Covenant’s star

The Perfect Self-Sufficiency and the Infinite Thirst of God

Introduction

The divine reality presents itself as an unfathomable mystery: God is utterly self-sufficient, complete in Himself, needing nothing from creation, yet He freely approaches creatures in an intimate self-communication, revealing a profound longing for their love and union.

This paradox lies at the heart of Christian revelation the absolute holiness and otherness of God, who remains forever beyond human grasp, alongside His gracious presence within history and the human heart, expressed even in the cry of the Crucified: “I thirst” (Jn 19:28).

This twofold movement reflects the incomprehensible God who, while perfectly fulfilled in His eternal life, bestows Himself gratuitously, drawing creatures into communion without diminishing His sovereignty. The following exploration draws upon Sacred Scripture, the teachings of the Church’s Magisterium, and the witness of holy authors to illuminate this wondrous interplay.

Divine Transcendence: The Perfect Self-Sufficiency of God

Sacred Scripture repeatedly affirms God’s exalted otherness. The Lord declares through the prophet Isaiah: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways… As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts” (Is 55:8-9). 26 20 The Psalmist proclaims: “The Lord is high above all nations, his glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, who sits enthroned on high?” (Ps 113:4-6). 21 Such passages underscore God’s radical distinction from creation: He is not contained by the heavens, as Solomon confesses (2 Chr 2:6), nor limited by space or time.

The Magisterium echoes this truth. The First Vatican Council, in the Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius, teaches that there is “one, true, living God, Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, almighty, eternal, immense, incomprehensible, infinite in intellect and will and in every perfection… of one only and most simple substance, really and essentially distinct from the world.” This distinction safeguards God’s aseity: He exists necessarily in Himself, owing His being to no other.

Saint Thomas Aquinas affirms that God, as ipsum esse subsistens (subsistent being itself), is in no way dependent upon creatures. God is in all things not as part of their essence, but as the cause of their being, yet He remains infinitely beyond them. 58 In this perfect sufficiency, God is complete in His triune life, lacking nothing.

God’s Gracious Presence in Creation

Yet revelation equally attests God’s intimate nearness. The prophet Jeremiah conveys the divine word: “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” (Jer 23:24). Saint Paul teaches the Athenians: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), while the Psalmist prays: “Where can I go from your spirit? From your presence, where can I flee? If I ascend to the heavens, you are there” (Ps 139:7-8).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church synthesises this: “God transcends all creatures” (CCC 42), yet He is not distant; “with creation, God does not abandon his creatures to themselves. He not only gives them being and existence, but also… upholds and sustains every creature.” God’s immanence is expressed in parental imagery: while “Father” highlights transcendent authority, maternal tenderness emphasizes “God’s immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature” (CCC 239). 3

Saint Thomas Aquinas articulates this profoundly: God is in all things “by essence, presence, and power”—by essence as the cause of their being, by presence as all things are open to His gaze, by power as all are subject to Him. This presence is not pantheistic identification but a sustaining intimacy.

Longing for Union with Creatures

The paradox deepens in the revelation of God’s desire. On the Cross, Jesus cries, “I thirst” (Jn 19:28). Holy authors interpret this not merely as physical suffering but as the expression of divine longing for souls.

Saint Augustine reflects: God thirsts that we may thirst for Him, drawing us into reciprocal love. A modern witness echoes: “I thirst for you… So precious are you to Me that I THIRST FOR YOU.” Saint Thérèse of Lisieux writes: “He thirsts for love.”

Pope Benedict XVI explains that Jesus’ thirst expresses “an insatiable longing for the salvation of every human soul.” 50 This thirst appears “insufficient” in its infinity never fully quenched by finite response yet it flows from perfect love, not need.

The Gratuitous Self-Communication of the Holy Mystery

The resolution lies in God’s free self-bestowal. Self-sufficient in His eternal communion, God nevertheless communicates His own life gratuitously, inviting creatures to share in it. Creation and redemption are acts of overflowing goodness, not necessity. The incarnation and the Cross manifest this irrevocable offer: the transcendent God becomes immanent without ceasing to be mystery.

Thus, the “insufficient thirst” is the infinite depth of divine love, ever drawing humanity toward union while respecting freedom. God remains the incomprehensible One who approaches, the self-sufficient who longs, the holy mystery who communicates Himself.

Conclusion

This double role transcendence and immanency reveals the God of Christian faith as absolute plenitude who freely empties Himself in love. In contemplating this paradox, the believer encounters the invitation to respond to the divine thirst with total self-gift, entering ever deeper into the mystery of communion with the living God.

Jérémie Tshibakenga Matara

The Unique Sonship of Jesus Christ

On this day, January 3, when the Church invites us to contemplate the Most Holy Name of Jesus a name that signifies the saving presence of God among us we are drawn into the profound mystery of who Jesus Christ truly is. The name “Jesus,” revealed by the angel, means “God saves” (Matthew 1:21), and it encapsulates the essence of his identity: the eternal Son who enters history to communicate God’s very self to humanity.

This reflection explores the unique sonship of Jesus Christ, understood as a double reality his eternal sonship as God and his historical sonship as man culminating in the irreversible event where God becomes human without ceasing to be divine. In this union, the human side reveals God’s radical closeness, most vividly through the role of Mary, who uniquely bears the Savior, and through scriptural witnesses that affirm the virginal origin of this humanity.

