being catholic -- what it means according to the bible

We believe in one… Catholic Church.

The word “catholic” comes into English via the Latin cognate “catholicus” which in turn comes from the Greek cognate “katholikos”. This Greek word comes from the elision of two Greek words: the preposition “kata” and the noun “holos”. “Kata holos” means according to, or in accord with, the whole. In what follows I will give some remarks about my intuition that CATHOLICISM, as such, is the immanent manifestation of the life of God. To be catholic is to participate in the oneness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to share in each of the divine persons being mysteriously in “accord with the whole” of the Godhead.

The origins of catholicity are to be sought in the final chapters of the Gospel of Saint John – that portion which Father Raymond Brown called “The Book of Glory” – chapters 13-21. The center of this section of John is our Lord’s “high priestly prayer” which he prayed the night before he suffered, at the Last Supper.

The first thing to notice about our Lord’s high priestly prayer is that he was praying in the presence of the Apostles (see Mat. 26.20) – the eleven disciples (Judas having left) whom he had chosen “to be with him and to be sent out to preach and have authority to cast out demons” (Mark 3.14f), from among the many who followed him. In the Lord’s high priestly prayer, we see the interpenetration of the Church’s unity and its apostilicity: the Lord is praying for the Apostles specifically, saying “And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.”

So we may see that the unity of the Church is not something that is crated by the Church’s members. Rather it is a fact granted to the Apostles by our Lord’s prayer for them – and this unity is constituted by the unity of God himself. We are one (IF we are one) because we have been given the life of God, who is a Trinity of persons in unity of substance. The Church is one because God is one, and because God has poured out his life to and for the Church: “The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one” (Jn. 17.22).

Note our Lord’s reference to the gift of glory. The glory which he gives to the Apostles is nothing less than the glory he has received from the Father: “I glorified thee on earth, having accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do; and now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made” (Jn. 17.4f).

We should notice that the gift of unity is an outgrowth, a consequence, of our Lord’s gift of HIMSELF to and for the Church. In John 6 he says: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." Therefore the Church is constituted at once as ONE, as Apostolic, and as Eucharistic. It should be no surprise then that the Lord prays this prayer within the context of the Last Supper – at the institution of the Eucharist: the night when he took bread and wine, blessed God, and gave it to his disciple saying “This is my Body / This is my Blood… DO THIS…”

So likewise we can see what Saint Paul means when he chastises the Church at Corinth, when he writes to them: “What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this…” (1 Cor. 11.22f). So Saint Paul also says: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” To share in the Eucharist is to announce one’s participation in the Body of Christ, which is the Church (Col. 1.18). Hence we can see the multiplicity of related meanings of the word “communion” – as in “Anglican Communion” on the one hand, and “Holy Communion” on the other.

….

In 1948 the Archbishop of Canterbury received the report of a commission on Catholicity subtitled: A Study in the Conflict of Christian Traditions in the West”. Members of the panel which produced the report included such Anglican Catholics as the poet TS Eliot, the great liturgical scholar and Benedictine monk Dom Gregory Dix, and Michael Ramsey, who would himself go on to become Archbishop of Canterbury. In the opening of their report, they wrote: “It is often remembered that in the seventeenth chapter of St. John our Lord prayed for the unity of His disciples: it is sometimes forgotten, however, in our modern discussions that this prayer for their unity was linked with His prayer for their sanctification in the truth: 'Sanctify them in Thy truth; Thy word is truth'. The unity of Christians, coming as it does from the unity of the Father and the Son, is interwoven with their sanctification in the truth which our Lord delivers.”

So returning to the Book of Glory, our Lord prays not only for the Apostles, but for “those who believe in me through their word” (Jn. 17.20). He prays that those who believe in him THROUGH THE TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES might be one with the Apostles, and thereby one with himself, and thereby one with the Father. But this is all through the ministry of the WORD, through the Apostles’ teaching, because the Apostles are given authority to teach what the Lord himself taught and to do the works that he himself did. In the closing verses of the Gospel of Saint Matthew, the Lord says: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, TEACHING THEM TO OBSERVE ALL THAT I COMMANDED YOU; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." And Christ’s teaching, his commandments, his “word,” comes from the Father: “…I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me” (Jn. 8.28). And the Lord says of the Apostles: “I have given them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them…” (Jn. 17.8), and “they have kept thy word” (Jn. 17.6). The Lord says clearly that to hear those whom he sends is to hear him; and likewise to reject those whom he sends is to reject him: “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Lk. 10.16). The unity of the Church is the unity of the Lord with the Apostles – “I in them and thou in me” (Jn. 17.23) – and it is therefore not to be taken for granted; it is a gift, and it is given not just to anyone, but expressly to “those who believe in me through their word” (Jn. 17.20).

The Church’s unity – its oneness – therefore comes through its share in and its reception of the words of God (the theou logoi or, loosely speaking, a unity of theology), which the Father has given to the Son, and which the Son has given to the Apostles, and which the Apostles have preached to “all nations”. The Father’s gift of his Word to the Son is constitutive of the Father’s having eternally begotten the Son. That is, the Father’s gift of the Word to the Son is an eternal gift, and a gift so tightly given and so closely received, that it constitutes the very essence of God as Son. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn. 1.1). This, again, can be seen in the Nicene Creed: the Word of God is “begotten of his Father before all worlds,” “of one substance with the Father,” and “very God of very God.”

Christ’s gift of the Word of God to the Apostles is shown to be the essence of the oneness of the Church as the Body of Christ. As I have mentioned, this discourse in John is presented in the context of the institution of the Eucharist, where the incarnate Word gives HIMSELF to the Apostles: “This is my body which is given for you” (Lk. 22.19). And therefore the Church rightly recognizes the yoking of preaching the Word and ministering the sacraments: “Give grace, O heavenly Father, to all bishops and other ministers, that they may… set forth thy true and lively Word, and rightly and duly administer thy holy Sacraments” (BCP p. 329). In full expressions of the Church, therefore, we recognize that to proclaim the Word of God is to imitate Christ in his offering himself to the Father, because the Word of God is not just the abstract teaching of the Apostles, and not just the Bible, but rather as John 1.14 says “the Word became flesh.” If to preach the Gospel is to proclaim the Word of God (and it is), then it is not merely to proclaim a teaching (it is that; but its not JUST that), but it is even more fundamentally to offer the flesh of Jesus Christ. The whole reason for preaching, for proclaiming the Word, is because it is the enterprise of holding up the unique, which is to say the one flesh of Jesus Christ who is the Word of God: “‘and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.’ He said this to show by what death he was to die” (Jn. 12.32). When Jesus speaks of his being "lifted up" he is speaking, in essence, of his proclamation of himself as the Word of God.

The unity and apostilicity and catholicity of the Church are therefore all part and parcel of baptized believers in Jesus being “consecrated in the Truth.” The Lord prays: “Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth. As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth. I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (Jn. 17.17ff).

And this unity is the essence of the Eucharistt. It is a perpetuation of the Apostolic power of lifting up the Word of God, which has become unique flesh. To offer the Word is therefore to offer a spotless and immaculate victim, the flesh of the man Jesus of Nazareth, who is of one substance with God the Father. Preaching the gospel and offering the Eucharistic sacrifice are forever and inextricably linked precisely because God’s perfect offering of his own life to humankind is forever and inextricably linked to the offering of perfect human nature to the Father in Christ’s “one oblation of himself, once offered” on the cross. In the crucified flesh of Jesus Christ there is at last perfect intercourse between God and man – a perfect, loving, simultaneous, and mutual outpouring of natures – because it is the ONE Christ who is crucified, and “although he be God and man, yet he is not two, but one Christ” (Athanasian Creed). Christ’s sacrifice is the loving and simultaneous self-offering of God to man, and of man to God.

But it is realized immanently only by those whose faith in Christ is circumscribed by the teaching of the Apostles, viz. "those who believe in me through their word.”

A final note: the realization of the Church as One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, is both the reality which the Lord has bestowed on the fellowship of those who believe in him and who have been baptized into his Body, and it is also an eschatological vision, something that will not be fully manifest until the end, when he returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, at the vindication of the Lamb of God as conqueror and judge. In a sense then, we like the Jews are “waiting for Messiah” – whose age is marked by peace and well-being, an abundance of wine on the lees, and fat things full of marrow, the curing of disease, and the resurrection of the dead. As the visionary of Revelation says: “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, every one who pierced him; and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.”

So we are now waiting for him to come again in glory and to manifest what he has already in himself and within his followers: namely, conquer death. Then, and perhaps only then, will it be evident just how it is that we are one as he and the father are one, how it is that our faith and devotion are KATA HOLOS – in accord with the whole Body of Christ, and therefore in accord with the essential and eternal fellowship that belongs to God alone – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

catholicism 101 -- part 6/8

CATHOLICISM 101

(The outline of this series is taken from Father Vernon Staley’s book The Catholic Religion.)

