^{Given to Jesus through the hands of Mary}

Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.”

Background:

COLORLESS is a manga series by KENT and it’s only 70 chapters. IT takes place on an earth where a giant solar flare (called “the mercy pulse”) strips all color from the world. On top of that, people’s bone structure changes so that they become almost humanoid dinosaurs. Any remaining color – stored in crystals and rocks – becomes extremely valuable and powerful. And after 300 years, anyone who still looks like a human is going to turn heads.

SPOILERS: I talk about the world as it is at the end of the series, not necessarily anything about the characters and who lives/dies so do with that what you will.

Our focus:

There’s plenty of themes in COLORLESS that we could focus on, but I’m going to focus on one that only gets mentioned in passing: creation – and consequently the history of humanity. You see, the COLORLESS sets itself up as if it takes place in the distant future. A giant solar flare disrupts mankind’s digital world and after 300 years people have changed into an almost different species. But at the end of the series we see humanity revert to their humanoid biology and the world built-up as we know it today. This triggers the well-known plot twist “it was actually all in the past” (cf. the rebooted battlestar galactica series for something similar).

Whether it actually takes place in the past or not, the subtle point conveyed to the reader is this: all this has happened and life just repeats and goes on. No matter how things seem at a particular time, there is no change in the grand scheme of things.

The Christian Difference™

I began this post with the opening line of Genesis. A line which tells us definitively that the earth, and indeed all creation, had a beginning. If you wanted to wade into more academic debates, you could discuss whether or not we know this solely from divine revelation, or if human reason is sufficient to demonstrate this fact. Don’t worry. I’m not getting into that.

What I am getting at, is that a world view that does not recognize a Creator will quickly lose all meaning. For example, in COLORLESS there is a lot said about humanity and its future, but what happens at the end of the day? We get the notion that whether the heroes win or lose, the earth would probably be in the same condition is was before. It might take more or less time depending on how far the “bad guys” get, but it seems like eventually it would just sort itself out. It seems similar to our article on Princess Mononoke where, at the end of it all, we question if there’s been any actual progress. I’d argue Mononoke doesn’t suffer from this as much as COLORLESS does precisely because it retains a sense of the divine creator represented in the forest spirit. But in COLORLESS that’s not the case. The only depiction of religion is occult-like, and even if we’re satisfied about which characters live and die, at the end of the series their life is peaceful, but meaningless.

The Difference of Christ

Pope Benedict XVI centered much of his writing and theology on the difference Jesus Christ makes – not just in our life on the subjective level, but on the cosmic level of history. He wrote quite clearly that Christ “has given creation and history their definitive meaning.” (Verbum Domini 14). Another way to say that is “without Christ, history and creation have no meaning.”

How often do we hear people cry out to stop wars, to feed those who are starving, to shelter those who are homeless, and yet this is done all without a reference to God and Jesus Christ. Why are these things such a tragedy? Is it merely because they’re a human being like me, or is it because this is a person for whom God has shed His blood and redeemed?

Never forget that Christ gives definitive meaning to your life. And more than that, He gives meaning to all of history: to everything that has come before us, and to everything that comes after. All of its meaning is found in, and flows from the work of Jesus Christ.

_{St. Justin Martyr, pray for us.}