The mystery of Jesus’ sonship cannot be reduced to mere biological or adoptive categories; it is the supreme instance of God’s self-communication to the world. From all eternity, the Son is the perfect expression of the Father, begotten not made, sharing fully in the divine essence (John 1:1-3, 14).

Yet, in the fullness of time, this eternal Son assumes a human existence, becoming what humanity is called to be: the openness to God’s gratuitous self-gift. This assumption is not an external addition but an inner fulfillment of human reality itself. Jesus is not a hybrid being, part divine and part human, but one person in whom divinity and humanity coexist without confusion, separation, division, or change as the ancient councils affirmed in safeguarding the Gospel witness.

In Jesus Christ, we encounter the absolute proximity of God. His divine sonship means that he is “God with us” (Matthew 1:23), not a distant Divinity but the one who shares our condition fully, except for sin (Hebrews 4:15).

His human sonship, however, grounds this closeness in concrete history: born of a woman (Galatians 4:4), he experiences growth, suffering, and death as we do (Luke 2:52; Hebrews 5:8). This double sonship is unique because it realizes the potential inherent in all creation humanity’s orientation toward divine communion in an irrevocable and unsurpassable way. Where every person is invited to accept God’s self-offer through grace, Jesus is this acceptance in person: his human freedom perfectly responds “yes” to the divine initiative from the first moment of his conception.

This human dimension of Jesus’ sonship shines forth particularly in the event of his conception and birth. The Scriptures present it as a miraculous intervention of the Holy Spirit, underscoring that Jesus’ humanity originates not from human generation but from God’s direct creative act.

The prophet Isaiah foretold: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). This sign of a virginal conception points to the newness of God’s saving action something beyond ordinary human possibilities, yet fully entering human reality.

The Gospel of Matthew explicitly links this prophecy to Jesus: “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us)” (Matthew 1:22-23).

Matthew narrates that Mary was found with child “before they came together” with Joseph, and this child was “of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18). Joseph is instructed in a dream: “Do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20). The evangelist emphasizes that Joseph “knew her not until she had given birth to a son” (Matthew 1:25), highlighting the extraordinary origin of this birth.

Luke’s account complements this with the annunciation to Mary: The angel Gabriel declares, “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus… The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy the Son of God” (Luke 1:31, 35).

Mary’s response “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” (Luke 1:34) reveals her commitment to virginity, and the angel’s reply affirms the divine causality: the conception is wholly the work of the Spirit. This “overshadowing” evokes the cloud of God’s presence in the Old Testament (Exodus 40:35), signifying that Jesus’ humanity is sanctified from its origin.

These texts establish the virginal conception as a foundational fact: Jesus’ human sonship begins without a human father, making his entry into the world a pure gift of God’s self-communication. It safeguards his divine sonship no human act mediates the union of divinity and humanity and manifests the gratuitousness of salvation. Jesus is not merely a holy man empowered by God; he is God becoming man, the Word made flesh (John 1:14).

The human side of this sonship finds its most poignant expression in Mary’s unique motherhood. She alone bears the Son, cooperating freely in the incarnation. Her fiat “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38) is the human acceptance that allows God’s self-gift to become historical. Mary is not a mere vessel; she is the mother who gives flesh to the eternal Son, embodying humanity’s capacity to receive God. In her, the human openness to divine grace reaches its pinnacle before Jesus himself.

This uniqueness is further illuminated at the foot of the cross. As Jesus hangs in agony, he sees his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby. He says to her, “Woman, behold your son,” and to the disciple, “Behold your mother.” From that hour, the disciple took her into his own home (John 19:26-27).

This entrustment carries profound significance. In Jewish custom, the care of a widow fell to her sons, particularly the eldest remaining one. If Jesus had other children born of Mary, cultural and filial duty would demand he entrust her to them. Yet he gives her to John, a non-relative, suggesting that Mary has no other natural children requiring her presence or to whom she owes maternal care in the same way.

This act reveals a deeper reality: Mary’s motherhood extends beyond biological ties to a spiritual one. Jesus constitutes a new family, where discipleship transcends blood relations (Mark 3:33-35). By entrusting Mary to John and through him, to the Church Jesus universalizes her motherhood. She becomes the mother of all believers, cooperating in the birth of the new humanity redeemed by her Son. This scene at the cross underscores that Mary’s role is singular: she bore only Jesus in the flesh, remaining oriented wholly toward him.

Some Christian traditions interpret passages mentioning Jesus’ “brothers” as evidence of Mary’s other children. For instance, the crowds ask, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?” (Matthew 13:55-56; cf. Mark 6:3). Similarly, his “brothers” seek him during his ministry (Mark 3:31-32; John 7:3-5).

However, the Greek term adelphoi (brothers) has a broad semantic range in Scripture and contemporary usage, encompassing not only full siblings but also cousins, kin, or close relatives. In the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament), it translates Hebrew terms for extended family (e.g., Genesis 14:14, where Lot is Abraham’s “brother” though his nephew). No distinct Greek word for “cousin” existed in common parlance, so adelphoi served flexibly.

