To answer Christ’s question well requires repentance and faith. It is a temptation to turn Christ into our ideal self, justifying our hopes and dreams and lending them ultimate authority. There is the danger of reducing Christ to a proponent or exemplar of a vision we find more plausible or pleasurable. There looms the temptation to resist conversion and to domesticate Christ. The answer demands our conversion.īut for this reason answering this question is fraught with danger. It reveals the source and purpose, the character and composure, of everything, most especially ourselves. The answer to the question gives us far more than just the identity of a particular human being. It is daunting because it involves the discovery of the One who created us and gives us all things. “only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light.” 22Īnswering Christ’s question is both daunting and dangerous. It is a question even more important and fundamental than the question: Who am I? For as Gaudium et Spes says: This question is the most important, the most urgent, the most life-changing question that can be asked. What will they say about Christ if they are interrogated? What will they say about him when they are asked about him after his death? Will his death change their understanding of and obedience to him? As Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees was intensifying and as he was preparing his apostles to understand his crucifixion, he asked them: Who do you say I am? The context further reveals that he was trying to discern whether or not, after his departure, his apostles would feed his people the Word of God or become like the Pharisees who distort the Scriptures.
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