The entire long Easter season is a very solemn thundering of majestic royal trumpets that announce a great proclamation: the glorious resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the only Savior of the world. Christ is risen! This formidable promulgation includes most especially that his triumphant resurrection demonstrates his divinity and the truth of the Christian religion, preserved in its fullness only in the Catholic, apostolic and Roman religion.
Personal belief in the divinity of Christ is not a mere opinion, it is not something comparable to other radically different beliefs.
“Christ is God” is an absolute truth. It’s not that it’s absolutely true because we say it. It is absolute truth because, regardless of everything that finite intelligences think, the reality is that Christ is God. That is reality itself.
Faith, -thanks to the Holy Spirit-, makes us know these truths with absolute, great certainty, far superior to mathematical certainties.
The public revelation of the Christian religion ended with the last apostle. This religion is, therefore, fixed, perennial and immutable.
Having ascended to heaven, Christ has left us the Church, whose head is the Pope, who faithfully guards the deposit of faith.
God, only communicate truths. Therefore, a revealed religion has nothing false in it; It only consists of truths. Because Christ is God, it is false that Christ is not God. Therefore, any doctrine is false, even if its author is an alleged founder of a religion, that denies the divinity of Christ. A false religion, however, may contain some elements of truth.
The Bible, for example, regarding idolatry, which is a different religious doctrine, does not hide the truth, it affirms that idolatry is a great sin; also that idols have eyes and do not see, they have ears and do not hear, they have smell and do not smell, etc.
Christianity, not Catholic, contains the truth of the divinity of Christ, but is wrong about the Church. Only in the Catholic religion is the fullness of Christian truth. Only in it is the fullness of the means of salvation.
Since Christ is God, he is an infinite, supreme being, absolutely superior to all. The finite, compared to the infinite, is almost worthless, it almost does not exist. Christ, because he is infinitely wise, infinitely surpasses every thinker and every religious leader. Only Christ is a teacher. The law of praying teaches with certainty that we are to believe: lex orandi, lex credendi. And, a liturgical prayer, tells us: let men understand that, without the light of Christ, all is darkness.
Christ is the only Savior. Christ is the Way. No one can go to heaven except through Christ. There is no alternative path. When someone, blamelessly ignoring the Christian religion, and being of another religion, is saved, he has not been saved apart from Christ. But, without knowing it, in the depths of his soul, in a mysterious and hidden way, he has been so converted to Christ, so united to Him, that Christ has saved him. Deep down, his soul was Christian. Everyone who is saved is through Christ. There is no other Savior. This is why conversion to the Catholic religion is so desirable.
The superiority of Christ and Christianity is not a reason for pride, since it is borrowed knowledge, a gift from God, without which we would always have ignored the great Christian mysteries.
There is harmony between truth and charity. He loves, and do what you want. Charity must serve the truth. The truth is always above the false. While the error is not to be loved, the person who has erred is to be respected and loved. Charity always unites. It is the truth in charity.
The truth does not oppose either deepening or dialogue, it encourages them. Dialogue can never sacrifice truth. No. 11 of the decree “Unitatis redintegratio” of the Second Vatican Council on ecumenism, says: Catholic doctrine must be presented fully and clearly; with all depth and accuracy.
The Christian faith, because it is the truth, does not depend on interpretations. Where there is diversity of interpretations, there is falsehood. Well, diversity contains yes and no, and contradiction is incompatible with truth. Only in unity can there be truth.
The superiority of Christ is also manifested regarding peace. Thus, a liturgical prayer says: that people see in the gospel the only way to peace and all fruitful collaboration.
The superiority of Christ is clearly exposed in the letter to the Philippians 2, 9-11: “And therefore God exalted him and gave him the name, which is above every name; so that at the name of Jesus every knee may bow in heaven, on earth and in the abysses, and every tongue may confess: ‘Jesus Christ is Lord!’, to the glory of God the Father.” Every knee, without exception, bow before Him!
In short, the Easter season, about Christ, God and man, glorious risen, Savior, king of all creation, proclaims his resurrection, affirming that he is God, that he is not; and, that, compared to other beings, he is superior. The ecumenical path, a great gift from God, looks especially at what unites the various Christian groups, aspiring to future unity. It doesn’t hurt to remember it in the current time, in which liquid culture is influencing so much. Firm in the faith!
THE SUPERIORITY OF
CHRIST
RESURRECTED
JOSÉ MARÍA MONTIU DE NUIX
