By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM
Part 4
The Church is holy.
Sanctam: The ultimate goal of the Church is personal holiness, identification with Christ, as St. Paul says, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). It is not merely covering oneself with the Blood of Christ, and allowing the inside to remain sinful and morally rotten — like a snow-covered dunghill, as Luther suggested, or a whitewashed sepulcher.
It is not the Church of saints alone, because the Founder came for sinners, for those who need a doctor. The Kingdom of God is like a fisherman who catches fish both good and bad; it has both wheat and chaff, both sheep and goats. It is only at the end of time that the final separation will be made.
Holiness is the second mark of Christ’s Church. The Church of Christ, by her preaching, grace-giving sacraments, and the example of her saints, calls everyone to holiness, to be saints. She even invites some to a higher level of Christian life, by recommending the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, over and above the Ten Commandments.
“Be ye perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). No mediocrity or lukewarmness allowed.
Poverty: Jesus said to the rich young man, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Matt. 19:21. Economic power is not a distinctive mark of a true Christian. The early Eastern monks in the desert started the life of poverty as an ideal, but it was St. Francis of Assisi who epitomized this ideal of poverty.
Chastity: In St. Paul’s time, the question of celibacy was being discussed among the Corinthians: “Now concerning the things you wrote to me about; it is good for a man not to touch a woman. But for fear of fornication, let every man have his wife and every woman have her husband” (1 Cor. 7:1-2). Later: “For I would that all men were even as myself: but everyone has his proper gift from God, one after this manner, another after that. But I say to the unmarried: It is good for them if they so continue, even as I am. But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry” (verses 7-9).
St. Paul was a celibate like Jesus Himself. Celibacy for the love of the Kingdom makes us similar to the angels in Heaven, who neither marry nor give in marriage: “You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married: but shall be as the angels of God in heaven” (Matt. 22:29-30).
Obedience: “Let it be done unto me according to thy word”. . . . “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. . . . “Heavenly Father, not as I will, but as thou wilt”. . . . Both Mother and Son were obedient. The goal of obedience in religious life is to obey one’s superiors, and be subject to them, for they keep watch as having to render an account for our souls.
Again St. Paul says it in Heb. 13:17: “Obey your superiors and be subject to them, for they keep watch as having to render an account of your souls.” And: “Let every soul be subject to higher powers, for there is no power but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God. Therefore he that resists the power, resists the ordinance of God. And they that resist, purchase for themselves damnation. . . . For therefore also you pay tribute. For they are ministers of God, serving unto this purpose” (Romans 13:1-7).
Catholicam: That is, Christ’s Church is universal, for all nations, races, cultures, countries, languages, and times. Not for a given race (white, black), or country (England, Holland), nation (Scottish or Swiss Calvinism or German Lutheranism), or the likes of the WASP.
Apostolicam: Your creed, moral code, liturgy, and authority must be traced down to the apostolic time. Many may claim that they live the apostolic faith, but can they prove it? Only the Catholic Church traces her foundation back to the apostles. The Protestant churches did not even exist prior to 1517 and the Orthodox churches did not exist prior to 1054.
If you belong a Christian church that preaches unity and does not allow schism and splitting (unam); preaches holiness as the ultimate Christian ideal, has saints who live the teaching, and provides sacraments to that end (sanctam); aims to bring all peoples in all times to its fold (catholicam); traces its authority, creed, morals, and liturgy to the apostles (apostolicam) — you belong to the Church of Christ.
In those days when the Incarnate Word of God walked this earth, the then Chosen People were divided and subdivided into a variety of sects, groups, and movements: the Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, Zealots, and Essenes were the most well-known ones, not to mention the pragmatic Publicans. They all disagreed among themselves on important points of the Mosaic Law. But on only one point did they all come to a total agreement, when they shouted, “Crucify Him!”
History repeats itself. In the centuries following the Protestant Revolution, religious denominations have emerged throughout the world, each one being a splinter group of a previous splinter group. This multiplication of churches, sects, organizations, and cults has brought about a remarkable variety of creeds that disagree among themselves on important points of Christian doctrine. But on only one point do they all come to a total agreement, when they shout, “The Catholic Church has gone wrong.”
Yes, what was done to the physical body of Christ in the past, today is perpetrated against the Mystical Body of Christ — the Church. “No servant is greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also. . . . Yes, the hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering worship to God. And these things they will do because they have not known the Father or me” (John 15:20; 16:2-3).
Paul VI summarized the teaching of the apostles in the Creed he published in 1968:
“We believe in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, built by Jesus Christ on that rock which is Peter. She is the ‘Mystical Body of Christ,’ at once a visible society ‘provided with hierarchical organs’ and a ‘spiritual community: the Church on earth’; the pilgrim people of God here below, and ‘the Church filled with heavenly blessings.’
“She is therefore holy, though having sinners in her midst, because she herself has no other life but the life of grace. If they live by her life, her members are sanctified. If they move away from her life, they fall into sins and disorders that prevent the radiation of her sanctity. This is why she suffers and does penance for those offenses, of which she has the power to free her children through the blood of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit. . . ..
“Founded upon the Apostles and faithfully handing down through the centuries their ever living word and their power as Pastors in the Successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him; perpetually assisted by the Holy Spirit, the Church has the charge of guarding, teaching, explaining, and spreading the truth which God revealed dimly through the prophets, and then fully in the Lord Jesus. . . .
“We believe that the Church founded by Jesus Christ and for which He prayed is indefectibly one in faith, worship, and the bond of hierarchical communion.
“We also believe in everything that the Holy Roman Apostolic Catholic Church believes and teaches because God, who is truth infallible, has revealed to her. And in this belief, by God’s grace, I wish to live and to die. Amen.”
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(Raymond de Souza is director of the Evangelization and Apologetics Office of the Winona Diocese, Minn.; EWTN program host; regional coordinator for Portuguese-speaking countries for Human Life International [HLI]: president of the Sacred Heart Institute, and a member of the Sovereign, Military, and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta. His website is: www.RaymonddeSouza.com.)
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