The Paschal Mystery
and the unbaptised
“Thus by baptism men are grafted into
the paschal mystery of Christ; they die with him, and buried with him, and rise
with him (Rom 6, 4; Eph 2, 6; Col 3, 1)” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 4). This
statement of the Vatican Council brings out the incomparably privileged
condition of the baptized Christian. He is immersed in Christ at the moment he (Christ)
became saviour. The process of saviourhood is an enduring one, and operates
through the whole community of the baptized. The community and the individual
are united in one dynamic existential and enduring simultaneity of savedness
and saviourhood. Each splendid event of baptism goes back to the combined event
of the kenosis of Gethsemane, the death of the cross and the ascent of the Resurrection.
Every baptized personality is suspended between the moments of this paschal
event so that the whole community reverberates with the tension of
self-realisation in self-emptying, of rising by abasement, of victory in defeat.
The baptized individual absorbs this tension, co-extensive with time itself,
since he is in the community that stretches uniformly from the day of the Cross
to the end of days.
What about the unbaptised? The Vatican
Council answers with a most felicitous statement: “All this holds true not for
Christian only but also for all men of goodwill in whose hearts grace is active
invisibly. For since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called
to one and same destiny, which is
divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of
being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery” (G S 27). This is an incarnational approach to the explicitly
unbaptised. By virtue of the assumption of total human nature, the grace of the
Incarnation of Christ is the patrimony of every being claiming the name of
human. Every man bears the mysteries of Christ in his heart. This is what
constitutes his call to holiness within his historical situation, which he
answers by a life of self-effacing charity and justice, whereby he in turn
becomes a member of the community of Jesus Christ. “He (the Word of God)
assures those who trust in the charity of God that the way of love is open to
all men and that the effort to establish a universal brotherhood will not be in
vain” (GS 38). The death of Christ is renewed in each man in terms of the
struggle against sin and injustice. “Christ’s example in dying for us sinners (
cfr. Jn 3 16; Rom 4, 1 -8) teaches us that we must carry the cross, which the
flesh and the world inflict on the shoulders of all who seek after peace and
justice” (ibid.). Heb 11, 6: “And
without faith, it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him
must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” From God’s side a line from Vatican II says
it all, “God does not deny help necessary for salvation” (LG 16).
“Christ is now at work in the hearts
of men…”(ibid.). There is a power in certain past events that no amount of
temporal passage can erase. The energy released from such events continues to
activate the human community and to influence the orientation of human
decisions. This power is gathered up and personalised in Jesus Christ, its
source and sustainer. His own event is the résumé of all events, before and
after. From now on temporal life has a
meaning only because it draws its significance from what is timeless, viz., the
submission of the slaughtered Lamb reigning in power: his power is always now
and yet coming. Those who submit with him leave their mark on the course of
history and have their names writ indelible in the scroll of the Lamb!
