
<p>Maybe it's my own failsafe and defense mechanism, but I always do tend to go for the philosophical mystical answers first: Paul's definition from Colossians comes to mind immediately: "You are the one in whom the fullness of the godhead dwelt bodily." Or John's prologue: "You are the Word, the Logos, the very intelligence principle of the universe made flesh" that the contemplative tradition can interpret to mean that Jesus is the very ground of consciousness. Martin Laird says when Paul looks inside himself he no longer sees Paul but he sees Christ, "... I no longer who live but Christ who lives in me..." This is Christ as awareness itself, the very ground of consciousness. Or there is the Teilhardian answer, a favorite of mine these days, that Christ is not only the summit of the evolutionary trajectory, but Christ is also the source of it, the energy behind it, both pulling us to himself and pushing toward our end, "He holds all things together in himself."</p>
<p>It's only then that I go to the more personal and I think of the people I love the most in my life and I remember how they keep unfolding for me, how each of us is a mystery. I thought I knew you and then something happens, a crack in the façade maybe, or a moment of crisis in which you show your true mettle, for better or for worse, or I suddenly catch you in an unguarded moment, un-self-conscious and unguarded, and I see you in your innocent joy or in your woundedness and I realize how each person is a fathomless mystery. The people we love keep revealing themselves over and over, it's like peeling an onion. And it is the same with Jesus. I have been hanging around him for several decades now, and still every now and then I get these moments when I say, "Oh, wow, I never noticed that about you before." And sometimes I get scared and run away as his disciples did often and other times I love Jesus more deeply and more committedly.</p>
<p>But there is a third answer to this question that comes up especially these days, a very practical one, the answer that Mother Teresa, Pope Francis and Saint Vincent de Paul (whose feast day was September 27) would probably give instinctively. They find Christ in the poor, in the other. Saint Vincent's spirituality was totally based on meeting Christ in the needs of others. Mother Teresa spoke of Christ "in disguise in the poor." And this is not just a metaphor! This is taking very literally what Jesus says of himself, "whatever you do for the least of these you do for me." The connection of course with today's gospel (Lk 9:18-22) is how Matthew, Mark and Luke all add on the warning that Jesus' glory is predicated on his suffering and being rejected, or, as Paul sings, in him emptying himself of self. The glory and the humility, the power and the utter poverty always go hand in hand in the Christian dispensation. Jesus had absolutely no problem associating himself with the utterly abject, and is not in the least bit squeamish hanging out with the utterly rejected; as a matter of fact he seems to prefer it! And this is the sign of true spiritual greatness, not the glory but the humility. We must never forget this! It is absolutely essential to the Christian way.</p>
<p>This was also some of the brilliance of the Vincentians who from the first hour, were founded to serve the poor and form the clergy. Now, there's a good combination, two things that belong together, as the opening prayer for the feast of Saint Vincent recalls: "...relief of the poor and formation of the clergy"! All of my philosophical answers don't matter much if they don't resolve themselves in meeting Christ in his disguise in the lonely and the poor, in the other. All my falling in love must ultimately be procreative if it is to prove itself as real love and move beyond the love nest of the honeymoon. "All rules end in charity," Saint Vincent said. But ironically, when we see in the face of the poor, of another, the beautiful face of Jesus, then we become the face of Christ to them. And so, where is Christ not? And old song we used to sing by Tom Conry went like this: "We are called, we are chosen, / we are Christ to one another..."</p>
<p>Who do I say that you are? You are the sum of all these mystical philosophical teachings, and I find you in the still small voice. You are my Lord whom I love and adore. You are in the face of my brother and my sister, the poor and the needy, all those I am called to serve. And I look in the mirror and I see your face too: I am your feet, your lips, your hands––your presence in the world.</p>
<p>And so (again as the opening prayer for Saint Vincent prays), we pray that we, "afire with the same spirit that animated Vincent de Paul..., would love what he loved and put into practice what he taught," in the name of Jesus, the Christ of God.</p>
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