Noah and Leo have this toy dog that plays music, lights up, and vibrates in circles. They find it very amusing but never give it a chance to do what it is supposed to. The toy broke and no longer turned on to their disappointment. I attempted opening the toy and found that the wire connecting the switch to the circuit board broke off. I dusted the old soldering iron off and managed to reattach the wire. The toy started working again, and they were naturally happy.
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| Leo playing with the toy dog, 30 September 2022 |
It was a tiny wire that kept the mini motor, speakers, led light and circuit board from receiving power to operate. I find this is a fitting way to understand how the Church is a collective body made of different parts that work simultaneously together. This blog is also a follow-up to "RE: God is not religious!" in which, in the end, I left some other unanswered questions, such as where does the Catholic Church come from?
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| Circuit board with missing wire, 25 September 2022 |
Every Sunday, we pray the creed and repeat this line: "I believe in one, holy, Catholic and apostolic church". What does the line really mean?
The Church is one
We believe in one God, who is the Trinity in persons, the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit. We gather together as people of God in our diversity of cultures, and each of us has received a variety of God's gifts. Through these gifts, we are bonded together with God and use those gifts to give glory to God.
We see this unity in our shared belief handed down by the twelve apostles across generations. Many only go by what is in the scriptures, but have we ever wondered how we got those scripture readings?! Yes, they were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Still, God needed instruments to record them, and the twelve apostles handed them down. They documented their experiences living with Our Lord and all the life-changing miracles they witnessed.
We worship as one community celebrating the same sacraments in the same way anywhere in the world. We can go to Mass in any country, even in a different language, and still follow the structure with the faith that we receive our Lord in the Eucharist. Why is this case? Priests do not show up randomly. They have received the sacrament of the Holy Orders from the laying on of hands from the Bishop of the diocese. While every Bishop is ordained a Bishop from the laying on of hands by the Pope. Every Pope has a clear succession line, from Peter the first Apostle to Pope Francis. This practice in the Church has continued for more than 2,000 years, and it is evident that the unity of the Church is under the hands of God and not man. "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18)
The Church is Holy
God is all Holy. The Son of God (the Bridegroom) came from heaven to earth to die for the People of God (the Bride). Jesus gave up his life on the cross for his people. By doing so, he united his mystical body with her body, bonded by the Holy Spirit. We can bring our minds to try to understand this mystery by looking at the sacrament of marriage. A husband (the bridegroom) and wife (the bride) are bonded in marriage. Their union makes the invisible (a child) visible through the will of the Holy Spirit.
The people of God are thus made holy. We can make ordinary things holy by offering them to God for His glorification. However, we still recognise that we are all sinners (including priests and religious). In every one of us, the weeds of sin grow alongside the wheat of God's truth in our hearts. Those that are called saints are those who lived heroic virtue and were faithful to God's grace throughout their lives. We have them as models and intercessors, but not idols to worship.
The Church is Catholic
Did you know the word "Catholic" actually means universal? The Church is Catholic for two reasons: (1) where the Lord is, the Church exists. At Pentecost, our Lord gave us the Holy Spirit; since then, the Church has remained universal. (2) Our Lord has sent us on a mission to make it known that all men and women are called to belong to the children of God.
We enter the Church through the door of baptism and receive Jesus. He is the meditator and way to eternal salvation.
Does this mean you do not receive eternal salvation if you are not Christian? "Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation." (CCC, 841)
We have a mission as Christians to carry out the will of God for all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
The Church is Apostolic
Ambassadors are diplomatic representatives sent on a special mission by their country. Now Jesus was sent as an ambassador on a special mission by his Father in heaven. Jesus, the chief ambassador, appointed twelve of his own ambassadors (called apostles) and sent them out on a mission to preach. The apostles were inspired by the Holy Spirit to appoint successors to carry on this work after their death. This line is traceable through the sacred order of the bishops. The bishops are then the ambassadors of the twelve apostles and, by nature, Jesus and God the Father.
The bishops are, therefore, divinely inspired by Jesus Christ. When we listen to them, we listen to Our Lord, and when we reject them, we reject Our Lord and the Father who originally sent Him.
The one, holy and Catholic Church is therefore apostolic and belongs to us all. We are sent out into the middle of the world within our unique circumstances that place you at the diplomatic service of the ambassador of Christ. The Church (the Bride) is strengthened by its source to carry out this special mission when we receive Our Lord in the Eucharist daily to carry out all he asks us.
However, when we reject one of these parts, we break the vision God has for us of the Church he left us on Pentecost. We don't lose all of the vision, but we lose the essence of how it all works mysteriously together. In a sense, we become like the toy that stops dancing, singing and lighting up because we have disconnected our circuit board from its source.
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