By MOST REV. JOSEPH STRICKLAND
Part 2
We all have a need to belong, precisely because we are not solitary by nature. We were fashioned out of — and created for — relationship. The heart of the Christian Revelation is that God is not solitary either. God is a Trinity of Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who, in perfect love, is perfectly One.
Jesus prayed for us to experience this kind of unity, beginning now — and being completed in the life to come. That beautiful prayer of Jesus is recorded in the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of John in its entirety. Here is an excerpt:
“I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:20-23).
Through the saving Incarnation — the conception, Nativity, life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity and the Incarnate Word — we are made capable of participating in the trinitarian Communion, by God’s grace. That participation begins now and opens into eternity. That is not some esoteric or mystical concept reserved for just a few, that is meant to be normal Christian living. We are, in the words of the Apostle Peter, “partakers of the Divine Nature” (2 Peter 1:4). We are called into a relationship in Him and with one another, in Jesus Christ, for the sake of the world.
It is in the gift of self to God, and then by grace to one another, that we actually find ourselves and discover our real mission in this world. The Christian claim is that we were made for God, and as St. Augustine said so well, “our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”
It is there, in that place of rest, that we find our true home. That home is in the Church, from which we now reach out to the world. God still loves the world so much that He sends His Son (John 3:16). His Son is still alive. He has been raised. He walks now through His Body, the Church, of which we are members (1 Cor. 12:12-26).
The Church is fundamentally a relational reality, an ongoing encounter with the Risen Jesus, a participation in the Trinitarian communion in and through Jesus Christ. He is the Head of the Body. The Church is not some-thing but Some-One. This is an essential part of being a Christian.
There is both a vertical and a horizontal bar to that cross on the Hill of Calvary. Perhaps one of the most often quoted sayings of the early Christian fathers is from Cyprian of Carthage who wrote, “He cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church for his Mother.”
That kind of family language points to the irrefutable fact that the early Christians believed that to belong to Jesus was to belong to His Church. They believed that just as we were all born from our mother’s womb — so we are invited by God, in and through Jesus Christ, to be “born again” into the Church, the new humanity being re-created in Him.
The process of redemption begins when we pass through the sacramental waters of the font of Holy Baptism. It continues as we cooperate with the grace given to us in our life within the Church. It will only be fully completed when the Lord Returns and we are raised in Resurrected Bodies — and live in a new Heaven and a new Earth! This understanding of the Church as a participation in Jesus Christ and entry into the Trinitarian Communion runs throughout the writings of the early Church Fathers. I offer a few examples in what follows.
First, some words from Origen (185-254 AD): “Christ has flooded the universe with divine and sanctifying waves. For the thirsty He sends a spring of living water from the wound which the spear opened in His side. From the wound in Christ’s side has come forth the Church, and He has made her His bride.”
Next, from Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons (AD 120-203), a disciple of Polycarp who was himself a disciple of the Apostle John: “We need to take refuge with the Church, to drink milk at her breast, to be fed with the scriptures of the Lord. For the Church has been planted in the world as a paradise.”
I could continue, but I hope I have made the point. The early Christians did not see the Church as some-thing but Some-One. Membership in the Church was neither onerous nor optional to them. They saw it as normative — and life-giving — to all. I will summarize some of what you will find in their beautiful writing in a few of my own sentences, using the imagery deployed in the writings of the early Christian fathers.
The Church is a seed of the Kingdom which is to come. The Church is the vine into which we are grafted. The Church is the Risen Jesus made truly present in the world. The Church is the new family begun at the cross. The Church is where we learn to love as we enter the very communion of the Love of the Godhead revealed in the total gift of the Son of God on the second tree of the cross. Birthed from the wounded side of the Savior, who is the “New Adam,” on the altar of the cross, the Church is His Body continuing His redemptive mission on the Earth.
We do not make the Church in our image, the Church remakes us into Christ’s Image through mediating His grace, His Divine Life. Let me share some inspiring words from an Orthodox layman named Olivier Clement. He wrote these words on the Church:
“In the Risen Christ, in His glorified body, in the very opening of His wounds, it is no longer death that reigns but the Spirit, the Breath of Life. And the cross of victory and of light, which is the pattern of our Baptism, can henceforth transform the most desperate situation into a death and Resurrection, a ‘Passover,’ a crossing-point on the way to eternity. And that is what the Church, this profoundly holy institution is: It is the baptismal womb, the Eucharistic chalice, the breach made for eternity by the Resurrection in the hellish lid of the fallen world.”
“The Church is the Mystery of the Risen Lord, the place, and the only one, where separation is completely overcome; where paschal joy, the ‘feast of feasts,’ the triumph over death and Hell are offered to our freedom, enabling it to become creative and work toward the final manifestation of that triumph, the final transfiguration of history and the universe. In its deepest understanding the Church is nothing other than the world in the course of transfiguration.”
Build On Rock
In these troubled and troubling times, let us choose to build our lives on the Rock of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us embrace our membership in His Church — and open our doors wide to the men and women of our age who seek stability and refuge as the world is being shaken. By grace, let us stand strong and welcome others into the only place of real safety, the Church which bears His name.
I say this not only to Catholics, but to all baptized Christians. Even though we are separated, we are still somehow joined, even if not yet in full communion. The Church may be divided, but she is still our home. She is still the Lord’s plan for the whole human race. As we pray, walk, and work together, in these troubled times, the Lord will heal the wounds of our divisions and reestablish full communion. As Christians together, we are called to Love one another, in Him (John 13:34, 35). We are also given the grace to do just that. We need one another.
It is time to get ready for the battle ahead. We must become the Church militant for this moment in history. Let us hear the words of the Apostle Paul, and make them our own:
“Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
“Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; above all taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Eph. 6:10-18).
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