The Mystery of the Church

Like any other newspaper, The Southern Cross gives its readers information and comment about what’s going on in today’s world. Specifically, it seeks to keep Catholics up to date in respect of how their Church is working at its sublime goal of unifying people in Christ into a bond of divine love.

The kingdom of God on earth is the people of God. But within that people there are good and bad souls. The parable of the good seed and the weeds that are sown within it, is clear about that (Mt 13:24-30). When the harvest is gathered, the weeds will be burnt and the wheat gathered safely into a barn.

The mainstream media will report on the weeds in the Church with undertones of glee. We see this when prominence is given to deviant clergy who are found guilty of child abuse or neglect of those who have been abused, in the interests of preserving the good face of the Church. We also see it in the media’s indifference to religious matters.

The Southern Cross, yes, is very much like any other newspaper. However, in giving the facts that other news media may give, it always contains the underlying understanding that the Church is more than just a temporal organisation known as the People of God. It is more than a community of like-minded co-religionists. It is something bigger than what the secular news media imagine it to be.

When the present pope, Benedict XVI, was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he noted in July 1999 that the Vatican Council’s concept of the People of God could be reduced to a purely sociological view.

He asserted that there was the danger that the Church could be perceived as a human invention, an institution created by the Christian community, which could easily be reorganised according to the needs of the historical and cultural variables of the time.

This seems to be the way the contemporary world sees it and, alas, perhaps many Catholics too, who should know better.

The then Cardinal Ratzinger said we can never forget that the Church is the place of the presence of the mystery of God and the Lord resurrected in the world. Here he was echoing the teaching of the great medieval theologian St Thomas Aquinas, who held that the Church is the Holy Spirit in human hearts, and all the rest, such as the hierarchy and sacraments, are at the service of the Spirit’s work at transforming us into Christ.

The Church and even the parish church as a living expression of the Spirit’s presence, draws its life and its strength from the Son of God made man.

When parishioners bow in adoration at the moment of consecration of bread and wine during the sacred liturgy, they are acknowledging the presence of the Holy Spirit.

When they have sins forgiven in the sacrament of reconciliation, they are in an intimate union with the only one who can forgive sin, God himself. When they do good works in the parish or elsewhere, they are influenced, encouraged and led forward by Christ himself.

This aspect of the Church needs to be emphasised a lot more. We are not a mere community of believers with an outwardly recognised structure. Hidden and unseen by others, we live and move in Christ, the same Christ who at the end of time will burn the weeds hindering his followers and put the wheat into his everlasting barn.