“Whoever follows after Christ, the perfect man, becomes himself more of a man“1
Becoming Christians and becoming men
Catechesis as an aid to becoming men
Marion Schöber
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“The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those
who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of
the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their
hearts.”2
This close bond with men, with their existential experiences and their concrete world, which
the Vatican Council II has expressed in the pastoral constitution “Gaudium et spes” guides
and stirs catechesis as well. The transmission of faith to others places a challenge before us,
which is to explain the content of the Biblical-Christian tradition to men who live in
particular times and historical circumstances, and explain them in such a way that men may
feel really questioned and understood by the Good News. All teaching processes of
catechesis must take into consideration human beings in their completeness, in all the
dimensions of their humanity. They must take their experiences, their language and their way
of thinking seriously, providing the foundations for that hope on which we Christians nourish
ourselves.
“What has Christian faith got to do with my life?”: this question permeates Karl Rahner’s
theological thinking3 and it remains the fundamental question of all those who work in the
field of pedagogy of religion and catechesis. Like Rahner, they pursue the objective of
conveying to others “the Christian Creed’s central truths of faith, and what – and which
challenges – faith, as a vision of life, may still ‘offer’ to today’s man.”4
One of the fundamental questions that man has always asked himself is the question about his
own person and identity, about the meaning and the sense of life. Man’s natural instinct is not
specific like in animals and does not provide the necessary guidance. The human being, who
is a rational and free being, must understand himself and his world on his own and organize
his life with his own means. Although they are conditioned by historic-social circumstances,
human beings strive to be free and, “in the interaction between pre-existent (Vorfindlichkeit)
and self-determination (Selbstentwurf), they have a margin of action in which they can evolve
to become subjects on the basis of their personality.”5 Human beings are “open processes”.
Being human means becoming, becoming a man in an evolving and maturing process lasting
the whole of life. Man draws the fundamental dynamics of this development from his constant
questioning himself on the meaning of life - a question rooted in each man -, and from his
desire to better himself. In the end, it is nothing else than the deep-seated question about
God’s existence or, to use a broader definition, the question about the ultimate mystery of
human existence. It is that potential, embedded in each man, which enables him to become
man, which sets in motion and determines the “maturing” and “fulfilment” process.
Vatican Council II, Gaudium et spes, Art. 41: “Help that the Church inteds to offer individuals”
Vatican Council II, Gaudium et spes, Art. 1: “Intimate union of the Church with the whole human family”
3
Bernd Jochen Hilberath, Karl Rahner. Gottgeheimnis Mensch, Magonza 1995, p. 26
4
ibidem, p. 27, free transl.
5
Peter Biehl, Mensch / Menschenbild, in: Norbert Mette, edited by Folkert Rickers, Lexikon der
Religionspädagogik, Vol. 2, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2001, pp. 1314-1320, here: p.1315, transl book.II
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Becoming man, as a challenge and elementary task, as objective of the maturing and
formation processes, offers catechesis a number of approaches to the transmission of the
central contents of Christian faith. This fundamental anthropological theme, in fact, allows
the correlation between the cornerstone of our faith and the making-himself-man of God in
Jesus Christ. If humanistic formation identifies man’s becoming man with the formation of
his personality, for catechetical formation becoming man means becoming Christian because
catechesis considers becoming man as a process founded on the way Jesus Christ became
man.
In this sense, all catechetical formation processes face the following challenge: they must
explain the importance of Christian faith for self-knowledge and personality development, for
existential orientation and fulfilment. This is the way in which catechesis can help man
become man and lead a fulfilled life. On the part of catechists that implies the ability to
understand people’s problems and individual experiences, and explain the existential
meaning of the Biblical-Christian tradition for men and through men The aim of catechesis is
to discover and understand God’s imprint in man and create the preconditions for a personal
relationship with God. Personal experience and the encounter with the mystery of a God who
became man leads man himself to become man, to mature and understand his own original
vocation.