Cross-referencing reveals that these “brothers” are not sons of Mary, the mother of Jesus. James and Joseph (or Joses) are identified as sons of another Mary, present at the crucifixion: “Among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph” (Matthew 27:56; cf. Mark 15:40; John 19:25). This Mary is distinct from Jesus’ mother, often understood as her relative (possibly sister-in-law or close kin). Thus, the named “brothers” are cousins or extended family from Joseph’s side, consistent with Mary’s singular motherhood.

No Gospel narrative mentions other children in the Holy Family’s journeys to Bethlehem (Luke 2:4-7), Egypt (Matthew 2:13-15), or the Temple when Jesus was twelve (Luke 2:41-51). The absence is striking if siblings existed. Moreover, Mary’s perpetual orientation toward God, implied in her annunciation question, aligns with a life wholly dedicated to the divine plan, bearing only the one who is God’s self-communication incarnate.

In Jesus’ unique sonship, then, the human aspect rooted in virginal conception and Mary’s exclusive motherhood serves the divine: God’s irrevocable self-bestowal becomes tangible. This union is not a static fact but a dynamic event of salvation. Jesus’ humanity is the sacrament of God’s presence; through it, grace the uncreated self-gift of God reaches us.

Every human person bears an innate transcendence toward this communion, but in Jesus, it is realized absolutely. He is the “firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29), drawing all into filial relation with the Father (Galatians 4:4-7).

Contemplating the Most Holy Name of Jesus today, we recognize in him the answer to humanity’s deepest question: Who is Jesus for us? He is the Son who makes the Father known (John 1:18), the human face of divine love.

In his double sonship, eternity enters time, divinity embraces frailty, and God becomes irrevocably “ours.” Mary’s role witnesses to this: as virgin mother, she embodies the pure receptivity that allows God to dwell among us. Her only child is the Savior, entrusted at the cross to the beloved community, so that all might become children of God through him (John 1:12).

This mystery demands not mere intellectual assent but existential acceptance. In invoking the name of Jesus above every name (Philippians 2:9-11) we participate in his sonship, allowing God’s self-communication to transform us. For in Jesus Christ, the unique Son of God and man, salvation is not abstract but personal: God with us, forever.

Jérémie Tshibakenga Matara

The Origin of January 1 as New Year’s Day and the Role of Christianity

The modern practice of beginning the new year on January 1 stems from ancient Roman traditions, but Christianity particularly through the Roman Catholic Church played a pivotal role in its widespread adoption and standardization across the Western world and beyond.

This was not a simple “copy” or appropriation of pagan customs but a process of correlation and Christianization, where existing structures were adapted and infused with Christian meaning to align civil timekeeping with religious priorities.

Roman Foundations: A Practical, Not “Natural,” Starting Point

The early Roman calendar was lunisolar and originally began in March (named after Mars, god of war and agriculture), aligning with the spring equinox and the agricultural cycle—a seemingly “natural” choice for an agrarian society. However, this was not fixed by astronomy alone; it was shaped by political and religious needs.

Around the 8th century BCE, legend credits King Numa Pompilius with adding January and February, making a 12-month year.
By 153 BCE, the Roman Republic shifted the official start to January 1, primarily for administrative reasons: it coincided with the inauguration of new consuls (elected magistrates).
In 45 BCE, Julius Caesar’s Julian calendar reform formalized January 1 as the new year’s start, honoring Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, gates, and transitions (hence “January”).

This date was thus artificial and conventional, chosen for civic convenience rather than pure natural cycles like solstices or equinoxes. It had pagan associations, with festivals involving gifts and revelry.

Christianisation: Correlation, not mere appropriation

As Christianity spread in the Roman Empire (official religion by late 4th century CE), early Christians initially viewed January 1 with suspicion due to its pagan roots raucous celebrations were seen as immoral. Many regions shifted the new year to dates tied to Christian events:

December 25 (Christmas/Nativity).
March 25 (Annunciation, conception of Jesus).
Easter (movable, tied to Passover).

This was deliberate Christianization: overlaying Christian significance on existing frameworks to evangelize and unify. Unlike outright appropriation (taking without transformation) or copying (direct imitation), it involved correlation linking pre-existing elements to Christian theology for continuity and conversion.

By the 13th–14th centuries, the Catholic Church in Rome and regions like Spain and Gaul began associating January 1 with the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus (eighth day after his birth, per Jewish tradition; Luke 2:21) and the octave of Christmas.
This gave January 1 a biblical and Christ-centered meaning: Jesus’ naming and entry into the covenant.
Later (post-Vatican II), it became the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, emphasizing Marian devotion.

The Church did not invent January 1 but correlated it with the Incarnation era, transforming a pagan gateway festival into a commemoration of Christ’s humanity.

A key Christian innovation was the Anno Domini (AD) system. In 525 CE, monk Dionysius Exiguus created Easter tables counting years from Christ’s Incarnation (estimated birth), replacing the Diocletian era (named after a persecutor of Christians).

This “Year of Our Lord” shifted focus to Christ, spreading via Bede (8th century) and Carolingian reforms. It Christianized time itself, making history revolve around Jesus.

