By DON FIER
Part 2
The beginning of the Church in the mind of God can be traced back to the creation of the world. As taught by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), “God created the world for the sake of communion with his divine life” (n. 760). Christoph Cardinal Schönborn states the same notion with different words: “Its goal [God’s plan for creating the world] is the ‘family of God,’ in which all creatures become united with their creator” (Living the Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 104).
Our first parents were, in fact, created in communion with God but lost this magnificent gift not only for themselves but for all of mankind through original sin.
God’s response to man’s loss of communion with Him was immediate. In what is referred to as the “proto-Gospel” of Gen. 3:15, the Church Fathers see an early foreshadowing of God’s “plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10).
In this verse, one can see in veiled and figurative language a heralding of God’s plan to reestablish man’s communion with Himself and each other, a reuniting that will be “brought about by the ‘convocation’ of men in Christ, and this ‘convocation’ is the Church” (CCC, n. 760).
God began the process of reassembling His family, scattered and at enmity with one other, with one person, Abraham, and one nation, the Chosen People of Israel. As such, the Church “was prepared for in the Old Covenant with the election of Israel, the sign of the future gathering of all the nations” (Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 149).
“All these things, however,” teach the Vatican II fathers, “were done by way of preparation and as a figure of that new and perfect covenant, which was to be ratified in Christ, and of that fuller revelation which was to be given through the Word of God Himself made flesh” (Lumen Gentium, n. 9 § 1).
Thus, it was Christ who instituted the Church. “In the Father’s eternal plan,” explains St. Pope John Paul II, “the Church was conceived and desired as the kingdom of God and of his Son, the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ” (general audience, September 11, 1991). The Son inaugurated the Church by becoming “one of us, like us in all things except sin” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 22 § 2) and “by preaching the Good News, that is, the coming of the Kingdom of God, which, for centuries, had been promised in the Scriptures” (LG, n. 5 § 1).
Jesus began His messianic mission, a mission carried forward in our time by the Church, with the proclamation: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). Not only was the Kingdom of God at hand with His coming — it was already at work in human history as attested to by Jesus Himself: “Behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17:21). It was by His accomplishment of “the Father’s plan of salvation in the fullness of time…[that] Christ ushered in the Kingdom of heaven on earth” (CCC, n. 763).
Who is part of this kingdom? Who is invited to join? St. Peter makes it clear: “God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35). In other words, “everyone is called to enter the kingdom” (CCC, n. 543). Indeed, as Jesus said to His followers, “it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).
The Catechism calls to mind one of the symbols of the Church that was discussed earlier in this series to indicate those who first accepted His life-giving words: “The seed and beginning of the Kingdom are the ‘little flock’ of those whom Jesus came to gather around him, the flock whose shepherd he is” (CCC, n. 764).
The Catechism next makes reference to the historical and foundational underpinnings of the Church’s hierarchical structure by stating that “the Lord Jesus endowed his community with a structure that will remain until the Kingdom is fully achieved” (CCC, n. 765), that is, until the end of time when Christ comes again in glory.
We see this structure being formed when Jesus went up on the mountain, calling a select group to join Him, and “appointed twelve, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and have authority to cast out demons” (Mark 3:14-15). As recounted in the Gospel of St. Matthew, Jesus appoints Peter as their head and declares: “On this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).
Symbolic Perfection
Why did Jesus choose precisely twelve apostles as the foundation for His Church? Symbolic importance is attached to the number twelve by many biblical scholars and it is often associated with perfection in governance. An important connection between the Old and New Testaments is apparent: “As the twelve sons of Jacob were representative of the Old Covenant Israel (Gen. 49:3-28), so Jesus gathers twelve patriarchs to found his New Covenant people in the Church” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible — Mark, p. 23).
Or as the Catechism expresses the same point: “Representing the twelve tribes of Israel, [the twelve Apostles] are the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem” (CCC, n. 765).
In the Book of Revelation, the heavenly Jerusalem is described as having “a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed…and the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (Rev. 21:12, 14).
And likewise, it is not by chance that Jesus said that His Father could send twelve legions of angels to His aid when He was being handed over in the Garden of Gethsemane (see Matt. 26:53), or that Jesus spoke His first recorded words in Scripture at the Temple in Jerusalem at the age of twelve (see Luke 2:41).
So it is clear from Scripture that “from the beginning of his public life Jesus chose certain men, twelve in number, to be with him and to participate in his mission . . . [and] through them he directs the Church” (CCC, n. 551). However, as the Catechism is now vigilant to point out, “the Church is born primarily of Christ’s total self-giving for our salvation, anticipated in the institution of the Eucharist and fulfilled on the cross” (CCC, n. 766).
The Last Supper was “the moment in which Christ, anticipating his death on the cross and his resurrection, started the church. The Church was begotten together with the Eucharist” (St. John Paul, ibid.).
As we saw in an earlier installment on the Holy Spirit (see volume 147, n. 23; June 5, 2014), the birth of the Church is also oftentimes ascribed to the time of Christ’s death on Calvary. We see this in the writings of the fathers of Vatican II:
“The Church, or, in other words, the kingdom of Christ now present in mystery, grows visibly through the power of God in the world. This inauguration and this growth are both symbolized by the blood and water which flowed from the open side of a crucified Jesus (cf. John 19:34), and are foretold in the words of the Lord referring to His death on the Cross: ‘And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself’ (John 12:32)” (LG, n. 3).
We likewise see this in Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy: “For it was from the side of Christ as He slept the sleep of death upon the cross that there came forth ‘the wondrous sacrament of the whole Church’” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 5 § 2).
In beautifully symbolic language, St. Ambrose, fourth-century bishop and Early Church father, similarly describes the relationship between Christ’s death on Calvary and the beginning of the Church: “As Eve was formed from the sleeping Adam’s side, so the Church was born from the pierced heart of Christ hanging dead on the cross” (cf. In Luc. 2, 85-89; as cited in CCC, n. 766).
But it was not until Pentecost Sunday that the Church was openly manifested and began to spread. On that day she “was publicly displayed to the multitude, the Gospel began to spread among the nations by means of preaching, and there was presaged that union of all peoples in the catholicity of the faith by means of the Church” (Ad Gentes, n. 4 § 1).
From that day forward, the Church, “endowed with the gifts of her founder, . . . receives the mission of proclaiming and establishing among all peoples the Kingdom of Christ and of God” (CCC, n. 768). Yet, she “will attain [her] full perfection only in the glory of heaven” (LG, n. 48 § 1), at the time of Christ’s triumphant return in glory (cf. CCC, n. 769).
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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.)
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