Jesus Christ Is Unique and Unrepeatable

Today I am using my weekly space in El Universal to share part of the homily given last Palm Sunday in the Cathedral of Caracas by the leading representative of our Holy Catholic Church in Venezuela, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino. It is a very timely homily for explaining to Venezuelans the meaning of Holy Week and of the Year of Faith, and for making clear that Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, cannot be compared with any earthly leader.

The Cardinal recalled that this Holy Week falls in the Year of Faith, rightly convened by the beloved Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, to whom he renewed his affection and gratitude for his extraordinary work at the head of the Church, and he gave thanks to God for our new Pope, the Holy Father Francis, recently elected to shepherd the Catholic Church throughout the world, expressing our union with him and obedience as faithful children of the Church. The Year of Faith, he explained, was convened so that we Christians, we Catholics, might renew, know, live, celebrate and proclaim with greater strength and faithfulness our faith in Jesus, our Divine Savior: an invitation from God, through Pope Benedict, to feel the joy, enthusiasm and pride of being Catholic.

The account of Christ’s Passion, he said, awakens in us a more intense response of faith. The one who was put to death for proclaiming his divinity, who suffered the unspeakable torment of the cross after cruel and inhuman torture, is not just anyone: not simply a leader or a great man of humanity, not a social activist. No, he said, Jesus of Nazareth is much more. He is God himself made man, sent by our loving heavenly Father to reveal to us the immensity of his love and to teach us the way of a serene, upright, holy, peaceful and happy life, so that, freed from sin and every kind of evil and ignorance, we may attain happiness and eternal salvation.

He recalled that Saint Paul proclaims it openly in the Letter to the Philippians: “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father!” (Phil 2:11). When Saint Paul said “Jesus is Lord,” he was saying that Jesus is God, since that is the meaning of the word Kyrios, Lord, in the religious language of the Old and New Testaments. That, he said, is the core, the center of our faith: that the one sent by God to lead us to fullness of life, beginning here on earth and for all eternity, is his only-begotten Son, the second person of the Most Holy Trinity, God himself made man, who took on our human nature in everything except sin.

Jesus Christ, the Cardinal insisted, is not just anyone: not a prophet like those of the Old Testament, not a great saint like Saint Joseph, Saint Paul, Saint Anthony, Saint Ignatius of Loyola or Saint John Bosco, not a chief, strongman or benefactor of nations. He is God himself, incarnate, made like us except in sin, to raise us to the wonderful condition of children of God. That is why, although Jesus Christ entered history, he belongs to a sphere, a level, that is higher and entirely different from that of the heroes or leaders of history: a supernatural, transcendent, religious level. Therefore no hero, human leader or ruler can be equated with Jesus Christ or given religious worship as Jesus Christ is. We cannot equate the supernatural and religious sphere with the natural, earthly and socio-political one, and it is very important that we keep this in mind and say so, rejecting any leveling of Jesus Christ with human personalities. In his words: “JESUS IS UNIQUE AND UNREPEATABLE. HE IS GOD HIMSELF, THE ONLY ONE WE CAN WORSHIP.”

If you would like to read the full homily, you can find it at www.arquidiocesisdecaracas.com.

I wish you all a truly holy Holy Week, if you’ll pardon the redundancy. And remember: we Catholics must always defend the Truth and our faith, with great fortitude and joy.