The Plague of Identity Crisis

by Fr. Martin Mary Fonte, FI

I was once teaching the CCD for boys preparing for the Sacrament of Confirmation in one the parishes in the East Coast of the United States. As I entered the room for the first day, I saw this short boy with the weird looking spiked hair, earrings on his ears, chains around his neck and some shining boots embellished his feet. He in turn was shocked to see me (perhaps his first time) wearing my Franciscan religious habit. He immediately asked with astonishment: What are you? (Not who are you?). But I answered him in return: “I believe you stole my question.”

Identity crisis is a plague of the modern time. When metaphysics was driven away from judicial court and educational institutions, society started to grab almost anything to define everything which suits the day. The criterion for objective truth that would establish as basis of common point of reference disappears. This is what precedes the plague of identity crisis.

Our Lord in the Gospel today, asked the apostles about His identity; not that he does not know who he is (some theologians taught of Jesus’ ignorance), but to challenge the apostles of how much they knew him and to prepare them for his invitation to true discipleship.

First what does the gallop poll says about Jesus (Who do the crowds say I am?). The masses tend to be impressed only by the external and says, he is just like any of the prophets; he is just like Gandhi or Mohammed or Confucius or one of the gurus. But the question of his identity has turned to the College of Bishops: “You, who do you say that I am?” None of them can answer except the one who is inspired by the Holy Spirit, namely Peter, who named the true identity of Christ by the power not of flesh and blood: “You are the Christ, the Son of God.” Only in union with Peter, that there is a guarantee that one will never err in Christ’s identity. If one is to appreciate this profession of Christological identity by Peter, one should consider the great leap of faith of this Jew who sees in Jesus the appearance of a poor fisherman and yet declared him to be the Son of God. It takes grace for a Jew to understand the harmony between God’s transcendence and immanence at the same time. It takes grace to understand the mystery of the Incarnation as the key to Christ’s true identity.

What is the point of the apparent acrobat of words and concepts? Some enemies of metaphysics get rid of it because they claimed that it is irrelevant in one’s practical lives. Little that they know that specific relevance of something presupposes understanding of what that thing is. Jesus’ claim of divinity professed by Peter has a radical ramification in our lives. First, all the teachings of Christ has an absolute and infallible character if He is divine. His teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, the sacredness of human life, the dignity of the human person, the existence of eternity, of heaven and hell, of the supernatural character of the Church-- all these would require absolute acceptance on our part if we accept and believe his divinity. He is not just one of the gurus who can err. He is divine who is supreme wisdom himself.

The second implication of Christ’s identity as divine has something to do with his redemptive mission. There is always a religious search, almost instinctual, in every man, whether conscious or unconscious, of the need to be redeemed. The redeemer that one makes for himself depends on the type of bondage he believes he needs to be redeemed from. A religion who claims that it is ignorance that enslaves man will resort to a guru that illuminates and teaches; a religion who claims that slavery is political and economic would advocate a political redeemer. But as the prophet Zechariah in the reading today foretold the work of the redeemer for the House of Israel, he indicated that slavery is not political or economic or mere ignorance, but moral and religious. “They will look on the one whom they have pierced... and a fountain will be opened for the House of Israel for sin and impurity.” Only one who is divine can satisfy the infinite debt caused by sin. This underscores the exclusivity of Christ as redeemer without whom, no one can be saved.

The third practical implication is the summon to discipleship. Note that Christ’s condition for his disciples if they are worthy to follow him is that of self-denial, cross-bearing and following in his footsteps. He never required that his disciples should have doctorates in philosophy or theology. And yet such demand presupposes profession of his divinity. Only the divine can redeem; only those who share in the redemption through the cross can be divinized. The identity of Christian discipleship is a living paradox as the master of Christianity is himself a sign of contradiction. The failure of the world to understand the true identity both of Christ and his followers is caused by an attempt to divorce them from the mystery of the Cross. Flight from the cross, in a certain sense, causes identity crisis.

+ May the Lord give you his peace.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed