Catholicity in thirteen words

I had to give an introductory course on Christianity to university students in a post-Christian era. How could I surprise or interest them? How could I help them understand? This is the question that has occupied me for years. So, I tried to summarize the Christian faith (creed, sacraments, commandments, prayer) in thirteen words, also with a point of provocation. Not three, not seven, nor twelve: thirteen! And these came to me little by little, as I went on to explain them historically, according to what we call the history of salvation. In the end, my words were: Creation, Bible, Covenant, Flesh, Person, Easter, Church, Glory, Grace, Freedom, Truth, Love, Prayer .

Flesh, Person, Easter, Church, Glory, Grace, Freedom, Truth, Love, Prayer. 1 Why 13?For going against superstition, what is the opposite to Christian faith.
1. First the Creation, in favor of which the ecological sensitivity of the present moment played a role."In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen 1:1), that is, everything.Not good and evil, or yin and yang.He created everything out of nothing, and not out of pre-existing matter.God is the being and author of all beings.The Big Bang theory or evolutionism must be compatible with the story contained in the first pages of the Bible.Creation is a Big Bang also of love and sense.Creation is good, but the world also contains much evil, which was not made by God, but arises from the devil (real and personal being) and from our personal freedom 2 .
2. The Bible actually means "the collection of books", that are considered to be inspired by God.How can we know this?First of all, because of the coherence between the different writings, and then because the Church, the first believing community, does a work of sifting and discernment that allows it to understand which books are true and which are fake.And how can we read the Bible, alone or in solidarity?We read it -so to speak -in a choral, symphonic way.We do not read the Bible alone, or only the Bible.We read it in a certain context, which is the faith of the whole Church in all times and places 3 .
3. The concept of Covenant runs through the history of Israel and the salvation, of Judaism and Christianity.Thus, a Christian does not believe alone but accompanied by all the preceding history: Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Moses, the prophets and kings… Therefore, faith and salvation came little by little through concrete people and history.But the people of Israel returned to infidelity and fell also then under the power of foreign peoples like the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, and the Romans, longing then for the freedom that Yahweh had given to his people.At the end comes the liberation, whose name is Jesus 4 .
4. In the Incarnation, "the Word became flesh" (Jn 1:14), which is a provocation in a world that tends alternatively to materialism or spiritualism.If the world was good from creation, the flesh will be blessed by the person of the incarnate Word."What is not assumed is not saved", said Gregory Nazianzen, an ancient and wise Christian.But we must take into account the reality of sins, both original and personal.The flesh blessed by the person of the Word can also be corrupted and degraded by us.But there is always the hope of salvation: our sins can be forgiven.The Son of God becomes man so that we, the children of men, may become children of God 5 .

Then comes the concept of Person, because -together with the Incarnation -the main dogma of Christianity is the
Trinity: three distinct Persons, one God.And is this important for our daily life?Of course, because otherwise we believe in one God just like the Jews or the Muslims.But this God is in three different Persons.We are called to the community like the Trinity.In Christ, we have come to know the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.This means that there is unity and difference from the beginning, and that Christianity is not monistic or monolithic, but appreciates diversity in unity.Moreover, we can explain the Trinity on the basis of truth and love, also the noblest of human beings 6 .
6.And the Passover, where are born the sacraments, which for Christianity also have a vital importance.The Passover came from the Jewish tradition when a lamb renewed the covenant of Yahweh with his people, and recalled the exodus, the liberation of the chosen people from the slavery of Egypt.But now the victim will be Jesus himself, the sacrificial lamb, who will die for us on the cross.However, as we know, the story does not end there, since he is resurrected on the third day, so we recover the eternity we had lost with the original sin.And we even improve it.With the ascension into heaven, what we might call the "ceremony of the inauguration" of heaven takes place 7 .
7. Then the Church, as a continuation of the salvific action of Jesus Christ.With the slogan "Christ yes, Church no" we must understand that the Church is nothing other than the body, the bride of Christ: inseparable from Him, but distinct from Him.But the Church is for making Jesus Christ present.As the Fathers of the Church said, "Christ is the sun, but the Church is the moon that reflects the light of the sun" 8 .
8. And comes the final Glory.We have been created not for death but for eternity.With Easter, Christ has conquered eternity and heaven for us.Eternity is impossible to think or imagine, but it is our true life.This is only a test in which we conquer an eternity of love or hate.Heaven is nothing else but love won.God, who is love, wants to give us an eternity of love.But it is also true that this heaven depends on what we love on earth: in the evening of life, we will be judged in love, by love 9 .