Discovering and understanding God’s imprint in men was also for Karl Rahner the most
pressing and exciting task of theology. Rahner was convinced that it is not philosophical
arguments or the tightest or most refined lines of reasoning that lead man to faith but instead
the personal relationship with God, who assumed, in Jesus Christ, a concrete human face. In
Jesus Christ, the “divine mystery” makes itself man and through Christ, we find absolute
transcendence, even in all his earthliness. This transcendence is the only one that can offer
hope and meaning in the face of the daily experience of absurdity and earthly injustice. Divine
and human reality meet in Jesus Christ. In him, God reveals himself as the God of our
redemption, the God of insurmountable love and grace. In Christ , men recognize not only
who the invisible God is (Col 1:15), but also how to become man. Christ as “mediator
between God and man” shows us how God wishes man to be. He is the true man, the man
become man to all ends and purposes who, while making himself man, he united himself to
all men..6 In effect, it is clear why, as the Council writes, “only in the mystery of the incarnate
Word does the mystery of man take on light.”7 “Whoever follows after Christ, the perfect
man, becomes himself more of a man. ”8
“Whoever entrusts himself in freedom to Christ as ‘perfectus homo’, does not lose his
identity, but becomes in his turn man in the full sense of the word.”9 Therefore, it is part of
the most important tasks of the catechetical formation process to find in the meeting with the
mystery of Jesus Christ’s incarnation a boost for human and personal maturity, for one’s
existential orientation. Only by meeting the incarnate love of God does man find himself and
become entirely human. Our meeting with this “great mystery of being” transforms us so that
cfr. Vatican Council II, Gaudium et spes, Art. 22: “Christ the new man”
Vatican Council II, Gaudium et spes, Art. 22: „Christ the new man“
8
Vatican Council II, Gaudium et spes, Art. 41: “Help that the Church inteds to offer individuals”
9
Udo F. Schmälzle, Inkarnation, in: Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, Vol. 5, Freib. i.B. III edit. 1996,
pp.498-502, here: 501, free transl..
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we may become more similar to Christ. It gives us the “gaze of love”” which enables us to
see everything with “new eyes”. In this way, we can become more Christ-like in our faith,
in the redeeming and omnipresent closeness of God and in his inexhaustible creative love. We
can become more Christ-like in faith in our “noble destiny”10 and in the will of God, who
created us in his image and likeness and has made us to love. “This vocation has been
assigned to man in a permanent way.”11 It is fully realized through Jesus Christ. “Through
our faith we become more and more part of man in God’s image”12
Becoming Christians in the sense of becoming men following Jesus Christ’s example means
“becoming similar to Jesus Christ”13. Man, however, is always an imperfect, earthly and
imperfectible image of God, even if thanks to Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection we can
trust in the fulfilment of our often threatened vocation to love. Becoming Christians remains,
therefore, a maturing process in faith and in humanity throughout our lives. We are not really
Christians: as Rahner wrote, “we are Christians only with the aim of becoming Christians.”14
With the words of Romano Guardini and Angelus Silesius we can sum up the objective of
becoming Christians in this way: “Each man – Romano Guardini writes – is a unique word
that God pronounces exclusively on this man. Our task consists in rendering audible,
during our life in this world, this unique word that God has told us personally.” 15 Angelo
Silesius’ formula is even briefer:: “If Christ had been born in Bethlehem a thousand times
but not within you, then you would be lost forever.”16
Vatican Council II, Gaudium et spes, Art. 3: “At the service of man”
Peter Biehl, Mensch / Menschenbild, in: Norbert Mette, edited by Folkert Rickers, Lexikon der
Religionspädagogik, Vol. 2, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2001, pp. 1314-1320, here: p.1316, free transl..
12
Peter Biehl, Mensch / Menschenbild, in: Norbert Mette, edited by Folkert Rickers, Lexikon der
Religionspädagogik, Vol. 2, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2001, pp. 1314-1320, here: p.1316, free transl..
13
Michael Figura, Gottebenbildlichkeit, in: Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, Vol. 4, Freiburg i.B., 3. Edit.
1995, pp. 871-878, here: p. 877, free transl..
14
Karl Rahner, Grundkurs des Glaubens. Einführung in den Begriff des Christentums, Freiburg i.B., 11. Edit..
1976, p. 299, free transl.
15
Anselm Grün, Ein ganzer Mensch werden. Die Kraft eines reifen Glaubens, Freiburg i.B. 2006, p. 12, free
transl.
16
Quote from: Der Cherubimische Wandersmann, edited by Hanns H. Bormann Kleine Lesering Bibliothek.
Edit. 54, Gütersloh p. 9, free transl.
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