We cannot proceed from the perspective of a battle that has not already been won. All our cultural activities, whatever form, shape, topic they take, should have as a point of departure our own conviction, our own certainty that the cultural battle, if I may put it that way, has already been won by Christ….
If this is in any way, shape, or form true (and again we are in the midst of a season that proclaims its truth everywhere), then what are we afraid of? We are not engaged in any cultural battle because that battle has been won. All we have to do is give witness to that victory. But we cannot give convincing witness unless we experience the reality of that victory within our own lives and heart. Otherwise it is just words….
The real struggle begins in the heart, and so we must ask ourselves the question: Am I prepared to say before the evidence of my own heart that this is true, that Christ has indeed conquered? That the new life that he has made possible, totally unimaginable and unforeseen, is a reality? That I can have certain access to it? That it doesn’t depend on my moods and emotions, but that there are objective moments in space and time called the sacraments in which I come into contact with this new way of life, new way of thinking, new way of making judgments, new experiences of what is real? That that is not left to my intellectual efforts or capacities, but that it is pointed out to me in a simple baptism by the Church? That every Mass and any sacrament is like the sign at the house of Mary in Nazareth that has the well-known proclamation of the Gospel, Verbum caro factum est, “the Word became flesh,” but in that place there’s one little word added to it that’s different—hic, namely “here.” “Here the Word became flesh.” “Here.”
Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete
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