The existence of Christ as an exemplary existence
reaches its high point when he is opened out on the cross. This is why he can then say, announcing his
death and explaining it: I go away and I
come back to you (Jn 14.28). It is
as if he were saying: ‘By my going away the wall of my existence, which at
present hems me in, is broken open.
Therefore, this event of my going away is my true coming to you because,
through it, I fully actualize what I truly am: namely, the One who incorporates
everyone into the unity of my new being, which is not a barrier but unity
itself.’
On the cross, the outspread arms of the Crucified
show him to be an adorer; but, at the same time, that gesture gives a new
dimension to adoration and defines the specifically Christian glorification of
God. These open arms are the expression
of perfect adoration precisely because they express Christ’s total surrender of
himself to human beings. These open arms
are the gesture of embracing, of total and undivided fraternity. From the standpoint of the cross, the
theology of the Fathers found in the Christian gesture of praying with
outspread arms the perfect symbol for the concurrence
of adoration and fraternity, a symbol that represents the inseparability of
service to humankind and glorification of God.
To be a Christian essentially means to transition
from being-for-oneself to being-for-one-another. But no form of self-transcending by human beings
can ever suffice by itself. The person
who wants only to give and is not prepared to receive, the person who only
wants to be for others and refuses to recognize that he or she, too, derives
his or her life from the unexpected and unprocurable self-giving of others:
this person misconceives the fundamental principle of being human and, therefore,
cannot help destroying the true meaning of being-for-one-another. If it is to be fruitful, every form of
self-transcendence requires also the capacity to receive from others, in the
final instance to receive from the Other—from
him who is truly the Other of all humankind and is, at the same time, One with
it: namely, the God-Man Jesus Christ.
Detail of painting by Safet Zec. Text: Joseph
Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity (II, i, iv, Exc., 2)