The Gregorian reform and the 16th-century October Shift

The most decisive Catholic contribution came in 1582 under Pope Gregory XIII. The Julian calendar, while solar-based, overestimated the year length by about 11 minutes annually. Over centuries, this caused drift:

The tropical year (Earth’s orbit) is ~365.2422 days; Julian assumed 365.25.
By 1582, the calendar was ~10 days ahead of astronomical reality: the vernal equinox (key for Easter) fell around March 11 instead of March 21 (as fixed by the 325 Council of Nicaea).

Easter’s date (first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox) was drifting later, risking misalignment with spring and potential overlap with pagan festivals.

Gregory’s bull Inter gravissimas (1582) introduced the Gregorian calendar:

Skipped 10 days: October 4 (Julian) was followed by October 15 (Gregorian).
Refined leap years: centuries divisible by 400 only (e.g., 2000 yes; 1700 no).
Explicitly reaffirmed January 1 as new year’s start for uniformity.

Catholic countries (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Poland) adopted immediately; others followed gradually (Britain in 1752, skipping 11 days). This reform was driven by ecclesiastical needs accurate Easter computation but solidified January 1 globally.

The October “décalage” (shift) was thus artificial correction of accumulated human error in the Julian system, proving calendars are constructed, not purely “natural.”

Why this matters: Christianity’s enduring contribution

The Roman Catholic Church correlated Roman civic structures with Christian theology, creating a hybrid calendar that prioritized the liturgical year while retaining practical Roman elements.

This facilitated the spread of Christianity across diverse cultures, providing a shared temporal framework. Today, even secular societies use this system due to historical dominance, though many retain parallel traditional calendars.

In summary, January 1 is not a “natural” astronomical marker but a Roman convention Christianized through feasts, AD dating, and Gregorian precision—transforming time into a witness to the Incarnation.

Jérémie Tshibakenga Matara

The Catholic light of Christmas

In the Creed we profess each Sunday, we declare: “He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and was born of the Virgin Mary.” This line from Article 3 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 456–483) captures the heart of the Incarnation the eternal Son of God taking on human flesh in the humility of Bethlehem.

Christmas celebrates this profound mystery: not merely a historical event in a distant stable, but the moment when God entered human history to redeem and unite all people.

The Catechism teaches that the Word became flesh “for us men and for our salvation” (CCC 456). Why did God become man? To save us by reconciling us with the Father, to serve as our model of holiness, to allow us to share in His divine nature, and to conquer sin and death (CCC 457–460).

In assuming human nature fully, without sin Christ recapitulated humanity’s story, healing what was lost in Adam and offering every person a path to become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4; CCC 460). This is no exclusive gift for one nation or era; it is universal. As the Catechism affirms, Jesus united Himself to all humanity through the Incarnation, loving “all human beings without exception” (CCC 478).

This universality shines brightest when we connect Christmas to the feast of Epiphany, celebrated soon after. The Catechism explains that Epiphany manifests Jesus as “Messiah of Israel, Son of God and Savior of the world” (CCC 528).

The Magi, wise men from the East, representing the Gentile nations journey to adore the newborn King, offering gold for His kingship, frankincense for His divinity, and myrrh foreshadowing His sacrificial death. In them, the Gospel sees “the first-fruits of the nations” welcoming salvation through the Incarnation.

No longer is God’s light confined to Israel; it bursts forth for every race, culture, and people. As Isaiah prophesied and the Epiphany readings proclaim: “Nations shall walk by your light… and the wealth of nations shall come to you” (Isa 60:3–6).

Christmas, then, is deeply catholic a word meaning “universal.” The humble birth in Bethlehem is God’s invitation to every human heart, transcending borders, languages, and backgrounds. In a world often divided by race, nationality, or ideology, the Nativity reminds us of our shared dignity: every person is created in God’s image, redeemed by Christ’s blood, and called to the same eternal family.

The benefits of Christ’s birth flow to all:

Reconciliation and peace: God dwells among us, healing divisions and offering forgiveness.
Dignity restored: By becoming one of us, Christ elevates human nature, showing the infinite worth of every life—from the unborn to the elderly, from every continent and creed.
Hope for eternity: The Child in the manger conquers death, opening heaven’s doors to all who follow Him.
Model of love: In vulnerability and poverty, Jesus teaches selfless love that unites humanity.

This message makes perfect sense to everyone, for it addresses our deepest longings: to be known, loved, and united. Whether in a crowded city or a remote village, the star of Bethlehem still guides seekers today.

As we gaze at the crèche, let us rejoice: the Savior born on Christmas is not for some, but for all a wonderful, logical, and eternal gift from a God who desires every race and nation to share in His joy. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of goodwill!

Merry Christmas once again!

Jérémie M. Tshibakenga

Why December 25 Was Chosen as the Date to Mark the Birth of Jesus Christ

The selection of December 25 as the date for commemorating the Nativity of Jesus Christ emerges from a detailed chronological interpretation of the Gospel of Luke, particularly the interconnected announcements of the conceptions of John the Baptist and Jesus.

This approach, rooted in scriptural exegesis, links Zechariah’s priestly service, the conception of John around the period of Yom Kippur (late September), the Annunciation to Mary six months later (late March), and Jesus’ birth nine months thereafter in late December.

Luke 1:5–9 describes Zechariah, of the priestly division of Abijah (the eighth division, per 1 Chronicles 24:10), serving in the Temple when the angel Gabriel announces the forthcoming birth of John.

