Christ in Many Guises
As a Benedictine dedicated to a life of contemplation and searching for God, I have always found dialogue with other religious traditions at the very heart of this ongoing search, despite the fact that I have had hardly any opportunities for personal contact with members of other faiths. It all began long ago in the novitiate when on a free day I chanced to pick up a copy of the Bhagavad Gita and became so engrossed that I read it from cover to cover. To my surprise it was real spiritual reading. I sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit in the text just as I would have in our own Scriptures, and I was filled with a desire to understand better the working of this Spirit outside my own Church, and beyond that to discover and be part of what I sensed was a basic unity underlying and sustaining all reality. I somehow realized that contemplative prayer, which allows one to go beyond concepts and doctrines, was a way in.
There was also, rightly or wrongly, a strong missionary element involved at this time. I had already discovered that, for me at least, the most effective way to be a missionary was the practice of contemplative prayer that, transcending the barriers of time and place, takes one to the heart of all reality—the best place from which to intercede. The missionary impulse springs from the fact that as Christians we believe we are in possession of a priceless treasure, a gift of salvation and life so wonderful that we want to share it with all humankind, and are in fact commanded to do so by the Lord (Matthew 28:19).
And what, after all, is salvation? If it is so vital and the Church is authorized to dispense it, how will all these others be saved? To penetrate more deeply into this and similar questions is our task in theology in the light of Nostra Aetate of Vatican II. We have already had notable pioneers. I think of Abhishiktananda (Dom Henri Le Saux), the Christian monk who in his life and writings revealed the riches of Hinduism, Raimundo Panikkar and his Unknown Christ of Hinduism, Karl Rahner’s seminal essay Anonymous Christians (Theological Investigations, vol. 6), and more recently Jacques Dupuis’ great work, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism.
What I have found helpful is Paul’s constant reference to the great musterion (mystery), which can be summed up as his belief that God wills all people to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). It is the great mystery of salvation, described in Ephesians 1, which was hidden through the ages but is now revealed in Christ Again in First Corinthians he speaks of the hidden wisdom of God predestined for our glory before the ages began, which none of the rulers of the age understood but is now given to us in the Holy Spirit (2:6ff). And in Colossians he speaks of the “mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations, but now has been revealed to his saints…Christ in you, the hope of glory” (1:26-27). It is abundantly clear that Paul is vividly aware of the hidden presence of Christ through the ages before his Incarnation. By analogy he must be present now in ways and places that are not immediately evident, carrying on his saving work. My interreligious dialogue consists in learning to recognize him in many guises (see Panikkar’s Unknown Christ of Hinduism).
The Fourth Gospel is also a rich field of inspiration, perhaps because, like Paul, John was a mystic. This is immediately evident in the Prologue, which magnificently describes Christ present at the dawn of creation, giving life to everything that is and being the real inner light (even the conscience?) of everyone who is born (1:9). Again there is the sense of being in contact with the hidden unity sustaining and uniting all creation, that is, God in Christ Also the great “I am” passages in John—such as “Before Abraham was, I am”—for me transcend Christian boundaries and take me to the heart of dialogue. It seems to be echoed, for instance, in the Bhagavad Gita, which says: “Thou art the Imperishable, the highest end of Knowledge, the support of this vast universe. Thou art the everlasting ruler of this law of righteousness, the spirit who is and was at the beginning.”
There was also, rightly or wrongly, a strong missionary element involved at this time. I had already discovered that, for me at least, the most effective way to be a missionary was the practice of contemplative prayer that, transcending the barriers of time and place, takes one to the heart of all reality—the best place from which to intercede. The missionary impulse springs from the fact that as Christians we believe we are in possession of a priceless treasure, a gift of salvation and life so wonderful that we want to share it with all humankind, and are in fact commanded to do so by the Lord (Matthew 28:19).
And what, after all, is salvation? If it is so vital and the Church is authorized to dispense it, how will all these others be saved? To penetrate more deeply into this and similar questions is our task in theology in the light of Nostra Aetate of Vatican II. We have already had notable pioneers. I think of Abhishiktananda (Dom Henri Le Saux), the Christian monk who in his life and writings revealed the riches of Hinduism, Raimundo Panikkar and his Unknown Christ of Hinduism, Karl Rahner’s seminal essay Anonymous Christians (Theological Investigations, vol. 6), and more recently Jacques Dupuis’ great work, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism.
What I have found helpful is Paul’s constant reference to the great musterion (mystery), which can be summed up as his belief that God wills all people to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). It is the great mystery of salvation, described in Ephesians 1, which was hidden through the ages but is now revealed in Christ Again in First Corinthians he speaks of the hidden wisdom of God predestined for our glory before the ages began, which none of the rulers of the age understood but is now given to us in the Holy Spirit (2:6ff). And in Colossians he speaks of the “mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations, but now has been revealed to his saints…Christ in you, the hope of glory” (1:26-27). It is abundantly clear that Paul is vividly aware of the hidden presence of Christ through the ages before his Incarnation. By analogy he must be present now in ways and places that are not immediately evident, carrying on his saving work. My interreligious dialogue consists in learning to recognize him in many guises (see Panikkar’s Unknown Christ of Hinduism).
The Fourth Gospel is also a rich field of inspiration, perhaps because, like Paul, John was a mystic. This is immediately evident in the Prologue, which magnificently describes Christ present at the dawn of creation, giving life to everything that is and being the real inner light (even the conscience?) of everyone who is born (1:9). Again there is the sense of being in contact with the hidden unity sustaining and uniting all creation, that is, God in Christ Also the great “I am” passages in John—such as “Before Abraham was, I am”—for me transcend Christian boundaries and take me to the heart of dialogue. It seems to be echoed, for instance, in the Bhagavad Gita, which says: “Thou art the Imperishable, the highest end of Knowledge, the support of this vast universe. Thou art the everlasting ruler of this law of righteousness, the spirit who is and was at the beginning.”
Website by Booklight, Inc. Copyright © 2013, Monastic Dialogue
