Sorry, better late than never. I wish I had some glamourous excuse why I missed my blog post but alas I just forgot to post it before going to bed last night and midday NZ time ticks over while I’m fast asleep!

Anyway, here’s a blog I prepared earlier (on the weekend in fact) so all is not lost…!

There’s something exceptionally and profoundly refreshing about studying theology. I wondered whether it was a good idea to take a paper while away from NZ, whether it would be just another case of me piling way too much on my plate. However, through prayer and further consideration, I realized how important it was to keep ‘nourishing’ myself, better equipping myself with the ‘armour of God’ as it were!

Taking a course in Christology seemed all the more appropriate being that I find travel as a chance to discover more deeply my relation with Christ in the Eucharist, since I find myself ever more dependent on his companionship as sometimes the only ‘constant’ during travel.

It’s a Saturday morning (well, not as you read this…) and I’ve just finished this week’s readings and powerpoints…and once again I find myself awed at the mystery of Christ. Enlightened by new understandings, yes, but even more so in awe of how…ALL…that He is.

While knowing about Jesus, his life, historical events etc forms a crucial aspect of Christology, this is no substitute for our own subjective relationship to Christ. We cannot know reality, and even less other persons, in a ‘purely objective’ fashion. Why? Because what we seek to know is a mystery.

Ah, gees, it’s just beautiful. In knowing another person there are two mysteries – the mystery of myself, and the mystery of the other. You can know a person for years and they still surprise you. And Christ, what an even greater mystery is He than any other!

(At the risk of plagiarism…sorry Fr Merv, it’s just so good that I want to share it with everyone!) Any attempt to get to know the reality of the human history of Jesus is confronted by the mystery of the Incarnation.

And mysteries are not something that can be reduced, dissected, dominated – in order to be understood. Mysteries are not the same as ‘problems’ that can be objectively analysed, can be treated by science in the hope of finding solutions. No, mystery can only be recognized…and it cannot be viewed objectively, because we cannot separate ourselves from this.

Mystery, furthermore, reveals the depth of life which leads to eternity…existence without end. Therefore, having faith in the Mystery of Christ cannot be based on ‘proof’ – (not to be confused with the crucial relationship between faith and reason….). We all reach the point where we’re confronted with the question: “Who do you say I am?” All the historical analysis in the world is no substitute for authentic relationship with The One Who Is.