Important Lines from Redemptor Hominis

Jesus Christ is “the light of the world” and “whoever follows” him “will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). The Lord Jesus is the source of life itself and walking apart from Him leads to destruction and in the modern world, many people have heard of Jesus and billions of people know about Jesus’s claims about Himself. Despite this, many people still refuse to follow Him. The modern world has brought about unprecedented technological and material prosperity, but also an unprecedented level of secularism, religious skepticism, and scientific materialism. Thus, the modern world needs to be reminded of the ultimate importance of Jesus Chirst.

This need is what Pope Saint John Paul II began to fulfill in his first papal encyclical, Redemptor Hominis. The encyclical presents the relevance of Jesus Christ in the modern world and also offers ideas and practices to grow closer to the Lord which the modern world can receive. Simply exploring a few sentences or lines from the text itself and explicating the meaning of these passages provides one with a great understanding of John Paul II’s approach to presenting the Lord in the modern world, but also how people can best receive Him today. 

To begin this exploration, the first line of the encyclical provides a piercing truth which modern man tends to reject:

The Redeemer of Man, Jesus Christ, is the center of the universe and of history. (John Paul II 1)

The meaning of this passage is clear enough. However, it is important to understand that John Paul II explicitly states that Christ is both the center of the universe and the center of history in order to emphasize the cosmic importance of Him, while also maintaining Christ’s relevance to human life. By mentioning that He is the center of the universe, he articulates Christ’s cosmic importance and by mentioning that He is the center of history, he shows that Christ is also the center of human existence. This is a crucial step as the modern world can often look at the vastness of the cosmos and feel that human life is cosmically insignificant as a result, and so by acknowledging Christ’s central role both in the universe and human history, John Paul II reminds modern man that human life is also of central importance within the universe. Furthermore, the fact that this line is the very first sentence of the encyclical makes the sentence serve as an overarching theme in the encyclical. For example, this theme of recognizing Christ as the central point in the vast plane of existence is found later in the encyclical too: 

Through the Church's consciousness, which the Council considerably developed, through all levels of this self-awareness, and through all the fields of activity in which the Church expresses, finds and confirms herself, we must constantly aim at him "who is the head", "through whom are all things and through whom we exist”, who is both "the way, and the truth” and "the resurrection and the life", seeing whom, we see the Father, and who had to go away from us that is, by his death on the Cross and then by his Ascension into heaven-in order that the Counsellor should come to us and should keep coming to us as the Spirit of truth. (John Paul II 7)

This passage just serves as another example of how John Paul II centers the encyclical around Christ as he articulates that Christ is the head of the Church and, thus, is the Person that the Church is journeying towards. Moreover, he reminds the world that Christ is continually present in the Church, first when he was on earth, but now through the presence of the Holy Spirit which the Father sent after Jesus’s Ascension. By doing so, John Paul II presents the reality of Christ’s continual presence, and thus, importance in the world today, which forces modern man to reckon with the reality of Christ, rather than ignore Him. Later on, John Paul II provides a beautiful line where he shows how Christ serves as an icon of man’s ultimate destiny:

Christ the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling". And the Council continues: "He who is the 'image of the invisible God' (Col 1:15), is himself the perfect man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin. Human nature, by the very fact that it was assumed, not absorbed, in him, has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare. (John Paul II 8)

Christ redeems man in his fallen state, but in doing so He reveals his future destiny to himself. Through this redemption, there is both a revelation of what man is, but also an elevation of man in the order of dignity. This is an interesting dynamic as it would seem that in Christ revealing man’s nature to Himself, he would be revealing what is already there, so to speak, and so would not be elevating his nature in any way. However, it is precisely through living a perfect life, which is a part of Christ’s elevation of human nature, that Christ reveals Man to himself. The other aspect of the elevation is that Christ is also fully God and so by assuming a human nature, God further displays how much He loves man, but also how special and unique man is in the order of creation. This passage, I think, begins John Paul II’s shift in the encyclical from talking about Christ in a more abstract way to explicitly denoting how Christ is relevant to man today and he talks about how He is relevant to modern man in the passage below:

Christ the Lord indicated this way especially, when, as the Council teaches, "by his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, in a certain way united himself with each man”. The Church therefore sees its fundamental task in enabling that union to be brought about and renewed continually. (John Paul II 13)

