothing about their ordinary lives cried out a witness for a living, loving and believable God.
What do my colleagues, relatives and friends see when they look at me? What does the world see? It is not enough for me to wear a Roman collar or to preach eloquently. My life must reflect the Christ who lives within me. Like St. Paul, you and I are called to live authentically as witnesses to the risen Christ. We are called to be counter-cultural. We are called to live not with emptiness inside, but with the very life and love and will of God pulsing in our veins. We are to be so filled by God’s Spirit, that we cannot help but overflow God’s love and life into the world and change it by our conviction and our passion.
I invite you to become “Christian, full inside” so that the Kingdom of God may be experienced by others as they are transformed from the emptiness of this life to the fullness of God’s life and Spirit. Jesus proclaimed to his disciples, “I have come that you may have life and have it to the full!” (John 10:10)