RonRolheiser,OMI

The Person of Jesus and the Mystery of Christ

March 17, 2025

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I was raised a Roman Catholic and essentially inhaled the religious ethos of Roman Catholicism. I went to the seminary, earned theological degrees, and taught theology at a graduate level for a number of years before I ever started making a distinction between ‘Jesus’ and ‘Christ’. For me, they were always one and the same thing, Jesus Christ.

To my mind, Jesus Christ was the second person of the Trinity who took on flesh in the incarnation and is still now our God, our advocate, and our friend in heaven. I didn’t distinguish between Jesus and Christ in terms of whom I was praying to, speaking about, or relating to. Indeed, for many years in my writings, I simply used the words Jesus and Christ interchangeably.

Slowly through the years this changed and I have begun to distinguish more between Jesus and Christ. It began with a deepened understanding of what the Gospels and St. Paul mean by the reality of Christ as a mystery which, while always having Jesus as its center, is larger than the historical Jesus. This distinction and its importance became clearer to me when I began to have more contact with Evangelicals, both as students and as colleagues.

In faith fellowship with various groups of Evangelicals, I began to see that one of the ecclesial differences between us, Evangelicals and Roman Catholics, is that we, Roman Catholics, while not ignoring Jesus, are very much about Christ, and Evangelicals, while not ignoring Christ, are very much about Jesus.

How we understand the church, how we understand the Eucharist, and how we understand the primary invitation given us in the Gospels are colored by how we perceive ourselves in relationship to Jesus and to Christ.

What’s at stake here?

What’s the difference between saying ‘Jesus’ and saying ‘Christ’? Is there any difference between praying to Jesus and praying to Christ, between relating to Jesus or relating to Christ?

There’s a difference, an important one. Christ is not Jesus’ second name – as in Jack Smith, Susan Parker, or Jesus Christ. While it is correct to use the two names together, as we do commonly in our prayer (We pray through Jesus Christ, Our Lord), there is an important distinction to be made.

Jesus is a person, the second person in the Trinity, the divine person who became incarnate, and the person who calls us to one-to-one intimacy with him. Christ is a mystery of which we are a part. The mystery of Christ includes the person of Jesus but also includes us. We are not part of the body of Jesus, but we are part of the body of Christ.

As Christians we believe that Jesus is the body of Christ, that the Eucharist is the body of Christ, and that we, baptized Christians, are also the body of Christ. Saint Paul states clearly that we, the Christian community, are the body of Christ on earth, just as Jesus and the Eucharist are the body of Christ. And Paul means this literally. We (the Christian community) are not like a body, or some mystical or metaphorical body; nor do we represent or replace Christ’s body. Rather, we are the body of Christ on earth, still giving physical flesh to God on earth.

This has implications for Christian discipleship: Jesus is a person, the person who invites us to one-to-one intimacy with him (which Evangelicals see as the goal of Christian discipleship). Christ is part of a larger mystery which includes Jesus but also includes each of us. In this mystery we are called to intimacy not just with Jesus, but also with each other and with physical creation. In Christ, the goal of Christian discipleship is community of life with Jesus, with each other, and with physical creation (since the mystery of Christ is also cosmic).

At the risk of huge oversimplification, allow me a suggestion: Roman Catholics and Evangelicals can learn from each other on this.

From our Evangelical brothers and sisters, Roman Catholics can learn to focus as much on Jesus as we do on Christ, so that like Evangelicals we might realize more explicitly (as is clear in the Gospel of John) that at the very heart of Christian discipleship lies the invitation to a one-to-one intimacy with a person, Jesus, (and not just with a mystery).

Conversely, Evangelicals can learn from Roman Catholics to focus as much on Christ as on Jesus, with all this implies in terms of defining discipleship more widely than personal intimacy with Jesus and church more widely than simple fellowship. Relating to Christ points to the centrality of the Eucharist as a communal event. As well, it implies seeing Christian discipleship not just as an invitation to intimacy with Jesus, but as an incorporation into an ecclesial body which includes not just Jesus but the community of all believers as well as nature itself.

We can learn from each other to take both Jesus and Christ more seriously.

Casting out Demons Through Silence

March 10, 2025

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There is an incident in the Gospels where the disciples of Jesus were unable to cast out a particular demon. When they asked Jesus why, he replied that some demons can only be cast out by prayer. The particular demon he was referring in this instance had rendered a man deaf and mute.

I want to name another demon which seemingly cannot be cast out except by prayer, namely, the demon that forever fractures our personal relationships, families, communities, and churches through misunderstanding and division, making it forever difficult to be in life-giving community with each other.

What particular prayer is needed to cast out this demon? The prayer of a shared silence, akin to a Quaker Silence.

What is a Quaker Silence?  

A tiny bit of history first: Quakers are a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations whose members refer to each other as Friends but are generally called Quakers because of a famous statement once made by their founder, George Fox (1624-1691). Legend has it that in the face of some authority figures who were trying to intimidate him, Fox held up his Bible and said: This is the word of God, quake before it!

For the Quakers, particularly early on, their common prayer consisted mainly in sitting together in community in silence, waiting for God to speak to them. They would sit together in silence, waiting on God’s power to come and give them something that they could not give themselves, namely, real community with each other beyond the divisions that separated them. Though they sat individually, their prayer was radically communal. They were sitting as one body, waiting together for God to give them a unity they could not give themselves.

Might this be a practice that we, Christians of every denomination, could practice today in the light of the helplessness we feel in the face of division everywhere (in our families, in our churches, and in our countries)? Given that, as Christians, we are at root one community inside the Body of Christ, a single organic body where physical distance does not really separate us, might we begin as a regular prayer practice to sit with each other in a Quaker Silence, one community, sitting in silence, waiting together, waiting for God to come and give us community that we are powerless to give ourselves?

