Christocentrism of Charism – Buggert - CarmelStream

and Mary must become fused. lxxvi
No one image or statement can exhaustively express the centrality of Christ for Teresa. lxxvii
He is a very good friend with whom we can identify in his own weakness and trials. In turn he is a
good companion for he understands the human situation and knows "of what stuff we are made." lxxviii
He is our brother who enables us to call God our Father. He is the way, the light, the master, the
teacher, the one whom we are to imitate in his poverty, humility, compassion, suffering, forgiveness
and love. But he is also the risen and glorified Christ indwelling within us and present for us in the
Church and Eucharist. Ultimately he is the bride into whom the butterfly dies and becomes one.
The Christocentrism of John of the Cross lxxix
We saw above how for Teresa of Avila the humanity of Christ plays an essential role in all
phases of the spiritual life so that every aspect of Christian life is Jesus-mediated. Is the same true
for John of the Cross?
Both Edwards and Barron point out that John has been criticized on this very point. lxxx No
less a premier theologian than Karl Rahner has made this criticism. We saw above his defense of
Teresa. However, regarding John of the Cross, Rahner says the following in writing about the
abiding mediatorial significance of the humanity of Jesus:
Signs of the great difficulty of such a Christianization of the basic religious act
directed towards God are to be seen even within the theory of Christian mysticism.
This theory has always been tempted (even in St. John of the Cross) to let everything
in the mystic act disappear in the face of God, so that over and over again subsequent
corrections of such a basic start on a pantheistic basis were found to be necessary to
enable the mystic to hold on to the fact that he may and can still occupy himself with
the humanity of Christ. lxxxi
That John of the Cross could so easily be misunderstood regarding his position concerning
the role of the humanity of Jesus throughout all stages of the spiritual life is somewhat under-
standable. Edwards indicates how certain writers point to John's "rejection of discursive thought and
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