The New Christians

by Fr. Michael Quoist

Are we witnessing the birth of a new kind of Christianity? No doubt we are. Humanity is in the process of evolution, of mutation. Our discoveries astonish us. We have made ourselves master of atomic energy and, like every other conquest of a form of energy, this victory signals a veritable leap forward in our domination over nature.

        Now electronic computers give us answers that it would otherwise take years, or a lifetime, to calculate. These machines, more efficient than the combined effort of thousands of human brains, control—and will control more and more as time goes on—our progress.  We are beginning to explore the universe itself as a prelude to taking possession of it. Our power over life is growing, and the time will come when, having reached its very source, we will be able to control it, protect it, and prolong it more and more.
         In the final analysis, today, even more than yesterday, we must be aware of others in the human family. We can no longer ignore others in the human family. Everywhere, regardless of social class, nation, and race, we are growing; everywhere we are becoming conscious of our human dignity; we are shaking off the chains of servitude; we are reaching up to, and demanding, total development of the human family.

Nothing, or no one, will be able to prevent this radical transformation of the world. The striving of the peoples of the world, their battles--the blood that they shed throughout the world for their freedom, is a tidal wave on the ocean of humanity. It is an immense and sorrowful sigh from a body which only yesterday had not been fully born but which today, in all its members, demands that it be allowed to live in the full light of day.

Those who live, and will live, in this new world will have a life very different from that of our predecessors-even our immediate predecessors. And the Christian of today, who belongs to this mutating of humans and who, with humanity, explores these new paths, will not be able to live their Christianity except within the framework of these new developments.

The grace of Christ must inevitably lead us to a new form of contemplation, to new prayers, to new commitments; that is, to a new form of the Christian life. Today's Christian will not live as did yesterday's Christian. We cannot, and we do not wish to. We must not.

The Church, the People of God, is also going forward in time. Certainly, she has received from Jesus Christ, once and for all time, the inexhaustible treasury of Revelation. But the Church, on the one hand, must never cease exploring that treasury, in the diversity of its means, in order to be able to live in the today of her history. On the other hand, the Church, conscious of the requirements of human life at a particular moment in time, and studying that life in a spirit of love, must make it her task to shed light on whatever aspects of the Mystery of Christ are needed to enable us to live in our time.

We are at the confluence of two worlds; we are at the dawn of a new age of humanity. And so the Church led by the Holy Spirit felt the need to gather in Council in order to study her very nature, so as to emerge renewed and cleansed of that human dross which has weighed her down, dimmed her glory, and stifled the Word. Then, looking upon the world, the Church has set about the chore of studying those existential relations with which the Christian, by our very nature, binds us to her, so as to guide us on the road of history. For that history is the stuff of which is made the history of the Kingdom itself.

We Christians, however, have need of more than light to find our way. We need a witness to travel with us and guide us. The Holy Spirit, who has raised up saints for every age, also raises up everyday saints; and these saints are visible signs of Jesus’ love for his people. It is their way of living Christ today that, little by little, initiates us into a spirituality for the people of our time.

When we say that new "Witnesses" are needed for our time, it is not a matter of calling into question the value of the Christian life of yesterday. That life, that way of living Christ, was a sign for the contemporaries of our predecessors; but it cannot remain such for us today. On the contrary, certain attitudes and certain approaches, if they remain clothed in the forms of the past, will become "counter witnesses."

Charity, for example, will always remain charity: "Love one another as I have loved you." But the road that leads from Jerusalem to Jericho has been extended to the ends of the earth. Our neighbors are now not only those who live in our vicinity, but also those of our social class, of our ethnic group, of our country, and of all the intermediate human groups to which we belong. Would the black man in America really be loving his neighbor if he contented himself with caring for the wounds of his brother and did not fight with all his strength for the liberation of all the people of his race? Would the laborer really be loving his neighbor if he were willing to lend an associate some money "untill payday," but did not join the battle for a living wage and social justice?

To be sure, charity remains the same in its source, which is the infinite love of Jesus. But charity today must be lived differently from what it was yesterday. To old-fashioned charity a new dimension must be added: that by virtue of which such people are reached through the intermediary of socialized structures.

It is often said that "modern man" is a non-believer, that he rejects God. That may be. But too often the God that modern man rejects, the God that many believe to be the God of the Christians, is only a caricature. Somewhere, there has been a terrible misunderstanding. We Christians have expressed ourselves very badly. We have lived badly. We have not made ourselves understood. We did not have enough interpreters capable of translating into living language the eternal Word, which is intended for everyone. Jesus Christ came among us, and "his own knew him not"--because we have too often exiled God from our company, from the very life that Jesus came to participate in. Instead of living his message every day, we relegated him to Sunday and for many who profess themselves to be Christian, not even to them.

The Holy Spirit, nonetheless, continues to work in our heart. He still prepares everyone for the coming of the Savior. He is present in our highest aspirations, of races and peoples today. And even if the latter, proud and impatient as rebellious adolescents who reject their fathers, reject—for the moment, at least, both the false god of materialism and the living God of love, then let us have sense enough to realize (and patience and faith enough to believe) that we are experiencing merely a crisis of growth. It is a crisis that will resolve itself if only we are able, not to condemn, but to love.

For today's Christians to be intelligible signs of love-charity to their contemporaries, we must, in the midst of the changing world, translate the eternal love of Jesus into our actions and become the new Christians. While we must change our methods of translating his message of love, the message remains the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Condensed from Christ is Alive! By Fr. Michael Quoist. © 1971 Doubleday & Co, Inc., Garden City , New York, translated by J. F. Bernard. Originally published in France by Les Editons Ouvrières, Paris, under the title Le Christ Est Vivant, © Michael Quoist, 1970.