Edmond Grace SJ gives an answer to why is it that we make our prayers ‘through Jesus Christ’ and what does it mean to be ‘in Him’.
Can you enlighten me about something I have always found slightly irritating. At Mass we make our prayers ‘through Jesus Christ’ and in the Creed we say ‘through him all things were made.’ In the Bible many authors write about being ‘in Christ.’ I find this a very strange way of talking. I would like to hear someone explain it in a way which makes sense.
There is no denying that it is strange talk. There is no other person about whom we use the words ‘through him’ and ‘in him.’ We do talk about being ‘with’ someone. We even talk about doing something ‘in union with’ or ‘in association with’ another person but if we were to speak about doing anything ‘in’ him or her, it would sound very odd indeed.
Furthermore, we do at times talk about obtaining something ‘through’ the efforts or goodwill of another person, but never ‘through’ that person.
Shock tactics
In John’s Gospel Jesus says: ‘The Father is in me and I am in the Father’ (10:38); and, ‘No one can come to the Father except through me’ (14:6). These words are intended to unsettle us and when you say this kind of language is ‘slightly irritating’ it is having the desired effect!
According to John’s Gospel, the people who first heard Jesus speaking in this way were so irritated by it that they wanted to arrest him! He does set out to unsettle us, because he wants to shake up our way of thinking about reality.
Weird talk
This way of talking which Jesus used can be described – with respect – as ‘weird.’ We use that word to describe anything strange and best avoided, but it originally meant ‘pertaining to the other world.’
When Jesus talks about his relationship with the Father, and our relationship with the Father, he is talking about that other world beyond our vision which, when we encounter it, can leave us confused. We can respond to this confusion either with superstitious dread or with that sense of reverence and awe which is traditionally called ‘the fear of God.’
Jesus came to reveal this other world to us. It is present all around us, the kingdom of God. He used parables to talk about it. These parables are about ordinary things and yet they speak about the deepest mysteries of life.
The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man discovers; he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field. It is like yeast which a woman mixes with three measures of flour in order to bake bread. And it is like a mustard seed, the smallest of seeds which grows into a big tree.
We have heard these parables so often that they have lost their power to shock, but they must have sounded very strange, or indeed very ‘weird’, to those who first heard them. How can realities which belong so much in this world tell us anything about that other world, in which everything seems to be so different?
The truth is that they don’t tell us eveything about those other-world realities. They don’t unravel the mysteries for us completely, but they do give us a little understanding, especially if we accept them in faith, by leading us from known realities that lie within our experience to unknown realities that lie beyond our experience.
Meaning of baptism
Returning to the main points of your question, I think you may be able to help yourself a little if you reflect again on our baptismal grace. For in that basic sacrament we are incorporated into the Community of Christ, which we call the Church, and which St Paul prefers to call the Body of Christ, in order to signify the intimate union and network of relationships that it creates. At the same time, we are incorporated into the family of Jesus, and so we receive Jesus to be our brother, we receive his Father to be our Father, and we receive his Spirit to dwell in the depths of our being.
You can see then that the sacrament of baptism is trinitarian in character, but so also is the Christian life and Christian prayer.
Christian life and prayer
Through baptism the Holy Spirit inspires us to share in the vision and destiny of Jesus by living as he lived and by loving as he loved. In that way, and in that way only, we are drawn to the Father.
Again, in prayer, it is the Holy Spirit who inspires us to talk to God with the confidence that characterises his children and to do so according to the pattern of the Lord’s prayer. Once we respond to the impulse of the Spirit, Jesus comes to pray with us and carry our concerns to the Father.
The three persons of the Trinity are involved in every aspect of the Christian life, although it is neither necessary nor normally possible for us to be conscious of this. Furthermore, in this wonderful movement that leads us from the Holy Spirit, through Christ, to the Father, Christ is seen as exercising a central role, for he is the one mediator between God and man.
It should not surprise us, then, when the Bible (and the liturgy) resort to the use of prepositions such as, ‘with’, ‘in’ and ‘through’, for they are trying to express in human langauge the profound Christian realities of identity, communion and mediation.
This article first appeared in the Messenger, a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