Some exegetes associate this service with the high holy day of Yom Kippur (Tishri 10, September/October), when incense offerings were prominent and lots were cast for duties, aligning with the narrative details in Luke 1:8–10. Upon completing his service, Zechariah returns home, and Elizabeth conceives shortly afterward (Luke 1:23–24), placing John’s conception in late September.

Luke 1:26–36 specifies that Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary occurs “in the sixth month” of Elizabeth’s pregnancy: “And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren” (Luke 1:36). The Incarnation thus takes place around late March, with Jesus’ birth following a standard nine-month gestation in late December.

This biblical timeline has been explored by several scholars who find it supportive of December 25. Jack Finegan, in his Handbook of Biblical Chronology (§473), calculates that, depending on the timing of Zechariah’s service, the chronology points to a birth date between December and February, lending plausibility to a winter Nativity. Similarly, biblical chronologist Thomas Lewin, in Fasti Sacri (1865, §836), was among the first to systematically apply the Abijah division from 1 Chronicles 24 to Luke’s account, contributing to calculations aligning with a late December birth.

Other commentators note the tradition’s alignment with this exegesis. For instance, interpretations tying Zechariah’s incense offering to Yom Kippur—evident in early sources and later defended in sermons—reinforce the September conception of John, March Annunciation, and December birth. While uncertainties exist regarding the exact rotation of priestly courses and potential interruptions for feasts, the Lucan chronology provides a scriptural basis for honoring December 25 as the date when the Word became flesh (John 1:14), reflecting a deliberate engagement with the Gospel narrative to mark the joy of the Incarnation.

Jérémie Tshibakenga Matara

THE TWO BEHAVIORS: Why the drunkard can still be saved and the righteous Man is already damned?

The village of Oberwinkel lay cupped in a narrow valley where the church bell could be heard even in the highest pastures. Every soul there knew the catechism by heart; even the dogs seemed to lower their heads when the moment the Angelus rang. Yet on the same cobblestoned lanes walked two men who made the old women cross themselves twice.

The first was called only “the Animal.”
His real name had been forgotten years ago, the way a bone is forgotten once the dogs are done with it. He was broad, red-faced, always a little drunk even at morning Mass. When he staggered out of the tavern at midnight, singing filthy songs about the mayor’s wife, the shutters slammed shut like gunshots.

Yet the next day he would appear at the bakery door, hat in hand, eyes bloodshot and wet, muttering, “Forgive me, Frau Huber, I was not myself.” And because everyone could see that something in him was still himself (the frightened child who once served at the altar), they forgave. A sharp word from the priest, a slap from his sister, the memory of his dead mother’s rosary — any of these could tame him for weeks. He was a wolf who still remembered the taste of the shepherd’s bread and sometimes, in the dark, longed for the fold.

Everyone knew the Animal could still be saved. You could almost touch the place in his chest where grace had not yet been strangled.

Then there was the other one.

They called him “Herr Doktor Teufel,” though no one remembered where the degree came from. He lived in the big house with the black shutters at the top of the hill — the one that used to belong to the Jewish watchmaker before he “left for the city” in 1938.

The Doktor never raised his voice, never stumbled, never forgot a name. On Sundays he sat in the front pew wearing a charcoal suit that looked sewn from midnight itself. When the collection plate passed, he placed in it a crisp note large enough to make the priest stammer. After Mass he lingered, quoting Augustine or Scripture with a precision that made the older parishioners nod and the younger ones feel uneasy.

Once, the Animal (drunk again) vomited in the church square right in front of the Doktor’s polished shoes. The whole village braced for rage. Instead, the Doktor smiled, stepped neatly around the mess, and said softly, “Poor creature. Inclination has triumphed over his reason again. One almost admires the honesty of it.”

That night the Animal wept in the confessional until the wood was soaked. The priest gave him a light penance and a fierce embrace.

Two weeks later, the Doktor ruined the miller’s daughter.

She had refused his quiet offers of money, jewelry, a new life in Munich. So he arranged for letters to appear — letters she had never written — describing in obscene detail what she would do for any man with coin. By the time the forgeries were exposed, the girl had already hanged herself in her father’s barn. At the funeral, the Doktor stood beside the miller, hand on his shoulder, whispering, “She was always unstable. You must not blame yourself. Some souls are simply not strong enough for this world.”

When the priest, trembling with anger, asked him in private, “Have you no shame?”
The Doktor’s eyes were pale and clear as winter water. “Shame, Father? Shame is for those who still believe the moral law is anything more than a useful fiction we tell children and weak wills. I have examined the categorical imperative with more rigor than Kant himself, and I find it… optional. A maxim can be universalized in many directions. I have chosen the one that places my own perfection as the sole end worth universalizing. Everything else (your God, your commandments, this village’s little sentimentalities) are means.”

The priest felt suddenly cold, as if the church itself had turned to ice around him.

Nothing touched the Doktor. Not the miller’s grief, not the mother’s screaming, not the way the village boys now spat when his shadow crossed the square. Excommunication was pronounced; he received the paper with a polite bow and used it to light his cigar.

Love could not reach him because he had calculated its exchange value. Fear could not reach him because he had reasoned his way out of hell. Even the devil, it is said, believes and trembles. This man did not tremble. He had taken the trembling part of the soul and removed it the way a watchmaker removes an unnecessary gear.

