The Word was from the Beginning

A lived faith is something that is to be listened together from one another. It is not something that is suggested or commanded. Truth is revealed in the untold pains of fragmented selves today. Christ's message is there, we can recognise this message and the person of Christ only if we are able to listen as a community. Only when the continuity through traditions meet the social consciousness of today, this listening and living of faith can be fruitful and witnessing. The revelation of Christ is recognised and lived as a community. Since we are human beings and with different cultural perspectives we may realise this presence in different ways. Perhaps this understanding may have been dominated by a western perspective. If we are to realise the unknown Christ, we must be open to the recognition made by Asian, African and many indigenous consciousness. A uniform appearance is never the nature of any form of presence in nature. The differences are not just tolerated but they are necessarily placed in mutual integration.

Christ, the wisdom of God, through whom all things were made, also has inspired cultures and civilisations. These cultures were there even before Abraham was born. They have lived well throughout the centuries according to their conscience. As any religious traditions Christianity too has religious factors which we need to acknowledge. (There are texts, institutions, and significant personalities. There is a cultural-historical context where a religion originates, develop and proceed to deeper directions). Those religious traditions also have inspirational and graceful contents just as Christianity as a religion. If someone has a claim that one has wholly understood the mystery of God and Christ and remain intolerant to others that would be a heretical attitude. We are gradually realising the revelation of Christ for us and in us, as the church, as the community of believers, community of humanity, and as community of all beings. All must be there to complete the body of Christ.

He (the Word) was from the beginning; he is the alpha and the omega. We are familiar with the Word within the annunciation-ascension setting. If Christianity is willing and open to look at the reality of the Word beyond how the Semitic cultures recognised him, it can have a new vision of Christ to come together as a community of all beings, a larger vision of the Church. The Word being the form of the universe, is showing himself in different ways in its journey, visible and unfolding. Even within the human consciousness he is revealing himself and gradually taking it to the purpose of humanity. Then in the Bread of thanksgiving we raise, we proclaim every sacrificial death that the Word unfolds in the universe.