Church of the Holy Cross
February 24, 2008

Part 6
What is the Church FOR? (cont’d.)

• The Catholic Church is the HOME OF THE TRUTH.

• Recall what happened in the fall. Humans became blinded by psychological (= “soulish”) disorder. St. Paul in Romans (1.21 & 25): “for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened…. they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator…”

• So humanity, almost since the very beginning, has lived in a kind of darkness and delusion.

• But Christ came to dispel that darkness, and to reveal once more the truth about God, and more than that: the Truth OF God. So Saint John says of Jesus’s birth: “The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world” (John 1.9).

• And again he writes: “Yet I am writing you a new commandment, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining” (1 John 2.8). And John goes on to say the “new commandment” is to obey Jesus. Yet St. John also says that this is really “no new commandment, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard” (1 John 2.7).

• Jesus – all that he taught, and what’s more, his VERY PERSON – that is to say, all that he IS – is the divine Truth that was from the beginning. He is himself the Word of Truth that was in the beginning with God and that was God (cf. John 1).

• So his coming in the flesh means the advent (the arrival) of the divine Truth in its fullness, in its completeness. Jesus discloses God himself – what God has, what he wants, and who he is. There is nothing more to be disclosed of God than what is revealed in and by and through the Son.

• So St. John says that Jesus was “full of grace and Truth” (John 1.14).

• And Jesus himself says “I am the Truth” (John 14.6).

• And Jesus delivers the Truth in its fullness to the Church – because the Church is the custodian and guardian of Christ’s presence in the World. Catholics (and Orthodox), when they pass a church, will cross themselves – because Christ himself dwells within and is proclaimed within. (He is sacramentally present in the Tabernacle behind the Altar, and that Sacramental Presence is a sign the much deeper implications of his promise “I am with you always even to the end of the ages” (Matthew 28.20)).

• To the Apostles, Jesus says: “And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, even THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for HE DWELLS WITH YOU, and will be IN YOU. I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you” (John 14.16ff).

• Again, Jesus says to the Apostles: “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14.26).

• And again: “When the SPIRIT OF TRUTH comes, he will guide you into ALL THE TRUTH; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16.13ff).

• So Saint Jude writes to the Church: “contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1.3).

• And Saint Paul writes to Timothy (1 Tim. 3.15) of “the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the PILLAR AND BULWARK OF THE TRUTH.”

• The Church as the home of the Truth is a consequence of Christ’s promised and abiding presence, to which the angels and God himself bear witness in the book of Revelation (Chapter 21): “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband [this is the Church: see Ephesians, below]; and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, THE DWELLING OF GOD IS WITH MEN. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away." And he who sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for THESE WORDS ARE TRUSTWORTHY AND TRUE." And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the fountain of the water of life without payment. He who conquers shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, as for murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death."

• The “bride adorned for her husband” is the Church. In Ephesians 5, Paul writes: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”

• This, by the way, sets the standard for Christian husbands. What is a husband’s love according to the Word of the Lord? Giving yourself up for your wife – GIVING YOUR LIFE (dying) FOR HER. Devoting your life, your work, all that you do, to her and for her – as an icon of Christ’s love for us. That (and only that) is the marriage vocation for Christians.

• And about the “lake that burns with fire and sulfur” – that is because the God of Truth “is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12.29), and because the vindication of “him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1.23) will mean that all will be consumed by God’s fire in the end; and hence the refusal to live in the Truth means being tormented by God’s presence, rather than being purged and transformed by it. “Where can I go then from your Spirit? where can I flee from your presence?” (Psalm 139.6). Hell is the PRESENCE of God (not his absence) for those who obstinately go on in darkness, who “lie and do not live according to the truth” (1 John 1.6). But “if what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you will abide in the Son and in the Father” (1 John 2.24).

• In a sense, then, the WHOLE POINT of the Church is to teach the truth. So that humanity may be delivered from the darkness that sets us stumbling and keeps us bound in falsehood and deceit and violence and death. The Church was instituted by the Lord SO THAT the dwelling of God would be with men – that his presence might be healing and merciful and salutary. That we might be consumed by the divine fire in love rather than judgment.

• A final point (John 8.31ff): “"If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to any one. How is it that you say, `You will be made free'?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

sermon for the third sunday of lent -- holy cross -- february 24, 2008 -- john 4: jesus and the samaritan woman at jacob's well

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’”

I know you all spent the past week meditating on the Gospel reading from last Sunday, turning over in your minds the Lord’s mysterious words to Nicodemus: “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Jn. 3.5f). Well you’re very lucky because this Sunday’s Gospel reading takes us deeper into the mysterious ontology of water and spirit which the Lord introduces in these passages from John’s Gospel.

