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Ministry has taught me about Authentic Presence. What is “authentic”? What is “presence”? Authentic is “genuine, real.” Presence is a being present to or with, even in. Authentic Presence is having the quality of being present as realness.
However, as in the Gospel response to the authenticity of Jesus, who more than any other is real, darkness finds the Light intolerable, for authenticity itself judges the fakeness of what is inauthentic; depth judges shallowness; truth judges falsehood; being judges non-being; love judges hate; religious freedom judges moralistic dogmatism; true Christianity judges cultural Christendom. Indeed, Matthew 13 provides a Jesus Parable, noting that the authentic and fake exist together for a time, but will be separated in the proper time. And, it teaches us, wisely, that being in the Jesus field does not make one a Jesus person:
24He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?' 28He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' 29But he said, 'No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"
Christian communion must embrace the contradiction between authentic and inauthentic, even as Jesus did, through encountering it, and not once did he surrender the richness of realness to the dearth of the inauthentic. The renewal of communion is placed within the heart of the real and is the sacred task of the authentic ones, and the commitment to authentic presence over pious and dogmatic religion, which hides behind precepts and an idolatry of Scripture, must gain sway for the transformation of the Body of Christ on earth. Yes, the inauthentic will utilize the very means of Grace and what belongs only rightly to true Christianity, as in Scripture, but not in submission and openness to the Spirit, and this marks the spiritual Christian from the cultural “Christian.” And this is seen in II Corinthians 11.13, where St. Paul addresses heresy in the church: Even Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light (NLT). However, evil cannot fake Authentic Presence; evil persons, who may even call themselves Christians, can mouth and act a show of Christ, but can never give the quality of Christ, for the Presence of which I speak, true godliness, can only issue from the Christ, through the Holy Spirit.
So, do more than listen to a man or woman, whose words can deceive, and even more so as he or she adds words of religious piety to them. Rather, see and feel the life and presence, and you shall know whether she or he walks with Christ, or lives religion only in the piety ascribed to those who speak of Christ, but are cut off from the vitality of living and resurrected Christ-among-us.
Once a monk went to his abbot. “Father,” he said, “how do you tell an authentic Christian from one who only claims to be so?” “My child,” replied the abbot, “would you believe anything or anyone who says, 'I am the Sun.’” Then, the monk said, “No, I would not.” “Then,” asked the abbot, “how do you know what is the Sun and not the Sun?” “Father, that is obvious,” replied the monk. “My son, so it is. The true Christian is known not by what is said about him or by him. If you know the Sun, you shall know what is not the Sun. If you know authentic Christianity, you shall know what is not of authentic Christianity. It is as obvious as knowing the Sun is the Sun, for those with eyes to see and a heart to discern. Discernment comes from within you, my child, not from the acts or claims of another."
Being authentically with persons is essential, and maintenance of authenticity is the only hope for the prevalence of authenticity in community, even as the Persons of the Triune Divinity are really real among themselves. And, authenticity is best and most effective when shining in the face of the darkness which seeks to discredit and blot it out, even as the Incarnation of Christ was Light descending into the darkness by “spirit,” which is partly meant in that he descend into “hell,” as spoken in the Apostle’s Creed, or the world of death, the “prison of departed spirits,” between his death and resurrection (I Peter 3.18-20).
God is Tangible Presence. Germanus of Constantinople (ca. 634—733) writes, “The church is an earthy heaven, in which God beyond the heavens dwells and walks about" (Andrew Louth, Ed., The Wisdom of the Greek Fathers. Oxford: Lion Publishing, 1997: 28). God is not over against or apart from us. Christ tabernacles among and with us (cf. John 1.14). Christ shares Himself with those prepared to receive, as we see Eucharist witnesses to, but God will not feed Himself to the heart of the man or woman who closes the mouth to the Grace of Christ, though he claims he or she knows the Christ he or she resists as Christ.
God is not static. William A. Barry speaks of potential for a “conscious relationship with this self-communicating God” (Finding God in All Things: A Companion to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Notre Dame: Ave Maria, Notre Dame: 16-17). God is self-divulging, self-sharing. This agrees with biblical revelation, as Sigmund Mowinckel points out when he writes that revelation means “God imparts himself to us” and the content of the divulgence (The Old Testament as Word of God. New York: Abingdon Press, 1959: 22). Authentic Presence from the Body of Christ relies, then, on the impartation of the divine energies of God, through the Holy Spirit, and we, as Body of Christ on earth, become Christ incarnated in the world to witness to Christ through Presence, the very Presence in Whom we dwell as one Body. God, then, does not lead us to this Presence principally through imparting dogma, creed, Scripture, or tradition—though these are rightly used when used to nurture us in the dwelling in Christ—; rather, and here is the mystery of the Christian faith: God imparts God’s Self.
The lesser religious traditions say one of two things. One says, the monistic: I am God. The other, dualistic, says: God is there, I am here. The mystery of our faith, true Christianity; indeed, traditional Christianity, is the great Mystery of the Universe: “God deifies me, making me god, in that I participate in God by God giving God to me.” Therefore, god implies participation in God, as I am my earthy father Theo in that through natural genetics I participate in him. He is Theo, I am theo. As spoken by Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022):
Man is united to God spiritually and physically, since the soul is not separated from the mind, neither the body from the soul. By being united in essence man also has three hypostases [individual aspects, extension of unity] by grace [not by nature alone]. He is a single god by adoption [not by nature alone] with body and soul and the divine Spirit, of whom he has become a partaker. Then is fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet David, “I have said, ye are gods, and ye are all the sons of the Most High” [Psalm 82.6].
(Symeon the New Theologian: the Discourses, Trans. C. J. de Catanzaro).
Therefore, Authentic Presence and Authentic Christianity arises, theologically, out of the union of all aspects of the self, even the body, says Church Tradition, and through the Holy Spirit, with God, for the Holy Spirit is the fire that animates the self. So much so, not that I become God, which would be the ultimate of ignorance or pride, or both. I become, and you, through the union, god, in the sense of bearing the goodness of Grace, of God, as a witness of the Authentic Presence animating mind, body, soul, and spirit with the Lively Presence of the Triune God. The wonder is that such immaculate Splendor, or Glory, is shared through each of us who say “Yes” to the Presence of Christ, but yes by word and life, not just word. This godliness marks the path of Authentic Christianity from Cultural “Christianity.”
Reflections
Do you know someone who impresses you as an authentic Christian? How?
Is it better to be “right” or “authentic”? Explain.
Spiritual Exercises
Prayerfully reflect on your life. Are there any situations that you are not being authentic within? If so, pray about those situations. Seek guidance and resolve for Christ to manifest Authenticity through you in those situations.
Is someone you know evidencing that she or he is being threatened by your authenticity? Pray about it. Pray for the person to be able to receive the Christ living in and shining through you. Be empathetic, for this Presence can be very alarming and threatening to persons. Pray that you will live wisely in sharing such a powerful Truth with others.
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