The Mystery Of The Church

By DON FIER

The one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, as the “convocation” of God’s people, was prefigured from the beginning when our first parents sinned and were promised a Redeemer. Her remote preparation began with the calling of our father in faith, Abraham, and her immediate preparation began with the election of the Chosen People of Israel, a sign of the future gathering of all nations.
Providentially prepared for in the Old Testament, the Church was founded in the New Testament “by the words and actions of Jesus Christ, [was] fulfilled by his redeeming death and Resurrection, . . . [and] has been manifested as the mystery of salvation by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost” (Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 149).
As expressed by Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ, the one true Church “was born on Calvary from the heart of Christ, pierced at His death” (The Faith, p. 86). Ever since her manifestation on Pentecost Sunday, that day on which “were added…about three thousand souls” (Acts 2:41) to her number, she continues to proclaim the Kingdom of Christ “throughout the whole world” (Matt. 24:14; cf. Mark 16:14) until the end of time. It will be only with the coming of Jesus for the Last Judgment that the Church “will reach her final destiny in heavenly glory” (Hardon, ibid.).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) now allots several paragraphs in its catechesis on article 9 of the Creed to consider the Church as a mystery. The Catechism begins its discussion by unequivocally affirming that “the Church is in history, but at the same time she transcends it” (CCC, n. 770). What is meant by this? Simply put, the Church has two dimensions that form one complex reality —she is visible and spiritual, human, and divine. Her visible, human, institutional formation and presence is a verifiable historical fact whose origin and ongoing existence can be and has been documented.
At the same time, as explained by Douglas G. Bushman, STL, in The Sixteen Documents of Vatican II (SDV2), she is also “an interpersonal, spiritual communion of persons united in grace, faith, hope, and charity” (p. 116).
Reason alone testifies to the visible reality of the Church and the historicity of her formation as a structured, hierarchical society on earth which today “includes almost three thousand dioceses scattered over all the continents” (Pope Francis, general audience, September 25, 2013). However, it is only “with the eyes of faith” (Roman Catechism I, 10, 18) that one can see, at the same time, the Church “in her spiritual reality as bearer of divine life” (CCC, n. 770). It is only faith that can recognize the Church as the single bearer of the four distinguishing marks of oneness, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity.
Lumen Gentium describes the human and divine dimensions of the Church in three ways and is attentive to emphasize that each pairing must be considered as a united reality: 1) “the society structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ”; 2) “the visible assembly and the spiritual community”; and 3) “the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly things.” In other words, each pairing must be understood to “form one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and a human element” (LG, n. 8 § 1).
Lumen Gentium goes on to analogically compare the Church to the Incarnate Word: “As the assumed [human] nature inseparably united to him serves the divine Word as a living organ of salvation, so, in a similar way, does the visible social structure of the Church serve the Spirit of Christ, who vivifies it, in the building up of the body” (ibid.).
Likewise, an order exists among the human and divine elements. As the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy explains, it is absolutely essential to believe that in the Church “the human is directed and subordinated to the divine, the visible likewise to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to that city yet to come, which we seek (cf. Heb. 13:14)” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 2). Put another way, “that which is visible, human, and institutional is at the service of that which is invisible, divine, and eschatological” (SDV2, p. 116).
That the Church is a mystery is evident also in the sheer magnitude of symbols and images that Sacred Scripture uses to describe her, many of which we examined just three weeks ago in this series. Lumen Gentium, by citing many of these metaphorical images in its sixth paragraph is, in a sense, demonstrating that no matter what symbol or analogy is used to describe the Church, none are completely adequate. No matter how many ways or from how many angles one tries to visualize the total reality of the Church, she escapes the ability of the human intellect to fathom. One can believe all that she is only as an object of divine, supernatural faith.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a 12th-century doctor of the Church and reformer of the Cistercian order who came to be known as the Mellifluous (“full of honey”) Doctor because of his eloquent preaching, spoke beautifully of the great mystery of the Church in her human and divine elements. He referred to her as “a ‘tent of Cedar,’ and a sanctuary of God! An earthly habitation, and a heavenly mansion! A house of clay, and a royal palace! A ‘body of death’ and a temple of light! The scorn of the proud and the Bride of Christ! She is ‘black but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem’” (In Cant. Sermo 27:14; as cited in CCC, n. 771).
The Catechism now briefly examines the Church as a mystery of man’s union with God. For “it is in the Church that Christ fulfills and reveals his own mystery as the purpose of God’s plan: ‘to unite all things in him’ (Eph. 1:10)” (CCC, n. 772). What immediately comes to mind is St. Paul’s rich imagery in contrasting the closest of all human bonds, that of marriage, to Christ’s relationship with the Church and His love for her, a relationship which he calls “a great mystery” (Eph. 5:32). Christ as the Bridegroom (see Mark 2:19) and the Church as His Bride is a theme that was prepared for by the prophets and announced by John the Baptist (cf. John 3:29).
The Apostle to the Gentiles “speaks of the whole Church and of each of the faithful, members of his Body, as a bride ‘betrothed’ to Christ the Lord so as to become but one spirit with him” (CCC, n. 792). As members of Christ’s Body, then, it is our goal to seek holiness so that we may be united with Him for all eternity in Heaven. This is made possible in that “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her” (Eph. 5:25-26).
Indeed, the structure of the Church “is totally ordered to the holiness of Christ’s members . . . [which] is measured according to the ‘great mystery’ in which the Bride responds with the gift of love to the gift of the Bridegroom” (St. John Paul, Mulieris Dignitatem, n. 27 § 2).
The Catechism closes its section entitled “The Mystery of Church” by considering her as the “universal sacrament of salvation,” a topic for which the groundwork will be laid in closing this column by looking at definitions. It is first noted that “the Greek word mysterion was translated into Latin by two terms: mysterium and sacramentum” (CCC, n. 774). The English translation of these two words, of course, is mystery and sacrament, respectively.
Fr. Hardon defines mystery in his Modern Catholic Dictionary (MCD) as “a divinely revealed truth whose very possibility cannot be rationally conceived before it is revealed and, after revelation, whose inner essence cannot be fully understood by the finite mind” (p. 365). It literally means “something closed” or “a secret.” However, it should be noted that even though mysteries are incomprehensible, they are intelligible, and a primary duty of faithful members of the Church is to grow in understanding of revealed mysteries through prayer and study.
Sacrament is defined by Fr. Hardon as “a sensible sign, instituted by Jesus Christ, by which invisible grace and inward sanctification are communicated to the soul” (MCD, p. 477). He goes on to explain that an essential element of a sacrament of the New Law is that it is a “sensibly perceptive rite that actually confers the supernatural grace it symbolizes, [but] in a broad sense every external sign of internal divine blessing is a sacrament” (ibid.). It is “in later usage [that] the term sacramentum emphasizes the visible sign of the hidden reality of salvation which was indicated by the term mysterium” (CCC, n. 774).
With these definitions in hand, we will examine next week why it is proper to refer to the Church as a “sacrament.”

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(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is doing research for writing a definitive biography of Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)