≡ Menu

Single Gaze

In this particular quote which I’ve pulled from God is Near Us, then-Cardinal Ratzinger expounds on Jesus as unifier and in an indirect way, on what true unity is. As he says, true unity is with God, not with a group and thus against a different group. If true unity is unity with God, then by virtue of their unity with God those who share in that unity are in fact united with each other, though not because they intend to be united with one another.

It further reminds us of now-Pope Benedict’s continual reminder that Christianity is and must be referred to as a positive, as something that adds, not as a negative or something that removes or detracts. Through true Christian unity, that of unity with the Father through the Son by the working of the Spirit we will find that we are united in fact even if not by intent with others, united in that one gaze upon the Beatific One.

Life shared with God, eternal life within temporal life, is possible because of God’s living with us: Christ is God being here with us. In him God has time for us; he is God’s time for us and thus at the same time the opening of time into eternity. God is no longer the distant and indeterminate God to whom no bridge will reach; he is the God at hand: the Body of the Son is the bridge for our souls. Through him, each single person’s relationship with God has been blended together in his one relationship with God, so that turning one’s gaze toward God is no longer a matter of turning one’s gaze away from others and from the world, but a uniting of our gaze and of our being with the single gaze and the one being of the Son.

{ 0 comments… add one }

Leave a Comment