Years passed. The Animal sobered, married the baker’s widow, and became the gentlest soul in Oberwinkel. Children tugged at his coat to ask for blessings, and he gave them with tears in his eyes, still astonished that he had been allowed to come home.

The Doktor grew older but not old. His face stayed smooth, his fortune grew, his smile never slipped. On the day he died (quietly, in his study, a half-written treatise on “The Rational Superiority of Benevolent Egoism” beside him), the church bell did not toll. The priest refused. The grave was dug outside the cemetery wall.

And the village understood at last the difference Kant saw with merciless clarity:

One man had been a slave to his passions, but his reason had never abdicated the throne.
The other had crowned his reason king — and ordered it to serve the passions forever.

One was an animal who remembered he was made for the stars.
The other was a devil who had looked at the stars and decided they should orbit him.

May God have mercy on us all, that we never make the second choice. Because the first can still be tamed by a single honest tear.
The second cannot be tamed by anything in heaven or on earth.

Jeremie Tshibakenga Matara

Sanity, or the True Health of the Soul

What we usually call “sanity” – being reasonable, balanced, adapted to society, emotionally stable – is, in reality, often nothing more than a well-policed neurosis. It is the art of staying carefully within the limits of the predictable, of protecting oneself from anything that might exceed, disturb, or overwhelm.

It is a contracted existence, shrunk to the size of one’s own projects, fears, and comforts. This pretended sanity is in truth a subtle form of sickness: the sickness of the closed heart.

True sanity is something completely different. It is not the absence of crisis but the capacity to cross crises without shutting down. It is the health that is born precisely when one agrees to be wounded by reality, when one stops defending oneself against the excess of the real. To be sane, in the deepest sense, is to be wide open: open to the other who is always more than what I can master, open to the gift that dispossesses me, open to the call that pulls me out of myself.

This openness looks insane to the world. The one who loves without calculation, who forgives seventy times seven times, who gives away his last penny, who rejoices in tribulation, who spends hours in silent adoration while the stock market is crashing – this one will quickly be diagnosed as unbalanced, immature, or fanatical. And yet it is he who is healthy, because he has accepted the fundamental structure of reality: that we are not self-sufficient, that we are made for communion, that life is received and not fabricated.

Sanity, then, is inseparable from dependence. The autonomous individual who claims to need no one is the truly sick person; he has atrophied the most vital organ of the human being: the capacity to receive. The saint, on the contrary, is the great dependent – dependent on God, on grace, on the neighbor, on the bread and wine of the Eucharist, on the body that suffers and desires. And this very dependence restores him to wholeness, because it puts him back in the truth of his creaturely condition.

Paradoxically, the peak of sanity is reached in ecstasy – literally, in “standing outside oneself.” The sane person is the one who is beside himself with love, who no longer coincides with his ego, who has been displaced by joy or compassion. The world calls that madness. In reality, it is the only state in which man is finally in his right place: no longer curled up around his own nothingness, but stretched out toward the Infinite that fulfills him.

That is why the saints are the only true therapists of humanity. They do not teach us techniques for managing anxiety or optimizing performance. They simply show us, in their flesh, what a healed human being looks like: someone who has accepted to be broken open by love, and who has discovered, in that very breaking, an unexpected wholeness. Their “folly” is the only serious medicine against the dull, reasonable despair of the world.

In the end, sanity is not the absence of passion, but the presence of the Passion. It is the soul dilated to the dimensions of the pierced Heart that has overcome death. Anything less is merely a truce with illness.

Jérémie Tshibakenga Matara

NICÆA, 325: when faith meets the power

Dear brothers and sisters,

Seventeen hundred years ago, in the brightness of a late-spring morning on the shores of Lake Ascanius, something irrevocable took place.
The Emperor Constantine, still bearing on his hands the fresh cement of a reunited empire, called the bishops of the Church to the little city of Nicæa. More than three hundred answered.

They came from the Nile to the Danube, from the Syrian desert to the Atlantic provinces of Spain, many with the marks of the last persecution still on their bodies. What they did in those weeks was not simply to compose a text. They allowed the Church, under the pressure of circumstance and the guidance of the Spirit, to bring to explicit formulation what she had always believed, lived, prayed, and suffered for.

At the centre of the storm stood a priest of Alexandria named Arius. He was, by all accounts, cultivated, ascetic, eloquent. He wished to protect the uniqueness of the one God. And yet, in defending the monarchy of the Father, he introduced a “once he was not” with regard to the Son.

A single phrase, apparently modest, but in reality it touched the heart of the Christian faith: if the Son is not truly God in the same sense as the Father is God, then the entire economy of salvation collapses. We no longer have God who comes to meet us; we have only a creature, however exalted, who points toward God.

The bishops gathered at Nicæa understood this with a clarity that still astonishes. They did not invent a new faith. They searched the Scriptures, they listened to the liturgy, they remembered the blood of the martyrs, and they recognised that the only word capable of safeguarding the mystery was a word almost absent from earlier theological tradition: homoousios – of one and the same being with the Father.