Here again, in today’s reading, we have the Lord speaking about water and spirit: He says to the Samaritan woman, “If you knew who I am, you would have begged me for drink, and I would have given you living water.” And a few verses later, Jesus says to the woman: “God is SPIRIT, and those who worship him must worship in SPIRIT and truth.”

Water and Spirit. What is Jesus talking about?

By now you should be familiar with my new catch-phrase: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus; always and only Jesus. If something doesn’t bring you closer to Jesus, to hell with it. Seriously. And literally. This man, Jesus of Nazareth, came to save us from the hell we make for ourselves without him. And only he can save us.

This story of the Samaritan woman is fundamentally about her encounter with God made flesh. It is about a particular woman encountering God in his human particularity – the untapped and unknown wellspring of her fulfillment, the fountain of life-giving water who gently seeks to bring her to seek him, to recognize her unquenched thirst as a thirst for HIM. “…Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

This proposition sounds good to the Samaritan woman. "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw." But she is obviously thinking in a material way. Like Nicodemus in last week’s reading, this woman has not yet become spiritualized by encountering Jesus in his particularity, as who he really is. And how often do we do exactly the same thing? We desperately want to think that our happiness will be found in some kind of material refreshment – if I just had another job, or if I just had more money, or a different spouse – sometimes its so bad we think that “if I were just someone else, then I would be happy” – I would no longer have to come to the well to draw. So we spend our time running away from the person God has created us to be.

“Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” And then Jesus says something interesting. He says: “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The Lord is resisting the Samaritan woman’s effort to make this encounter abstract, which she keeps trying to do. Jesus is bringing her back to herself, to face the fact that her problem is not that she lacks something outside of herself. Her problem rather is that she keeps running away from this personal encounter with Jesus. She keeps trying to change the subject. And Jesus keeps saying “No, its about you and me. You’ve had five husbands, and now you’re in a sexual relationship with someone to whom you are not married.”

Of course this makes the woman intensely uncomfortable. She tries to change the subject again: “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." But Jesus brings it back around to this moment, to her and him: “Woman, the point is neither this mountain nor Jerusalem. And besides, you Samaritans don’t know what you’re talking about anyway. The hour is now. The Father seeks you NOW. He wants you to worship him honestly – in TRUTH – and as he is – in Spirit.”

The woman was probably breathing a sigh of relief that the conversation had finally seemed to veer safely away from her sexuality – she seems to think that she’s gotten the prophet’s attention off of her, and onto theological abstractions about God and Spirit and Truth and what not. But she’s wrong, and she’s about to realize it. She says “I know that Messiah is coming some day, and then he’ll reveal everything.” She thinks she’s talking about some point in the safe and distant future. All will be disclosed THEN, and by then I will be long dead, and my extramarital sexuality and my disastrous personal life will be long forgotten.

But Jesus says to her with devastating clarity: “The time is now. I am he.” In the Greek language, in which John was written, Jesus says “Ego eimi… ho lalon soi”. Ego eimi means I AM: The name of God in Greek: the same words used in the Septuagint when Moses asks God on top of Mount Sinai to identify himself. “Ego eimi.” I AM. And now this Samaritan woman, thinking she could safely push back her encounter with God and her need to take an honest look at her personal life in spirit and truth, she now finds that she’s standing face to face not just with a prophet, but with the Lord himself.

So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city, and told others about Jesus. She suddenly finds her thirst quenched with the waters of life, and so she drops her water jar, the sign of her vain quest for fulfillment in earthly pleasures, and she runs off to tell others about Jesus.

. . . .

If YOU knew the gift of God, and who it is that speaks to YOU, you would ask him, and he would give you living water.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

catholicism 101 -- part 5/8

CATHOLICISM 101

(the outline of this series is taken from Father Vernon Staley’s book The Catholic Religion)

Church of the Holy Cross
February 17, 2008

Part 5
What is the Church FOR?

- The Church is the Sphere of Grace

• Man is created by God and endowed with reason (you can think), emotions (you can feel), and a will (you can choose).

• What happened through the fall is that these powers are corrupted.

• St. Paul writes (Romans 1.20ff): “Ever since the creation of the world [God’s] invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they [idolaters] are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became FUTILE IN THEIR THINKING and their SENSELESS MINDS WERE DARKENED. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and SERVED THE CREATURE RATHER THAN THE CREATOR, who is blessed for ever! Amen.”