Practically, how might this be done? Here’s a suggestion: each day set aside a time to sit in silence, alone or ideally with others, for a set period of time (fifteen to twenty minutes) where the intent, unlike in private meditation, is not first of all to nurture your personal intimacy with God, but rather to sit together in community with everyone inside the Body of Christ (and with all sincere persons everywhere) asking God to come and give us communion beyond division.

This could also be a powerful ritual in marriage and in family life. Perhaps one of the most healing therapies inside of a marriage might be for a couple to sit together regularly in a silence, asking God to give them something that they cannot give themselves, namely, an understanding of each other beyond the tensions of everyday life. I remember as a child, praying the rosary together as a family each evening and that ritual having the effect of a Quaker Silence. It calmed the tensions that had built up during the day and left us feeling more peaceful as a family.

I use the term Quaker Silence, but there are various forms of meditation and contemplation which have the same intentionality. For example, the founder of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (the religious order I belong to), Saint Eugene de Mazenod, left us a prayer practice he called Oraison. This is its intention: as Oblates we are meant to live together in community, but we are a worldwide congregation scattered over sixty countries around the world. How can we be in community with each other across distance?

Through the practice of Oraison. Saint Eugene asked us to set aside a half hour each day to sit in a silence that is intended to be a time when we are not just in communion with God but are also intentionally in communion with all Oblates around the world. Akin to a Quaker Silence, it is a prayer wherein each person sits alone, in silence, but in community, asking God to form one community across all distances and differences. When Jesus says some demons are only cast out by prayer, he means it. And perhaps the demon to which this most particularly refers is the demon of misunderstanding and division. We all know how powerless we are to cast it out. Sitting in a communal silence, asking God to do something for us beyond our powerlessness, can exorcise the demon of misunderstanding and division.

Dark Nights of the Heart

March 3, 2025

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There are times when our world unravels. Who hasn’t had the feeling? “I’m falling apart! This is beyond me! My heart is broken! I feel betrayed by everything! Nothing makes sense anymore! Life is upside down!”

Jesus had a cosmic image for this. In the Gospels, he talks about how the world as we experience it will someday end: “The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give forth its light, stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken.” When Jesus says this, he is not talking as much about cosmic cataclysms as of cataclysms of the heart. Sometimes our inner world is shaken, turned upside down; it gets dark in the middle of the day, there’s an earthquake in the heart; we experience the end of the world as we’ve known it.

However, in this upheaval, Jesus assures us that one thing remains sure: God’s promise of fidelity. That doesn’t get turned upside down and in our disillusionment we are given a chance to see what really is of substance, permanent, and worthy of our lives. Thus, ideally at least, when our trusted world is turned upside down, we are given the chance to grow, to become less selfish, and to see reality more clearly.

Christian mystics call this “a dark night of the soul” and they express it as if God were actively turning our world upside down and deliberately causing all the heartache to purge and cleanse us.

The great Spanish mystic John of the Cross puts it this way: God gives us seasons of fervor and then takes them away. In our seasons of fervor, God gives us consolation, pleasure, and security inside our relationships, our prayer, and our work (sometimes with considerable passion and intensity). This is a gift from God and is meant to be enjoyed. But John tells us, at a certain point, God takes away the pleasure and consolation and we experience a certain dark night in that where we once felt fire, passion, consolation, and security, we will now feel dryness, boredom, disillusion, and insecurity. For John of the Cross, all honeymoons eventually end.

Why? Why would God do this? Why can’t a honeymoon last forever?

Because eventually, though not initially, it blocks us from seeing straight. Initially all those wonderful feelings we feel when we first fall in love, when we first begin to pray deeply, and when we first begin to find our legs in the world. These are part of God’s plan and God’s way of drawing us forward. The passion and consolation we feel help lead us out of ourselves, beyond fear and selfishness. But, eventually, the good feelings themselves become a problem because we can get hung up on them rather than on what’s behind them.

Honeymoons are wonderful; but, on a honeymoon, too often we are more in love with being in love and all the wonderful energy this creates than we are in love with the person behind all those feelings. The same is true for faith and prayer. When we first begin to pray seriously, we are often more in love with the experience of praying and what it’s doing for us than we are in love with God. On any honeymoon, no matter how intense and pure the feelings seem, those feelings are still partly about ourselves rather than purely about the person we think we love. Sadly, that is why many a warm, passionate honeymoon eventually turns into a cold, passionless relationship.

Until we are purified, and we are purified precisely through dark nights of disillusionment, we are too much still seeking ourselves in love and in everything else. Therese of Lisieux used to warn: “Be careful not to seek yourself in love, you’ll end up with a broken heart that way!” We’d have fewer heartaches if we understood that. Also, before we are purified by disillusionment, most of the tears we shed, no matter how real the pain or loss, often say more about us than they say about the person or situation we are supposedly mourning.

In all this, there’s both bad news and good news: The bad news is that most everything we sense as precious will someday be taken from us. Everything gets crucified, including every feeling of warmth and security we have. But the good news is that it will all be given back again, more deeply, more purely, and even more passionately than before.

What dark nights of the soul, cataclysms of the heart, do is to take away everything that feels like solid earth so that we end up in a free-fall, unable to grab on to anything that once supported us. But, in falling, we get closer to bedrock, to God, to reality, to truth, to love, to each other, beyond illusions, beyond selfishness, and beyond self-interested love that can masquerade as altruism. Clarity in eyesight comes after disillusionment, purity of heart comes after heartbreak, and real love comes after the honeymoon has passed.

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