This Greek term, difficult, philosophical, even suspect to some ears, became the stone rejected by the builders that has become the cornerstone. It is not a concept that exhausts the mystery; it is a guardrail that prevents the mystery from being dissolved.

“Begotten, not made” – this is not speculation; it is the echo of the Prologue of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The bishops placed that Johannine thunder into a single adjective so that no one might ever again say, quietly or loudly, that the Word is less than God.

The Emperor himself proposed the word, or at least insisted upon it. History here is full of irony: the first Christian emperor, not yet baptised, catechumen and soldier, becomes the instrument by which the Church formulates her faith with a precision she will never afterwards abandon.

The State serves the Gospel at the very moment when the Gospel judges the State. The fire into which Constantine casts the Arian writings is a dramatic gesture, certainly, but it is also a sign: truth cannot coexist peacefully with its own contradiction.

Yet the path was not straight. After 325 the Church lived decades of confusion, exile, intrigue. The great Athanasius, present at Nicæa as a young deacon, would be banished five times. Emperors wavered, courts inclined now one way, now another. And still the Symbol held.

In 381, at Constantinople, the Church took up again almost verbatim the Nicene confession and expanded it into the Creed we still recite. What endured was not the political victory of a party, but the quiet, stubborn fidelity to a truth that had been spoken once, under the eyes of an emperor and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Every Sunday, when we stand and say “consubstantial with the Father”, we are doing something more astonishing than we usually realise. We are repeating a Greek word that was forged in the white heat of the year 325, a word that cost exile, tears, and the patience of a lifetime.

We are not merely reciting history; we are allowing the Church of the fourth century to place her faith on our lips and in our hearts. In that moment the centuries touch. The bishop of Hippo in Africa, the monk in the Irish mist, the child in a Roman slum, the old woman in a Ukrainian village church today – all of us, across continents and languages, confess the same identical faith with the same identical word.

Nicæa reminds us that dogma is not the enemy of mystery, but its protector. The Creed is not a wall that imprisons God; it is a window through which the light of Easter morning continues to reach us. And the word homoousios, far from being the dry residue of an old controversy, is a love song: the Father and the Son are not two gods side by side, but one single eternal love that overflows into time and becomes flesh for our sake.

May the Lord, who guided those weary bishops on the shores of a Bithynian lake, grant us the same courage to confess, simply, humbly, and to the end:
“He is God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.”

Jérémie Tshibakenga Matara

The Kingdom of God: The Heart of the Gospel

Dear brothers and sisters,

On this Solemnity of Christ the King, the Gospel places us before the mystery at the heart of revelation: the Kingdom of God. When Jesus tells Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world,” He does not withdraw from history; He unveils a sovereignty born not of violence or domination, but of truth and love.

Already present in His words, miracles, and mercy, this Kingdom grows silently like a mustard seed, like leaven in the dough, transforming the world from within. It is gift and task, “already” among us, “not yet” fulfilled. To acclaim Christ as King is to let Him reign in our hearts and, through lives of justice and charity, to hasten the coming of His Kingdom of light. Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus.

The words addressed by Jesus to Pontius Pilate — “My kingdom is not of this world” (Jn 18:36) — have often been misunderstood as a declaration of political disinterest or as a reduction of the Kingdom to a purely interior or future reality. In truth, they reveal the deepest originality of the message of Jesus. The Kingdom He proclaims is neither a worldly power that imposes itself by force, nor a distant paradise reserved for the afterlife, but the very reality of God drawing near, already breaking into history while remaining oriented toward its definitive fulfilment.

I. A Kingdom Already Present and Still to Come

In the preaching of Jesus, the expression “Kingdom of God” (or “Kingdom of Heaven” in Matthew) appears more than a hundred times. It is the centre around which everything else revolves. The Gospel summaries are unequivocal: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mk 1:15). This “at hand” (ἤγγικεν) signifies both proximity and dynamism. The Kingdom is not a place but an event: God Himself coming to reign.

Jesus announces it in the present tense: “If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Lk 11:20). The healings, the exorcisms, the forgiveness granted to sinners, the table fellowship with tax collectors and prostitutes all these are not mere signs pointing to something else; they are the Kingdom itself in act. Yet at the same time He teaches us to pray daily: “Thy kingdom come” (Mt 6:10). The Kingdom is therefore both already present and not yet fully realised. The theological formula that best expresses this tension is classical yet ever new: it is “already and not yet.”

II. Not of This World, Yet in This World

When Jesus says to Pilate “My kingdom is not of this world,” He is not saying that it is unrelated to the earth but that it does not originate from the logic that governs the kingdoms of the earth — the logic of domination, of the sword, of self-assertion. “If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight…” (Jn 18:36). The Kingdom of God advances without violence, without political or military coercion, because its weapon is truth and its strength is love.

Far from being a flight from the world, the Kingdom is the most radical critique of the world as it is: a world structured by possession, power, and appearance. It introduces into history a new principle gratuitousness. The beatitudes are its charter: the poor, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for justice, the pure in heart, the persecuted these are the ones to whom the Kingdom belongs here and now (cf. Mt 5:3-12). The last are made first, not by a future reversal but by the very arrival of God who overturns the criteria of worldly success.

