The Beauty of the Catholic Faith, Part V

This is the fifth article in an eight-part series that reflects on fundamental Christian beliefs as expressed in the Creed. There are four main topics, each divided into two sections: (1) Reflecting on the Mystery of God; (2) Gazing on the Face of Christ; (3) Being Church in a Secular Society;  (4) Living in Hope: What Catholics Believe about Death and Eternal Life.

People who are committed to their Catholic faith realize that the task of “being church” is a particularly challenging one today.  These challenges come from a number of directions, both outside and inside the community of faith. First of all, in the United States, we are called to live a faith that is intrinsically communal in a society that has strong tendencies toward individualism. Some years ago, the noted sociologist of religion, Robert Bellah, worked with a team to study the attitudes and behaviors of U.S. Americans. The book that emerged from their study is called Habits of the Heart. These authors highlighted the disposition of individualism that is part of our cultural heritage. They described individualism as “a calm and considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and withdraw into the circle of family and friends; with this little society formed to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look after itself” (37).

In his recent encyclical, Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict XVI addresses the tendencies to individualism that have been characteristic of Christianity, especially Christianity in the West.  He views these tendencies as problematic. The pope draws upon work of the twentieth century French theologian, Henri de Lubac, who wrote a well-known book entitled Catholicism. In this classic book de Lubac showed that the Christian idea of salvation has always been a social, or communal, notion. About the Christian understanding of salvation, Benedict says, “This real life, towards which we reach out again and again is linked to a lived union with a ‘people’, and for each individual it can only be attained within this ‘we’. It presupposes that we escape from the prison of our ‘I’, because only in the openness of this universal subject does our gaze open out to the source of joy, to love itself – God” (Spe Salvi, n. 14).

What Bellah and Benedict discuss in sociological and theological terms, most of us have experienced more personally in parish life or any faith community of which we have been a part. It is always a temptation to isolate ourselves from others. And it is an ongoing challenge to form bonds of faith and charity with people whom we might not choose as friends. Just like the members of our own families (though without the blood ties), we do not get to select the people with whom we are called to form Christian community. And so it is quite easy and often quite tempting to turn the practice of our  Christian faith into a “me and Jesus thing” – showing up at Mass on Sunday, shaking fellow parishioners’ hands at the sign of peace, but remaining disconnected from the community. I teach in a school of theology that is blessed to have many students from other nations and cultures. In ecclesiology class, students from Africa and Latin America often remark that their experience of parish life in the United States sometimes leaves them cold. These students come from community-minded cultures, and they often struggle to find a sense of community within U.S. parishes. Some younger Catholics who migrate to Protestant “megachurches” claim that they find a greater sense of hospitality and community in other churches. The words of Benedict pose a salutary challenge to us: only in our openness to others does our gaze open out to the source of joy, to love itself – God.

There are other issues and concerns that continue to challenge us in our life as church. First, in the U.S. and in other countries, we are experiencing some degree of polarization between “traditionalist” and “progressive” Catholics. These divisions sometimes even affect relationships among priests. It was this experience of division that led Cardinal Bernardin to found the Catholic Common Ground Initiative before he died in 1996. Second, we continue to suffer from the deleterious effects of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. This terrible and tragic situation has damaged the church’s credibility in the eyes of some Catholics. Third, the gifts and concerns of women in the church have not always received appropriate recognition. There is significant pain among many women in the church, including those who are very committed to their faith. 

In the face of these challenges, what can we learn from our tradition about the nature and mission of the Church? How can knowledge of the past help us face contemporary challenges? In this part of our series on the Creed, I will reflect on what the New Testament teaches us about what it means to be church. In the next installment, we will take a look at seminal ideas about the church found in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council.

Insights from the Scriptures:

The Church as Community

The accounts of Jesus’ ministry in the gospels make it clear that Jesus called his disciples into community. Scripture scholars point out, for example, that the institution of “The Twelve” had a symbolic significance that bespeaks community. At the time of Jesus, the system of the twelve tribes of Israel had long ceased to exist. One dimension of the Israel’s hopes for salvation involved the restoration of this twelve-tribe people. When he called and formed the Twelve, Jesus demonstrated that he had come to gather the people of God; he was seeking the restoration of the lost and scattered Israel (G. Lohfink, Jesus and Community, 11).

Jesus’ teachings about discipleship also reflect this communal dimension of Christian faith. Jesus calls his disciples into a new family of sisters and brothers. For example, he says, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life” (Mark 10: 29-30). There is an intimate bond between disciples of Jesus that arises from the commitment to do the will of God as revealed by Jesus (D. Harrington, The Church According to the New Testament, 7). Those who commit themselves to Jesus will find others to whom they will be “related” in faith and charity and whom they are called to treat as brothers and sisters. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus emphasizes the importance of a visible community that radiates holiness to the world. To his disciples he says, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, with what can it be seasoned? … You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house” (Matthew 5:13-15). G. Lohfink points out that the images of “light” and “city” recall the Old Testament and the vision of Jerusalem, which the prophets foretold would one day be raised above all the mountains and would illumine the nations with its light (Jesus and Community, 66-70).  It is as a community, then, and not just as individuals, that followers of Jesus will fulfill their mission of being light to the world.