• The whole problem is that we are not now NATURALLY ordered toward God. We are NATURALLY ordered toward what he has created (“the creature”) rather than Him, the Creator – who alone is worthy of service and honor and who alone is blessed forever. And that’s why things, and especially people, are so mixed up. That’s how sin is perpetuated.

• And St. Paul in the passage that follows gives a whole litany of the messed-upness and disorder of nature (and human nature). (This passage has become very unpopular among Episcopalians): Romans 1.26ff – “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct. They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them.”

-Catholic Christianity isn’t about singling out a group of people who are predisposed toward corruption in one of these particular avenues. The point is that we are ALL born into a situation of being corrupted in our nature. Therefore to be a human with integrity, reoriented toward God (and therefore toward life and grace and fulfillment) means to STRUGGLE. Because we are ALL found in that catalog of disorder.

• Since NATURE is corrupt and disordered, it takes something SUPERNATURAL to fix it. It takes GRACE – which is what God alone (who created Nature and who, as Nature’s creator, is ABOVE NATURE – is supernatural) has and what he gives.

• Acceptance of the gift of God’s grace lifts man out of the domain of the merely natural, and places him in the sphere of the supernatural. The Church often calls life in the sphere of the Supernatural being “in a state of grace.”

• Only in a “state of grace” can man know, love, and serve God. Because only in a state of grace do we have a kinship with God – by abiding in grace we become sons.

• St. Paul writes (Galatians 4.4ff): “But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir. Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bondage to beings [Greek “ousin” – things, existences] that by nature are no gods; but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits [Greek = “stoicheia” = “basic elements”, “elementary things”] whose slaves you want to be once more?”

• If we desire to be supernatural beings – humans full of grace, fit for divinity (Greek = “theosis” = “deified”), oriented toward God (and therefore oriented toward life and fulfillment), then we must go to the place where grace is, the sphere within which God gives what he has, where being supernatural (which God alone is “naturally” – that is God alone is “naturally supernatural”) is possible.

• And recall what we said last time -- St. Paul calls the clergy – i.e. ministers in succession from the Apostles – “stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4.1), that Christ made the Apostles the ministers of divine grace: the Eucharist, the offering of his own body and blood; the absolvers of sin (that is those who loose members of the body from the things that bind them to the domain of the natural – and thus prevent them from becoming supernatural beings); baptizers, bestowers of the Holy Spirit, etc.

• The Church is therefore the sphere within which we have access to all these things: to the gift of God in Christ (the essence of Grace – Grace itself – because Christ was FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH (John 1)) in Baptism and Eucharist; the grace of being set free from those things that bind us to the domain of the natural – in the sacrament of reconciliation / confession; the bestowal of the Holy Spirit in confirmation, etc.

• So it becomes clear how it is that the Church is the “12 Lane Superhighway to Heaven” – it is the arena within which we have access to Grace – what God gives. He gives it within this sphere. Can he give it outside Church? Of course. John 3.8: “the wind (Greek = “penuma” = “spirit”) blows where it wants to blow, and you hear the sound of it and do not know where it came from or where it its going”. But God DOES (and does want to) give it within the Sphere of the Catholic Church. And he wants us to have recourse to it here. God MAY give grace wherever he wants – but he ASSURES us that he DOES give it within the sphere of the Catholic Church.

john 3, nicodemus -- the second sunday of lent

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

So spoke Jesus to Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

The first thing to notice about this passage from John’s gospel is that Nicodemus comes to Jesus “at night”. On the surface, this means exactly what it says it means. But the gospel of John is always concerned with symbols – and light and darkness are symbols used and reused throughout John. The Gospel begins by saying that in Jesus was life, and the life was the LIGHT of men. And the light shines in darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1.4-5).

Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. This is an image of Nicodemus coming to Jesus with a darkened heart and mind. Nicodemus comes to the Lord yet unilluminated by the light of the Truth. He comes out of the darkness of the world, the darkness of ignorance about God, and preeminently about what God had done in Christ.

And Nicodemus’s first words to the Lord manifest exactly this darkness. He says “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him." How often do we hear similar talk about Jesus in our own lives – in the media, from friends and family, sometimes perhaps even on our own lips – that Jesus is certainly a great teacher who is in some sense divine, because he is said to have done amazing things, and his teaching was certainly interesting and revolutionary. “we know that you are a teacher come from God.”

