The Greatest Miracle

BY LORENZO ALBACETE

I always find it funny, in a Monty-Python way, that when told that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, some of the authorities decided that He had to die. I mean, what’s going on? What kind of mind works that way? If I see or hear that someone whom I consider an enemy has raised from the dead a stinking corpse, I’d certainly review my opinion about him. At least I’d change my opposition tactics! How can these people be so stupid?
Jesus himself, in the parable about Lazarus and the Rich Man, had said that if they didn’t believe “Moses and the prophets” they were not going to be convinced by anyone coming back from the dead.
Is there nothing, no miracle, which at the very least will give pause to non-believers?
At the Last Supper Jesus identified what He believed would be such a miracle. It was the unity existing among his followers. This unity would convince the “world” that He was indeed the “One Sent” by the Father. Now, this is an amazing thing. It implies that the unity that Jesus asked for, for his disciples, is the greatest miracle that He is capable of performing. It is the decisive one, and the one indisputable evidence about who He is. This unity is more amazing, more astounding, and more exceptional than the return to life of a dead man!
In order to be what Jesus says, the unity between his followers must not be a fruit of their efforts. It must be a unity no human effort can achieve. It must be a unity that can only come from “above” us, from a Source greater than us. It must be a unity that embraces all the dimensions of human life, a unity that touches and brings together human beings at the deepest root of their identities. As such, it must be a perfect unity that is absolutely compatible with personal liberty, since without this liberty our lives would not be human. The only way this is possible is if this unity is itself what makes personal liberty possible, thus creating our experience of being unique and unrepeatable persons, the experience of saying “I.” Our experience of identity itself must point toward this unity; it must desire it as an unquenchable need. The Mystery that the religious sense seeks, the Mystery that corresponds to the primordial desires or exigencies of the human heart, must be a Mystery of Unity and Freedom as absolutely inseparable, as One. And as such it must appear in history, if it is true that the Mystery absolutely beyond our reach has nevertheless become human flesh, human history.
That is why “Jesus” does not offer Himself alone as evidence. He doesn’t “testify” to Himself, He said. He always appears involved, so to speak, in a Unity that defines Him, and what He yearns to do is to share this Unity with human beings. The personal presence of Jesus is not limited to the body conceived in Mary’s womb. The presence in the flesh that He seeks, that He is working for, is the unity in flesh and blood between the followers of Christ. This is the real “Body of Christ.”
When we speak today of the “real presence” of Christ, we mostly refer to the sacramental presence in the Eucharist. At one time that was not so. The presence of the “One Sent” in the flesh was certainly real in the body of the son of Mary, the body crucified on Calvary. The presence of the One Sent in human flesh was certainly real in the Risen Body of Christ touched by the Thomas who doubted. But as He said Himself, there is more, and “blessed” are those who can grasp this more through faith. There is another form of the presence in the flesh of the One Sent. The Eucharistic presence of the One Sent is certainly as real as any of these others, but its purpose is to create what was called the Real Presence of Christ, namely the unity between his followers that constitute His Body. If we wish to find the Mystery for which the heart yearns, it is for this incarnate unity, this unity in history, that we must search.
“Moses and the prophets” are a greater miracle than the resurrection of a dead man because they were already part of the formation of a people, a history, a tradition, a belonging that points to this miracle of divine and human unity.
Which brings us to Why the Church, Father Giussani’s book that has just been published in English. Buy it. Read it. Study it. Remember, it’s more revealing of the Mystery than seeing someone come out of a tomb.