This was a Personal Reflection Paper for my class...it is soley MY experiences in the area of what we studied during the class.
Agree? Disagree? Let me know what you think?
What grade do you think I received?
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Theology of the
Church and What it Means to Me
12
years ago I made my first trip to FUS for the DTF conference. After that first year, I invited a small
group of friends to join me and we have made it our yearly pilgrimage to serve
as a sort of booster shot against the secularism we face in the world. The weekend reignites the passion for our
faith and gives us the knowledge we need to pass on to others as we answer
God's call to spread the Gospel.
The
DTF conference has also inspired us to start a bible study group, which has met
regularly for the last 10 years. It was
our goal from the beginning to give the
members of the group a chance to learn more about our faith and our Catholic
heritage, as well as be a place to practice the apologetics that we learn from
the conference. We work together to develop ways to answer those we interact with,
those who have objections to Christianity as a whole, and the Catholic Church
in particular.
Since
beginning my classes in the Distance Learning program at FUS, the Theology of
the Church class has given me the most insight in how to handle discussions
that I get into. I have divided the paper into 5 sections. Each section concerns a different argument
that I hear from people in discussions about Christianity and the Catholic
Church.
1. The Nature of the Church-Man made VS
God made
I
think the most startling point for me in the class was when I came to the
realization that the Church existed even before the creation of the world. I
always understood that the Church started with Christ's commissioning of the
Apostles to go out and spread the Gospel to all the land and that is true for
the earthly Church. God though, in His infinite
wisdom, had designed the spiritual, mystical church as part of His plan for the
salvation of man from the beginning.
The
understanding of the religious problem discussed in class was the perfect
explanation of how the separation between God and man can only be bridged by
the coming of Christ, who was fully God and fully man. When Christ ascended that bridge could only
be continued through the Church, which is the prolongation of Christ on earth
until the end of time. The Church is called the Body of Christ because it is a
living entity with Christ as its head and founder. It is called Mystical because it in neither
purely physical nor a purely spiritual unity, but supernatural.
When
we recite the Creed we say that we believe in the Father (the creator) the Son
(the Redeemer) and the Holy Spirit (the Sanctifier). We then go on to profess belief in the Holy
Catholic Church, the church that is the means for receiving that Sanctifying
grace.
2. Role of the Church- Church as
institution VS church as mystery
In
today's world, the Church is seen only as an institution. A great, big, religious corporation with the
Pope as it's CEO. What society fails to
see is that the Church is, and will always be a mystery. One that is transparent and exposed to the
world. Although it is intelligible
(capable of being understood) it will never be comprehensible and I think this
leads people to write it off as unnecessary.
Only
God can teach us about the Church. God designed the Church to encompass all of
humanity through all space and all time.
She has no barriers and does not stop at the visual world.
The
Church consists of 3 distinct groups, the Church Militant (those of the world),
the Church suffering (those in purgatory) and the Church Triumphant, (those who
are in Heaven), and there is communication between those groups.
The
Church is transitory and touches upon the 3 successive conditions of the
Church, that of the flesh, that of the spirit and that of the transfiguration
at the end of time. The Heavenly Church
which will be made gloriously triumphant in paradise. Every person in every culture forms the whole
of the Church. We are all different and
unique, but we are all joined in the family of Christ, throughout every age and
country, race and culture. We are joined
to all of those who came before us, and all of those who will come after
us.
The
Church has an aspect of duality that encompasses the whole mystery of the
Church. She consists of an active and a
passive aspect. She gives out the very
thing that she gets. She dispenses that
which she needs.
On
the one hand, the Church is holy and sanctifying. She is holy and makes men holy because of
that. On the other hand, she consists of
people who are not holy and who are in need of sanctification. The Church is the very reconciling power,
God's very life of mercy, which she dispenses to the world. At the same time, she is the place where all
men who stand in need of reconciliation can be found. Every day the Church calls upon the power of
Christ while at the same time she dispenses that power.
I
love to use the explanation of the Church as an image of the moon. The Moon is 2 things simultaneously, dark and
light, abundance and poverty, transitory and continuously reborn. The moon does not generate its own light, but
reflects the light from the sun, just as the Church does not generate its own
grace, but passes on grace from God.
3. Need for the Church
Without
the Church, we would not even know who Christ was or what he taught. It was von Balthazar that described the 3
strand cord of Catholicity which linked Christ to the Church.
Strand
1 is the word proclaimed,
Strand
2 is the word celebrated (sacraments) and
Strand
3 is the office of unity.
The
primary cord is the office which validates and authenticates the other two and
was established by Christ from the beginning.
Without it, the claims of the other two cords cannot be believed or
understood.
The
Church is also needed to help interpret the meaning of the Scriptures. St. Thomas held that by the manner of its
speech, Sacred Scripture transcends every science because even though is
describes a fact, at the same time it reveals a mystery.
The
study of Scripture allows for 4 different senses to be used:
The
literal or historical sense, where words signify things and
The
spiritual sense, where the things the words signify also have a
signification. The spiritual sense can
be further broken down to an allegorical sense, which is your belief, a moral
sense, which is what you do based on that belief and an anagogical sense, where
you go, the expression of that belief lived.