III. The Logic of the Seed and the Leaven

Jesus almost never defines the Kingdom; He tells stories about it. The sower, the mustard seed, the leaven in the dough, the treasure hidden in the field, the pearl of great price — these parables reveal a divine pedagogy. The Kingdom grows according to a logic that is not that of human efficiency. It begins infinitesimally small, almost invisible, yet it contains an irresistible force. It does not impose itself; it proposes itself. It calls for a response.

The parables always end with an implicit or explicit question: What will you do? Will you sell everything to acquire the field? Will you allow the leaven to work? The Kingdom is offered as a gift, but a gift is only real when it is received. God respects human freedom to the point of making the actualisation of His reign dependent — in a mysterious but real way — on our consent. This is the astonishing kenosis of divine love: the All-Powerful waits upon the response of the creature.

IV. An Eschatological Reality That Transforms the Present

The Kingdom is eschatological: it comes from the end and hastens toward the end. It is the inbreaking of eternity into time. Yet precisely because it is eschatological, it has immediate consequences for earthly realities. Wherever justice is done to the poor, wherever forgiveness breaks the cycle of revenge, wherever a human being is welcomed simply because he or she is human, there the Kingdom is already fermenting the dough of history.

Christians are therefore called neither to withdraw from the world nor to conquer it by worldly means, but to be the leaven, the salt, the light. Their political and social commitment — for justice, peace, the defence of life, the care of creation — flows necessarily from the Gospel, yet it is never identified with the Kingdom itself. The latter always remains a gift that transcends every human construction and judges them all.

V. Living the Kingdom Today

To live the Kingdom is first of all to let God reign in one’s own heart: to allow His mercy to forgive what seemed unforgivable, His freedom to detach us from the idolatry of possession, His truth to unmask our illusions. Prayer above all the Our Father is the privileged place of this daily consent.

From this interior kingship flows a new way of being in the world: relationships marked by gratuitousness, choices guided by the beatitudes, a hope that is not discouraged by apparent failure because it is rooted not in visible success but in the faithfulness of God.

The Kingdom of God is ultimately Jesus Christ Himself crucified and risen present in His Church and in the poor. Where He is welcomed, there the Kingdom is already present. Where He is rejected, there the world remains closed in on itself. The final word, however, does not belong to the darkness but to the Light that shines in it, and the darkness has not overcome it (cf. Jn 1:5).

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.

Jérémie Tshibakenga Matara

THE SOLEMNITY OF OUR LORD CHRIST, KING OF THE UNIVERSE

Dear brothers and sisters,

The Solemnity of Christ the King, which brings the liturgical year to its fulfilment, invites us to contemplate the ultimate meaning of time and history. This feast, instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 through the encyclical Quas Primas, was born in a dramatic hour: the aftermath of the Great War, the rise of totalitarian ideologies that sought to occupy the place belonging to God alone, and the progressive expulsion of Christ from the public sphere in the name of a secularism that was becoming ever more hostile.

When I celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King – this feast that closes the liturgical year and that, in a certain sense, closes the circle of all history – I always feel a profound peace mingled with a kind of holy trembling. Because here, at the end of everything visible, there stands not an idea, not a programme, not a system, but a Person: Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and risen, the one Lord of the cosmos and of my own small life.

I often ask myself: what does it really mean to say that He is King?

It is certainly not the kingship that the world understands. His throne was a cross; His crown, thorns; His purpled with blood. He did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life. And yet, precisely from that wood, from that apparent defeat, there radiates a sovereignty that nothing can limit: not time, not space, not the powers of this world, not even death itself. When I look at the Crucified One, I understand that true power is love that goes to the end, love that does not impose itself but offers itself.

This kingship reaches me personally, first of all. Before changing society, it wants to change my heart. He asks me, quietly but insistently, to let Him the first place: above my projects, my fears, my need for control, my little idols. Only if I bend the knee inwardly – in the secret of conscience, in the choices no one sees – can I then bear witness outwardly that He truly reigns.

And yet His kingship does not stop at the threshold of my private life. Because I am not an isolated individual, but a person called to live with others, in families, cities, nations. There is no corner of human reality – politics, economy, culture, science, art, leisure – that can declare itself neutral or emancipated from Him.

Not because the Church wishes to seize temporal power (God preserve us from that temptation!), but because every created thing has received its meaning from the Word through whom all things were made. To exclude Christ from any domain is not to gain freedom; it is to deprive that domain of its soul and to open the door to new forms of slavery.

I feel this with particular intensity in our time, when many think they can build a world without God, or even against God. History teaches us that whenever man enthrones himself in the place of the Creator, the result is never paradise, but new and more cruel tyrannies. Only the gentle yoke of the One who said “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” can heal the wounds of freedom gone astray.

That is why I love this feast so much. It is not a nostalgic remembrance of past privileges, nor a dream of earthly triumph. It is the quiet but unshakable certainty that love is stronger than hatred, truth stronger than lies, life stronger than death. And it is an invitation addressed to me today: to live as a subject – a free, happy subject – of this King who reigns from the Cross.

May He reign in me more and more each day.
May He reign in our families, often so confused, societies.
May He reign until the day when every knee will bend before Him, not by force, but in the joy of recognised truth.

Christus vincit.
Christus regnat.
Christus imperat.

May He grant us the grace to belong to Him totally, now and for ever.

Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat.

Jérémie Tshibakenga Matara