And the Lord’s words to Nicodemus cut right to the heart of his darkness. Jesus doesn’t bother defending himself. He doesn’t bother with correcting Nicodemus on his doctrinal error. The next verse the Lord says “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus could not see the Kingdom of God, which was standing right in front of him. Remember that the Kingdom of God in Greek really means the REIGN of God – the sphere within which God’s will is done. And so Jesus is HIMSELF the Kingdom of God. He is the one in whom the Father’s will is done perfectly and completely. And so back then, if he were standing nearby, you were liable to hear a true prophet like John the Baptist cry out “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”

Nicodemus sees in Jesus a clever teacher, perhaps even a sublime teacher, maybe like the Buddha, someone who teaches interesting things about God. He can’t seem to see that the Kingdom of God and God HIMSELF, is standing in front of him. He’s only part way there.

“Rabbi, we know that you are a great teacher, we know that you are a wonder-worker, a prophet – we know that you utter divine truths.” And Jesus says gently “Nicodemus, you have to be born again to see the Kingdom of God.”

And Nicodemus is incredulous. “What are you talking about? Born again? How can you be born again?” And the Lord says “You must be born of water and the Spirit to enter the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

Reading this passage about water and the spirit and illumination, we should be mindful of the beginning of the Bible – of Genesis, where for the first time there is again water, and Spirit, and light. The first verses of the first book of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the SPIRIT of God was moving over the face of the WATERS. And God said, ‘Let there be LIGHT” (Gen. 1.1-3).

So the Lord is telling Nicodemus that he must become a new creature. He must be recreated by the Spirit. And just as surely as the spirit of God brooded over the waters of chaos at the creation of the world, so the Spirit of God moves over the waters of Baptism – forming those who are becoming members of the Lord’s Body into new and spiritual creatures.

St. Paul writes “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6.3f).

The coming of Jesus Christ means the possibility of new life. It means the possibility of living in the truth of God himself, in the confession of Jesus as Lord. It means illumination – and not merely the ability to SEE the Kingdom of God, but to follow Christ and ENTER it.

Nicodemus appears once more in the Gospel of John, at the very end. He is one of the disciples who buries Jesus. Nicode'mus also, who had at first come to him by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds' weight. “They took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb where no one had ever been laid. So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, as the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there” (John 19.39ff).

The womb and the tomb. It is fitting that this disciple who hears the message of the possibility and the necessity of illumination through rebirth by water and the Spirit – this disciple is there at the tomb, seeing the material condition for our rebirth, that the Son of God came to earth to DIE, to take on all the sickness and sin that seeks to destroy us, to BEAR IT, to die under its weight, and to be laid in a tomb… by Nicodemus. All so that we can have life and light with and in and through and by HIM – by being made members of his crucified and risen Body – “the fullness of him who fills all in all”.

For us, this means bearing witness to him, showing him to those around us, and at the same time seeing him in those around us – in our brother and sister Christians, in the poor and the suffering, and even in our enemies. We may measure our life in the Spirit – our growth into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4.13) – we may mark our progress into the Kingdom thus: to what degree do we see him who IS the Kingdom everywhere?

For “unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

catholicism 101 -- part 4/8

CATHOLICISM 101

Church of the Holy Cross

February 10, 2008

Part 4

The Historic Episcopate: the Guardian of the Truth, and the Instrument and Pledge of Grace

• Some residual remarks on the Episcopate:

  • It is the Guardian of the Truth

    • The Truth, in its completeness, was given by Jesus and the Holy Spirit (by God himself) to the Apostles.

      • John 17.6, 7, 19: “I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world; thine they were, and thou gavest them to me, and they have kept thy word. Now they know that everything that thou hast given me is from thee…. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.”

    • The Apostles handed it on to their successors.

      • 2 Timothy 1.13-14: St. Paul writes to St. Timothy: “Follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus; guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.”

      • 2 Timothy 2.2: “and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

      • St. Irenaeus of Lyons (in about 175 AD) writes about St. Polycarp: “But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true.”

    • One of the primary jobs of a bishop is to teach and guard this faith which was given by Christ to the Apostles, and who promised to them that the Holy Spirit (the third person of the Godhead) would himself guard this deposit of truth.

      • Matthew 28.20: (speaking to the 12): “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations… teachings them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”

      • John 14.16f: “And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth…”

        • Note that the promise of the Holy Spirit is “forever” (Greek = “eis ton aiona” = “into the eon”). It cannot therefore be just about the 12 Apostles – who would die well before the close of the eon.

    • When false teaching rose up in the Church, it was the job of the bishops to refute it. That’s what the “ecumenical councils” were for. They were large gatherings of bishops from all over the world.