It
is only through the Church that we can examine the different senses and have a
deeper understanding of what Christ is teaching us through the Scriptures.
I often meet people who hold the same feeling
for Christianity that Victorinus did before his conversion. Victorinus believed he did not need to become
a Christian because he understood the ideas of Christianity, the principles and
the morality of Christians. That is the
same argument I hear today when people say that they are "faithful"
but not "religious".
Victorinus
converted when he realized that membership in the Church was more than just a
bunch of people who institutionalized the ideas of faith, but the revelation of
a person, a way of life. No man can
stand alone. In the Church man is
living a common worship and confession with other beings.
I
often use the description of the difference between philosophy and faith in
discussions. Philosophy is what you
think, your private truth. Faith is received.
It comes from the spoken Word of
God and you need to hear the word to receive the faith. If I don't hear the word, I can have no
faith. It is through the Church that the
Word of God is proclaimed and it unites us with other men and creates unity and
solidarity between men. Our relationship
to God and to other men cannot be separate from each other. We need a community, a Church.
The
Church is also needed because it is the single dispenser of the Holy
Eucharist. Why is the Eucharist
important when understanding the Church?
Because the Eucharist is the source of the grace that we, as the Church need
to continue to be Christ in the world.
The
Eucharist has many characteristics that make it extraordinarily special:
It
is the only presence which involves a transformation of matter into Christ
shadowing God's transformation of the world.
It
is the only presence involving transforming something dead into something
living, serving as an example of Christ's resurrection.
It
represents the transformation of our own lives.
Ordinary bread changing into extraordinary Christ. When we eat ordinary bread it changes into
us. When we consume the Eucharist, it
changes us into Christ.
It
is the most graphic declaration of Christ, the only presence of Christ that is
not through or within something else, and that something else remains.
It
is the presence of Christ in food.
Christ said He was the living bread.
We need food, and Christ is the food we need to survive in the this world.
It
is the only presence where Jesus offers Himself in sacrifice to the Father.
4. Arguments against the Church
I
often have people tell me that the Church is bad because of the sinful nature
of man. Yes, there is a dark side of the
Church. The earthly Church is made up of
sinful men, that will continue to sin, that exist in a sinful world.
That
is the paradox of Christ as well as His Church.
Christ, the divine word, took the form of a sinful man and entered into
the sinful world. He established a Church that acts as His Body and His bride
and serves as the way to sanctification for those in the world. It is only through God that this paradox can
exist. The only way that the Church has
lasted over the centuries, is because of the leadership of Christ and His
promise to be with His Church.
The
second area part of class that I gained the most insight was the discussion on
Luther and the Council of Trent.
Although I have studied both before, the discussions and readings from
class shed new light on understanding why those of the Protestant denominations
of Christianity had such deep rooted biases to the Catholic Church.
Luther
felt that only the interior Christianity to be authentic, so anything that was
exterior was false and idolatrous, and took the focus away from Christ and gave
it to things that were made by man. This
was the basis for his disagreement with the Churches authority, the Mass and
the Sacraments, the role of the Blessed Mother and the Saints.
He
also taught that it was only Christ's merits that obtained our salvation, and
man had no influence on his salvation either positive or negative. He failed to appreciate the meaning of
Christ's Incarnation. Christ becoming
man raised the dignity of man so that with our salvation came an internal
chance that provided us a chance to share in Christ's divinity.
The
priesthood is always another point that brings out very passionate
discussion. Most people understand and accept the universal priesthood. This is
the priesthood that consist of all those who are baptized and anointed by
Christ and the Holy Spirit. It is the
ministerial priesthood that many non-Catholic Christians don't understand.
God
calls some men to a new consecration. A
particular priesthood within the
universal priesthood who are set apart to perform a particular function. They are not better Christians because of
this and still exist as sinful men. It
is their particular calling that they serve as instruments through which Christ
gives them something of what God has given to Him. This ministerial priesthood
receive the imposition of hands which has been passed down from the
Apostles. They are the ones who produce
the Eucharist. They are the minster and
sacramental representative of Christ and as such deserve a special honor and
respect.
5. Ecumenism and the Church
Many
Christians of Protestant denominations I speak with get very offended by the
Catholic Church's rules for accepting Holy Eucharist. Which always brings up a conversation on
ecumenism. I think that many Catholics
have blurred the lines between denominations in order to appear more
ecumenical, but have done damage to the understanding of what the Catholic
Church believes.
I
try to focus on the beliefs that we share, the centrality of Christ as redeemer
and the scriptures as a way to learn about Him.
At the same time, I try to present the differences in our beliefs in
such a way to not be combative, even though there is often very emotional and
often angry responses, especially from those who have left the Catholic Church.
Conclusion
I
know that my discussions on the Church may not change any hearts, but it is my
desire to present the truth of the Catholic Church to the best of my
ability. Through what I have learned in
this class, I feel that I have a much better grasp of where the disagreements
stem from and how to best handle them. I
do know that only the Holy Spirit can change men's hearts and I pray that my
words will lead some people to look deeper into the Church and what it teaches
instead of relying on the distorted understanding that is often passed around
as Church teaching.
