The following essay is an excerpt from the forthcoming book Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Meditations on Christian Discipleship by Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis.
A theologian of our time tells us that “our dialogue with God is of a precarious nature; it is really just compensating for our lack of deeper communication and understanding with God. If we had never sinned, then loving God and responding to God’s words would be something natural for us.”
It is precisely after that original sin is committed that God asks the question, “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:9). And so begins the history of this dialogue we call prayer. In prayer God makes it possible for us to draw close to God once again, for it is God who asks for us, it is God who calls out to us. We have seen in earlier reflections that this drawing close can happen only by way of the flesh: the Good Samaritan “approached” the beaten man (Luke 10:29-37), and the very Word of God drew close to us by “becoming flesh” (John 1:14).
When the Word of God draws close to us, we see the essence of obedience. The letter to the Philippians says, “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6-8).
The letter to the Hebrews quotes Psalm 40 to show how this same obedience applies also to the incarnation: “Then I said, ‘See, I have come to do your will, O God’ (in the scroll of the book it is written of me)” (Heb. 10:7). This is the obedience of Abraham’s “Here I am!” (Gen. 22:1-3), which reaches its culmination in the cry of Jesus in Gethsemane: “Yet, not what I want, but what you want” (Mark 14:36). Continue reading
Sources
- U.S. Catholic
- Image: VEYO