Is it not true that the Christian message comes from the future - it does not belong to the past - and for this reason is of great interest in the present? Is the world not only in the era "after Christ" but, above all, in the "time before Christ"? This is what Benedict XVI is asked in a central passage of the book-interview "Light of the World" (pp. 76-77).

Yes, says the Pope. And that is why Christians - as John Paul II did - must be capable of setting forth anew "the message of faith from the perspective of Christ who is coming". We must do so in a certain original way, since "often this condition of Christ who is coming has been proclaimed in formulas which, while true, have at the same time grown old. They have lost their meaning or its meaning has been distorted. For this reason, and he refers to an expression of Jürgen Habermas, it is important that there be theologians who can translate the treasure of faith in such a way that "it is a word for this world". He agrees with him that "the inner process of translating the great words into the verbal and conceptual image of our time is progressing, but has not yet been really achieved".

How can the truths of the faith be translated into the culture of our time? Benedict XVI understands that "this can only be achieved if people live Christianity from the One who is to come". That is, if the "existential translation" (in life) precedes the "intellectual translation".

Here is the decisive point made by the Pope, taking up an idea developed in the Exhortation"Verbum Domini" (the saints are the most perfect interpreters of Scripture, cf. n. 48). Here he says it in the perspective of Christ: "It is the saints who live the Christian being in the present and in the future, and from their existence, the Christ who is coming can also be translated, so that he becomes present in the horizon of the understanding of the secular world". "This is the great task before us," he strongly emphasizes.

And it is true. For Christ to be recognized as the present and the future of the world, there must first of all be many "Christians of the street" (lay faithful) - and not only clerics or consecrated persons in the canonical sense - who take holiness seriously, also "in" and "through" the things of the world: in families and through work, in cultural, social and political tasks, in leisure and sport, in all the stages and conditions of human existence. How else can it be shown that only in Christ can we find the answer to so many vital questions such as the primacy of love, the original goodness of the world, the validity of reason, the attractiveness of beauty that leads to truth, the close connection between the cult of God and social commitment, the hope for authentic progress...?

Here we should ask ourselves about the "how" of holiness in the midst of the world. We can see that this is not only a question of theological method, but also of evangelization and even of survival for humanity. For this it is necessary to allow oneself to be enlightened by God, "Light of the world" and, at the same time, Word and Life for the world.