Since last post was such a brain-strainer, we’ll keep it short and simple tonight…or as simple as we can when talking about the Catholic Faith, as I’m sure you realize by now that there’s a lot more to this Church than most people realize.
Article 9:
Current Text:
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
Beginning Advent 2011:
…And one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
This line gives us what we call the “Four Marks of the Church.” They are that the Church is (1) one, that the Church is (2) holy, that the Church is (3) catholic, and that the Church is (4) apostolic. I think it’ll be simplest to take these individually.
ONE: One of the coolest things about being Catholic is that we have Matthew 16:18 on our side: “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” Hard to argue with the words of Jesus there. He was establishing his Church with St. Peter as its leader. And since this is the ONLY time in the Bible Jesus established a church, I’m not sure how Protestants are ok with reading this line of the Bible and realizing that they don’t belong to the Church Jesus, Himself, founded. I mean, maybe it’s just me, but if I’m going to follow the teachings of someone, I’d probably want to learn them from the organization that THAT person created, right? Some people say that all we need to know is in the Bible, and we don’t need an “establishment” to tell us anything further. Well, I’d say that there might be some merit in that, except (contrary to popular belief) Catholics ACTUALLY read the Bible…including John 16:12-13 where Jesus says, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.” So there’s obviously more for us to learn about our Faith other than what is explicitly laid out for us in the Bible, and if we DON’T have the Church that Jesus founded to lead us, I’m not really sure how we, as the entirety of humanity, are to learn that message. Again…it might just be me…but who knows? That’s just my soapbox for the day. Anyway, the Catechism of the Catholic Church sums up the “one” concept pretty well: “The Church is one: she acknowledges one Lord, confesses one faith, is born of one Baptism, forms only one Body, is given life by the one Spirit, for the sake of one hope, at whose fulfillment all divisions will be overcome.” (CCC 866).
HOLY: This one’s pretty tough to figure out, right? The word holy comes to us from Old English, but its general idea comes from the Latin word sanctus. For a good definition, let’s look to my trusty friend, the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, which defines the word holy as: “exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness.” Sounds less like the people of the Church, since we are all sinners, and more like the God we worship, right? Well, when Jesus (who is holy) sacrificed himself for us on the cross, he sanctified us by making atonement for our sins and made us, His Church, a holy people. Remember, we would have nothing if it had not been given to us by God…even holiness.
CATHOLIC: Let’s first be clear on one thing. Go back up to what I’ve copied verbatim, word for word, and letter for letter from the Nicene Creed above. You might be surprised to know that I did NOT make a mistake by not using a capital C on the word catholic. The word catholic comes from the Greek kaqolikos, meaning “universal.” So who belongs to the universal church? After all, if you happen to find yourself in any number of protestant churches, you might open up one of their hymnals and find the Nicene Creed written right there in a Protestant book, and it won’t be a misprint! Many Protestant churches use the EXACT same creed that we do in the Catholic (big C) Church. Well, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “All men are called to this catholic unity of the People of God….And to it, in different ways, belong or are ordered: the Catholic faithful, others who believe in Christ, and finally all mankind, called by God’s grace to salvation.” So although people might not call themselves Catholic in the sense that they believe in the faith of the Roman Catholic Church that comes to us from Jesus through the lineage of the Apostles (modern-day bishops), every human on this planet, whether they believe it or not (or like it or not, for that matter) is a part of the universal church—the catholic (little c) church—the Body of Christ. As far as our PARTICULAR faith—that of the Roman Catholic Church—there is a whole deeper level of universality here, as we realize that our faith is practiced exactly the same all over the world—with the occasional difference based on different cultures. We are universal in the sense that we are the same wherever you are.
APOSTOLIC: The fourth mark of the Church goes back to the Gospel passages where Jesus founded his Church on St. Peter and gave his apostles the mission to “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15) The word apostle comes from the Greek apostellein, meaning “to send out.” We as an apostolic Church are sent out by Jesus with the charge of spreading the Gospel in our daily lives. We can do this in many ways. We don’t have to go on mission trips to third-world countries to achieve this (although, if you feel called to, go right ahead). We can spread the Gospel message in little ways every day by holding doors open for someone carrying a load of groceries, or by helping someone pick up a load of books they dropped, or by sitting…. patiently…. at… the… D… M… V…. without… gritting…. your…. teeth…. too…. much. Anyway, we’re an apostolic church that is called to not keep our faith to ourselves. We need to bring it out to the world. Now I’m not talking about standing on the sidewalk of Bourbon Street (sorry if you don’t get that reference, non-Louisiana readers) with a sandwich sign that says, “Repent for the end is near!” I mean, who really pays any attention to those guys? No one…that’s who! One of my favorite things Jesus ever said is found in Matthew 10:16, where he says, “Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.” If you’re in people’s faces about your faith and how they’re wrong for not having faith of their own, you’re probably not going to get very far. There’s a pretty substantial truth to the saying “You get more bees with honey.” (Not that bees are attracted to honey…they make honey…just for the record…so that saying is pretty stupid, if you really dissect it.) Anyway, Jesus is calling us to be strategic about how we spread the Gospel. The Gospel message is strong enough on its own, yes, but people have free will, and they can sometimes choose to close their hearts to the Word of God. We need to sometimes soften them up first in order that they may be able to accept the Truth into their lives.
Ok, so I guess I lied at the beginning when I said that this would be short, but this is Catholicism! It’s exciting! WOOH! The real problem is that I just said I lied, even though since I’m typing I could just as easily have gone back to the top of this post and erased the part where I said it was going to be short and simple. What’s even worse is that instead of doing that, I typed this lengthy explanation of how I didn’t do it instead of just doing it in the first place. But I do know that this has gone on much longer than necessary, so I’ll just say, “Adieu! Adieu! To yeu and yeu and yeu!” (Thanks for getting that, Sound of Music fans!)
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