This use of “family language” is also found in other New Testament writings, especially the letters of Paul.  Long before there were church buildings, Christians gathered in house churches --homes of believers that were spacious enough to accommodate such an assembly. Believers had the conviction that they were the “new family” of God. Raymond Collins highlights this kinship language in the New Testament (The Many Faces of the Church, 16-18). He underlines, for example, the use of the term philadelphia—“sibling love” – in Paul’s admonitions about the kind of love that should be found among Christians. It should be a love like that shown between members of a family. There was an intimacy, a sense of kinship, among these early Christian communities. These bonds became stronger as believers suffered hostility from those who opposed their new way of life.

Divisions Among Early Christians?

The New Testament makes it clear, then, that the following of Jesus is intrinsically communal. And it uses the language of family ties to describe the bonds between believers. Does this mean that the first Christians did not experience conflict within their communities?  In fact, the New Testament shows us that there were serious and painful disagreements and divisions among first century believers. Their experience of conflict involved issues that were different from those we face today, but the conflict was quite real. These tensions apparently occurred relatively quickly. The emerging mission to Gentiles was one major source of division among Christian communities in various places. In particular, the issue of what would be demanded of Gentiles in their conversion to Christianity became a point of contention. The account of the meeting in Jerusalem in Acts 15, along with Paul’s (somewhat distinct) personal account of this event (Galatians 2), gives evidence of differences even among the most prominent church leaders. These “pillars of the church” struggled to find the best resolution of their conflicts.

The famous New Testament scholar, Raymond Brown, suggests that there were groups within the church that had very distinct views on these questions (Antioch and Rome, 1-9). Some demanded that Gentiles  become fully observant Jews if they wanted to convert to Christianity. At the other end of the spectrum, there were believers who accorded little significance to the Jewish roots of Christianity. There is a palpable sense of this tension in some of Paul’s letters (e.g., Galatians and Philippians), when the apostle has to deal with other preachers who have given instructions on these matters that are different from those he originally imparted to these communities. The account of the meeting in Jerusalem between the leaders of the church at Antioch (including Paul and Barnabas) and the leaders of the Jerusalem community (including Peter) demonstrates the need to achieve compromise on this crucial issue of the mission to the Gentiles. While the actual situation was probably more complex and a bit “messier” than Luke’s account in Acts, this passage discloses the need to find “common ground” among Christians of conflicting viewpoints in the earliest communities.

Women in the New Testament Churches

What does the New Testament tell us about the role of women in the church? The four evangelists consistently report Jesus’ uncommon association with and care for women whom he met during the course of his ministry. He reached out to women in ways that acknowledged their dignity, and he established genuine friendships with them. For example, in Luke’s compelling account of the sinful woman at the home of Simon the Pharisee he shows that Jesus accepts the heartfelt kindness and contrition of this woman and is not ashamed to be in her company.  He tells his host, “You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with ointment. So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love” (7: 46-47). In the very next chapter of his gospel, Luke tells us that besides the Twelve some women from Galilee, including Mary Magdalene, accompanied Jesus in his preaching of the good news and that these women provided for Jesus out of their resources. These women will later accompany Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem and become witnesses to his death and resurrection. Mary Magdalene’s role as a witness to the risen Jesus was so important in the early church that later tradition dubbed her “the apostle to the apostles.”  The narrative of her encounter with the risen Christ in John 20 is especially poignant.

It is evident that women played an important role in the communities with which Paul was associated. Paul’s famous statement about the equality of believers in Christ is an extremely important affirmation:  “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:27-28).  Prisca (Priscilla) and her husband, Aquila, are listed among Paul’s “co-workers” and had a house church in Rome (Romans 16:3-5). Paul speaks of these two as “my co-workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life.” Phoebe is described as a deacon (or “minister” -- diakonos) at Cenchrae, the port of Corinth (Romans 16:1). Though Paul does not specify the nature of her ministry, scholars suggest that it involved a role of administration and service. Junia (a woman) and Andronicus are described by Paul as “prominent among the apostles” (Romans 16:7).  Raymond Collins quotes a statement about Junia made by the famous fourth century bishop and theologian, John Chrysostom: “How great the wisdom of this woman that she was even deemed worthy of the apostles’ title” (The Many Faces of the Church, 58).

I have briefly summarized just a few of the themes found in the New Testament about the nature and mission of the church. There are many other dimensions of New Testament ecclesiology, and much more could be said about each of these themes. I believe, however, that this summary shows that the Scriptures continue to speak to us today amidst the challenges we face as the community of Jesus’ disciples. They assure us that as Christians we are, indeed, called to live a communal faith. In the words of Pope Benedict, we are “linked to a real union with a ‘people.’” The New Testament is also realistic about the experience of conflicts among Christians.  And it suggests to us that believers will face the perennial challenge of working toward reconciliation and common ground. Finally, amidst the concerns of contemporary women in the church, we are summoned to reflect carefully on what the Scriptures say to us about Jesus’ relationships with women as well as the leadership that women exercised in the earliest Christian communities.

Robin Ryan, CP