Pastor's Page:
On his 4th Anniversary: John Paul II’s Legacy - The Face of Jesus

In the long running Broadway hit musical, Les Miserables, love and forgiveness are central themes.
Eponine and Valjean’s love duet states that “to love another person is to see the face of God” and at the finale the entire cast triumphantly joins in the lyrics.

Christians have seen the face of the God who has shown himself as love, not only in the covenant
established with our spiritual fathers and mothers in the faith, the Jewish people, but in the new covenant
ratified in the blood of the new Passover lamb, Jesus Christ. “For God so loved the world that he gave his
only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3.16)

The mystical spirituality of Pope John Paul often refers to the face of Jesus that we must discover in the
Sacred Scriptures and the sacraments of the Church, especially the Eucharist. For the purpose of the Church is to assist each person in their hunger to find Christ and walk with him.
For this pope the ‘kingdom of God’ is fundamentally a personal and ongoing relationship with Jesus, the
human face of God. By extension each human being is the face of Jesus. God has broken into the world in the
person of Jesus and the reign of God is at hand. Now God has become human, one of us, and we have almost
become God. The face of God, for John Paul, is the human person. This is the mystery that he explores in
much of his writings.

St. Paul in his first letter to the early Christian community in Corinth, upbraids them for their divisiveness.
Instead of recognizing their equality in the Lord, church members are divided between the wealthy and
the poorer Christians when they gather for the Eucharist. The rich are ready to find the risen Christ in the
shared meal of bread and wine, but fail dismally to discover the Lord in the poorer worshipers who lack
necessities. They have lost sight of the divine face in the human person.

St. Augustine, writing in the fifth century to newly baptized adults, exhorts them to remember that they are
the Body of Christ and that their mystery is placed on the altar together with the gifts: “Be what you see and
receive what you are.” They are to hold fast to the mystery!

The council document on the liturgy relates that there are four modes of Christ’s real presence
during the Mass: the Word of God, the Bread and the Wine, the Assembly, and the Presider.
Jesus Christ is truly, actually, really present to us in all four modes. All reveal the face of Christ.
The Assembly of believers are to engage themselves in full, active, conscious participation in the work of
the Mass. Although there are minutes of quiet contemplation during the celebration, the liturgy as a whole is
one of audible song, praise, and prayer of the believers and led by the Presider.

When we participate in the work of the Mass it is not boring unless we are boring. If children find
Mass boring is it because the adults in the church are clearly passive, and not involved in the singing of songs,
the responses, and the prayers? Remember, you are being watched!

Everyone at Mass is to consider him or herself a leader in worship, with a personal responsibility for
the ‘success’ of the Mass. By praying the prayers loud and clear, we create an atmosphere of hospitality. And
we give witness to our faith to the people around us, who may badly need that witness. We can and do
awaken faith in one another, and lead one another in our transformation into Christ, the face of God; our face,
the human person made in the image of our Creator.

Peace and love,
Fr. Bruce