      • Council of Nicaea in 325 AD and of Chalcedon in 451 AD gave us the Nicene Creed, which we still recite today, every Sunday. It was produced by the bishops to differentiate what was the truth about Christ, which had come down from the Apostles, from some strange things about Jesus that had begun to be taught (like that he was a creature – but no, said the bishops, he was in fact “begotten, not made, of one being with the Father, and through him all things were made”). The bishops were restating what had been handed down to them by the Apostles from the beginning.

      • A few weeks ago, a very good question was asked: how do we KNOW what the true teaching is? Here is what I believe: we know because of the universal witness of bishops of the apostolic succession. This means, basically, three groups of bishops in the divided Christendom: The Roman Catholics (the largest group), the Eastern Orthodox (the next largest group), and the Anglicans (the third largest group). What these groups of bishops teach is what is safe and true. But some of them, you will note, disagree with one another. Here’s how to tell when they disagree: When Rome and the East agree about something and Anglicanism teaches something different (or is silent), Rome and the East win out. When Rome and the East disagree with one another, we are at liberty to believe different things. I am hear advocating a kind of democracy among bishops of the apostolic succession. I think this is right – though it is not “gospel”.

  • The historic Episcopate is the instrument and pledge of grace.

    • Grace is the free and unmerited favor of God, manifested in the salvation of sinners (us), and in the bestowal of blessings.

    • St. Paul calls the clergy “stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4.1).

      • The “mysteries of God” are the very profound truths about God, which transcend the ability of humans to understand: like how God can be a trinity of persons and a unity of substance, or the Incarnation – how Jesus can be at once both perfect God and perfect man.

      • But “mysteries” also means “sacraments”. The normal Greek word for “sacraments” is “musterion”. We use this too in English, for example in the Postcommunion Prayer, when we thank God for “assuring us in these holy mysteries”.

    • The bishops are the guardians and dispensers of the Sacraments.

      • The sacraments can only be duly celebrated by those who have been authorized by Christ – by the Apostles and their successors.

      • Unless the sacraments are administered by someone sent by Christ to do so, there is no guarantee that they are means of grace (any crazy person can take a bowl of milk and a jar of peanut butter, and wave his arms around and say it’s a “sacrament”).

      • Jesus told the Apostles to Baptize (Matthew 28.19), to Celebrate the Mass (“do this” – cf. 1 Cor. 11.25), and to absolve sins: John 20.22f: “…he breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

      • To say “This is my body,” and “this is my blood”, or to say “I absolve you from all of your sins” would be extremely presumptuous for someone not authorized by God to do so.

      • Moreover, there is no guarantee that these words would mean what Christ meant by them, or that they would effect what he meant to effect when he used them, unless they are used by those whom he sent.

        • Here we can see the connection between the magisterial (= teaching) authority of the bishops as guardians and dispensers of the true faith, on the one hand, and their authority as guardians and dispensers of the sacraments. John 17.8: “I have given them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them…”

    • Thus the historic Episcopate – bishops in succession from the Apostles themselves – is the warrant and guarantee of sacramental grace, of the “musterion theou” – the Mysteries of God.

      • And correlatively, Christian groups who have not maintained the historic Episcopate (most Protestants), have lost with it the ordinary means of grace ordained by God – namely, his sacraments. Those Christians, of course, who act in ignorance will likely be excused by God, and he may reward the faith of such Christians by granting them grace – but it is beyond the purview of his covenant. His covenant is with the Catholic Church.

catholicism 101 -- part 3/8

CATHOLICISM 101

Church of the Holy Cross

February 3, 2008

Part 3

Further Considerations on the Christian Ministry

• The Ministry of the Catholic Church is from God.

  • John 15.16: Jesus says to the Apostles: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide…”

    • The Church’s ministry is chosen and appointed by God. The hierarchy is not merely an expediency – a provisional structure deriving from men to effect the proclamation of the Gospel – rather it is given by God himself, a fundamental component of his self-disclosure and the work of redemption ongoing in the world.

    • The word “appointed” is translated in the Authorized Version (“King James” Version) “ordained” (Greek = ETHEKA – “place” “appoint” etc.).

  • As it was under the Old Covenant, is now: “I give your priesthood as a gift” (Numbers 18.7).

  • So the ministerial priesthood of the Church comes from above, not from below. While priests stand as representatives of the people before God, they are primarily sent by God as His ambassadors to the people.

    • So St. Paul, writing as an Apostle / Bishop / Priest says: “So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beseech you ON BEHALF OF CHRIST, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5.20).

