Learning to Love the Church as we Love the Lord

The early fathers, Saints and Councils throughout the ages have all affirmed; to belong to Jesus is to belong to His Body.

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (Catholic Online) - "Let us love the Lord our God; let us love His Church. Let us love Him as our Father and her as our mother" (St. Augustine) "No one can have God as his Father who does not have the Church as his Mother" (St. Cyprian) "For where the Church is, there the Spirit of God is also; and where the Spirit of God is, there the Church is, and all grace. And the Spirit is truth." (St. Irenaeus of Lyons)

"There is no plan B" I said to my evangelical Protestant friend. "The Lord has not changed His mind. His work continues through His Body, His Church, of which we are all members through our Baptism". This exchange came at the end of a lengthy conversation initiated by him. He was hungering for a deeper life, in his words, "in the Lord."

A long time participant in the pro-life movement, he was first touched by the writings of Pope John Paul II and is a real fan of his successor, Pope Benedict XVI. He is moved by the Pro-Life witness of so many Catholics. He asked me some serious questions that day. I spoke to him of the theology of communion that is the heart of Catholic ecclesiology. I could see in his eyes the interest that will lead him even more deeply along the path I have witnessed so many others walk.

This encounter is happening frequently these days. I have spent much of my own public ministry in friendship and fellowship with evangelical Protestant Christians. There is a growing respect for the Catholic Church among many of our friends. For some, they have lived in an almost "Church-less" experience of Christianity; one that has so emphasized a "personal relationship" with Jesus (a vitally important truth) that often they have not experienced the "horizontal bar" of the Cross, the real implications of belonging to His Body in ecclesial communion.

However, they are not alone. How many Catholics understand the implications of their own Baptism? How many have experienced identification with the Church as a "mother", or living in the Church as a "communion"? How many have come to perceive the Church as "Some - One" more than some-thing? Is this all supposed to only be the experience of the "mystics", the talk of the Saints and Fathers, or, is it supposed to be the truly common experience of every Christian? I believe it is supposed to be the common experience of all Christians.

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In Catholic theology we teach what the early fathers, Saints and Councils throughout the ages have all affirmed; to belong to Jesus is to belong to His Body. Our membership in the Church is a participation in the life of God; what the Apostle Peter referred to as a "participation in the Divine nature". (2 Peter 1:4) We speak of our Christian friends in other Christian communities who have been validly baptized in accordance with a Trinitarian formula as already being in "imperfect communion" with the Church. This is why Catholics do not "re-baptize" a Christian from another community who comes into the Catholic Church. We speak of them as coming into "full communion" because they are already joined to the one Church in an "imperfect" or incomplete communion.

The headlines are filled with stories concerning the evil participated in by some members of the Catholic Church over a period of time in Ireland. The report was issued after a nine year investigation. It has left that Nation and the Irish Church heartsick. In the beginning of the sexual abuse crisis in the United States Pope John Paul II rightly referred to the evil at the root as part of the "mystery of iniquity." So it is in Ireland. There is a purification of the Church underway. This passage of the Gospel comes to mind ". nothing is hidden that will not be revealed." And, ".what was spoken in secret will be shouted from the housetops". (Mark 4:22, Mt. 10:26) This is not the first time in 2,000 years that evil has found its way even into religious communities set apart for service. Then, like now, it was revealed.

Such times of purification often come right before a great time of genuine renewal. Could we be in the beginning of a great new missionary age of the Church? Along with the purification there is also springtime. For example, the "ecclesial movements" are flourishing and there is movement toward a dynamically orthodox Catholic faith and life among the lay faithful. Christians believe in a linear timeline of God's plan in human history. This is all going somewhere; and that somewhere is into the fullness of Some One, Jesus Christ. In Him we are invited into the very life of the Trinitarian communion in the Church. Every man, woman and child on the face of the earth is invited. The Church is, as the early fathers used to say, the "world reconciled."

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Saul's encounter with Jesus on the way to Damascus is instructive. Saul was a known persecutor of the early Church when he heard Jesus ask that probing question "Why do you persecute me?": "On his journey, as he was nearing Damascus, a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" He said, "Who are you, sir?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."" (Acts 9) Saul had never even met Jesus, at least during Our Lord's "earthly" ministry.He persecuted his followers. Yet, so identified was Jesus with His Church that He asked that question of Saul. Saul's response became the framework for his continuing conversion and apostolic mission. Jesus is still identified with His Church in our day.

The Church is not some "thing", outside of us, which we try to "fix" or have our "issues" with. Through our Baptism the Church becomes our home, our mother, the place in which we now live our lives in Christ. That is not to say we do not sometimes have struggles with our mother. However, she always remains our mother. To perceive, receive and to live this reality requires a continuing and dynamic conversion. We are sons and daughters of the Church. In living our lives in her we carry forward in time the continuing redemptive mission of Jesus Christ who is the Head of His Body. In its treatment of this "mystery" of the Church, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

"845 To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son's Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is "the world reconciled." She is that bark which "in the full sail of the Lord's cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world." According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah's ark, which alone saves from the flood. [St. Augustine, Serm. 96, 7, 9: PL 38, 588; St. Ambrose, De virg. 18, 118: PL 16, 297B; cf. already 1 Pet 3:20-21] [30, 953, 1219]"

This Church is both human and divine; thus her members still sin. Sometimes evil enters and rots her from within. However, she is still the means through which we participate in the life of God. To her has been entrusted the Sacraments and the Word, the gift of a teaching office and the very means of salvation. The Church is not an optional "extra" that we add on to our lives, she is our life, because we live in Christ. From his wounded side she was birthed at the tree of Calvary, the altar of the new world. Through faith we are invited, daily, into this mystery and by grace we come to comprehend and live it.

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Let us pray for the victims of the horrid events which occurred in Ireland. Let us pray for the leaders of the Church and the faithful of that land which has given the world so many great Christian leaders like Patrick. Let us continue to love the Church enough to stay faithful and be a part of her purification and renewal in this time of travail. Like I said to my evangelical protestant friend, there is no "Plan B." We are called to love the Church as we love the Lord.

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