The fact that Christ has united Himself with every individual man is crucial and beautiful as it means that each person can see themselves in Christ and unite themselves to Him in return. It is wonderful that John Paul II takes time to mark this point as it is one of the best ways of helping people realize that Christ is relevant to their lives. Christ understands what each person goes through and struggles with, both because He is omniscient, but also because He has lived a human life. Indeed, He has lived the most difficult human life, filled with the most severe forms of physical, psychological, and spiritual suffering. Thus, every person can see in Him their most troublesome experiences and worries as He knows all of them personally and also offers hope that evil is never final through His Resurrection. Christ, as a source of hope, is something that modern man needs desperately:

Man therefore lives increasingly in fear. He is afraid that what he produces-not all of it, of course, or even most of it, but part of it and precisely that part that contains a special share of his genius and initiative-can radically turn against himself; he is afraid that it can become the means and instrument for an unimaginable self-destruction, compared with which all the cataclysms and catastrophes of history known to us seem to fade away. (John Paul II 15)

John Paul II himself lived through the second World War and was personally acquainted with the extent of suffering and evil which occurred during the 20th century. He knew what modern man had just recently experienced and he wrote this encyclical in the midst of the Cold War where there was still a threat of nuclear annihilation. These experiences of evil made modern man, certainly at the time of the writing of the encyclical, afraid of the world. Despite the Cold War being over, modern man still lives in great fear having just experienced a global pandemic and currently experiencing great conflicts in Europe and the Middle East. Acknowledging the reality of modern man’s fear is important as it shows that John Paul II is deeply concerned with the problems of the modern age and desires to offer a solution to the modern world’s problems. The beginning of his proposed solution is found when he declares what the role of the Church is, particularly as Her role relates to the Truth:

Therefore it is required, when the Church professes and teaches the faith, that she should adhere strictly to divine truth, and should translate it into living attitudes of "obedience in harmony with reason”. (John Paul II 19)

This passage comes from his section entitled “The Church as Responsible for Truth” and the sentence above defines what he means in the title (John Paul II 19). John Paul II sees one of the Church’s roles in the modern world as the deliverer of Truth, and this flows from the identity of the Church as the Body of Christ. The Church must always stay close to the Divine Truth entrusted to Her, otherwise She risks losing Her own identity. This role of the Church is a key part of Her mission in the modern world as the Truth She presents is Jesus Christ. Moreover, the last phrase of how the Church communicates the Truth through “obedience in harmony with reason,” provides a guiding principle for he thinks the Church should preach the Truth to the modern world.

In the light of this teaching, we see still more clearly the reason why the entire sacramental life of the Church and of each Christian reaches its summit and fullness in the Eucharist. … ​​The Christ who calls to the Eucharistic banquet is always the same Christ who exhorts us to penance and repeats his "Repent”. (John Paul II 20)

This final quote from Redemptor Hominis is an exhortation to Catholics in the modern world to stay close to Christ through the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and confession. These moments where Christ becomes uniquely present in the world are critical to developing an intimate relationship with Christ.

Thus, it is clear that Pope Saint John Paul II used this encyclical as a means to center the rest of his papacy around presenting Christ to the modern world in a way which modern man can receive Him. In Redemptor Hominis, John Paul II does three things in order to display Christ to modern man. Firstly, he articulates how Jesus is at the epicenter of the world in cosmic sense, but also how he is the center of human history. Then, he shows that Christ is not merely the center of human history in the way that other historical figures might be, like Napoleon or Julius Caesar, but, rather, is the center of history because He is still alive and in deep, intimate relationship with each human being. Finally, he orients modern man towards Christ through his declaration on the responsibility the Church has in presenting the Truth, but also his recommendations of the sacraments of the Eucharist and penance as they reinforce the importance of the sacraments in having a personal relationship with the Lord. The tone of the encyclical is very bold and forthright, representing what I think should be the tone of Catholics today when presenting Jesus to people in the modern world. However, it should be noted that this tone, while being bold, is not harsh or condemning, but is inviting since the boldness of the encyclical comes from its openness about the reality of Christ and proposing following Him as the proper way to live, rather than through fearful admonition of the consequences of not following Him. This method of proposing Christ to the modern world and letting come to Him through their own will is the proper approach we should have when bringing Christ to others. The beauty and goodness of Christ will, in the end, conquer all resistance to Him as He has already “overcome the world” (John 16:33). John Paul II’s Redemptor Hominis reminds us of that fact and thus offers a potent guide to “make a straight highway through the wasteland” which is the world “for our God” so that the world may come to know the Person they were destined to love (Isaiah 40:3).

Works Cited

John Paul II, Pope Saint. “Redemptor Hominis (4 March 1979): John Paul II.” Redemptor Hominis, 4 Mar. 1979, www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_04031979_redemptor-hominis.html.

Suggs, M. Jack, et al. The Oxford Study Bible: Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha. Oxford University Press, 1992.