      • (In 1 Peter 5.1 St. Paul calls himself a “fellow-priest” (Greek = “sum-presbuteros”).

    • And 2 Cor. 2.10 Paul refers to forgiving sins “in the person of Christ” (Greek = “en prosopo christos”).

    • This is a critical point to emphasize, because of our cultural situation (as Americans), we are prone to allow our thinking about civil polity to color our beliefs about Christianity. So we might tend to think of the clergy merely as elected representatives of the people. And while voting and so forth is a PART of ecclesial polity, that process does not endow the ordained ministry with its most fundamental character.

    • And while we make think of this teaching as a kind of exaltation of the clergy, it is actually the opposite. The fact that the priest ministers “in the person of Christ” and with Christ’s authority and power, is a safeguard against pride. The Christian priest, as priest, loses his own identity in Christ.

    • So St. Paul says “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Cor. 4.7).

  • Apostles / Bishops / Priests / Deacons

    • Each of these words (in Greek of course) is used in reference to our Lord himself.

      • Hebrews 3.1: “Therefore, holy brethren, who share in a heavenly call, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession.”

        • Compare John 20.21: “Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you."

      • 1 Peter 2.25: “For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Guardian [Greek = “Episkopon” = “bishop”] of your souls.”

      • Hebrews 5.6: “…as he says also in another place [about Jesus], "Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchiz'edek."”

      • Luke 22.27: “But I am among you as one who serves…” (“one who serves” = “diakonon” in Greek = “deacon”).

    • After the Resurrection of the Lord, he sent out the Apostles to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28.19). The Apostles in turn appointed “bishops / elders” (i.e. priests) and deacons (Acts 6 explains the deacons) to minister on their behalf in the places to which they were sent (cf. Philippians 1.1).

      • “And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they believed” (Acts 14.23).

    • As the Apostles began to die, they appointed men from the order of bishop-elders (episkopoi-presbyteroi) to succeed to their place of primacy in the nascent Church.

      • So, for example at Antioch, Saint Peter was the first leader of the local church, then Saint Evodius, then Saint Ignatius, and so on. We know this because writings from some of these people have come down to us.

        • We have a number of letters from Saint Ignatius, who wrote while on his way to be martyred in Rome about the year 110, to the Christians in a town called Tralle, in what is now the west coast of Turkey, saying “In like manner, let all reverence the deacons as an appointment of Jesus Christ, and the bishop as Jesus Christ, who is the Son of the Father, and the presbyters as the sanhedrim of God, and assembly of the apostles. Apart from these, there is no Church.”

      • At Rome there were Peter and Paul, then St. Linus, St. Anacletus, St. Clement, etc. etc.

      • So Saint Irenaeus of Lyons writing about the year 180 says: “It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about” (“Adversus Haereses” Book IV chapt. 26).

      • If you’re industrious enough, you can find out the succession of Bishop Stanton, all the way back to Jesus himself. It’s a matter of public record.

    • So when the Apostles were all dead, toward the end of the 1^st century, the Bishops became the buck-stopping authorities in the Catholic Church. Under them the elders (presbyteroi) and deacons ministered – the quote from St. Ignatius of Antioch, above, is representative of this transition and time period.

    • The next stage of transition was during the course of the 3^rd – 4^th century, as Christianity grew and came to be tolerated by the secular authorities throughout the known world. It spread from the metropolitan centers where it had been planted (big cities like Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, Ephesus, Lyons, etc.) to smaller cities in the vicinities of the metropolitan centers.

    • So the bishops of the large cities (“Metropolitans”) appointed “suffragan” (assistant) bishops to minister in the outlying cities and towns. And as the faith spread further and increased yet more, and as distinct parishes (from Greek “para oikos” = subsidiary house, i.e. subsidiary to the diocese) grew up in within Episcopal sees (the place where the bishop has his chair or “sedes” in Latin), the bishops appointed men from the order of presbyters to minister, by the leave and under the authority of the bishop, within local churches. This took place generally during the 4^th and 5^th centuries. (These transitions and dates are fluid.) It hasn’t changed appreciably since.

  • We’ve seen that the bishops are the successors of the Apostles. Let’s consider four implications of this (fount of the ministry, bond of unity, guardian of the truth, instrument and pledge of grace):

    • The episcopate is the fount of the Ministry

      • All bishops are also priests and deacons.

      • All priests and deacons are made by bishops (as are bishops themselves – i.e. made by other bishops (at least three others, since very ancient times)).

    • The episcopate is the bond of unity

      • To separate oneself from communion with one’s bishop is to separate oneself from the Church of which the bishops are the rulers. It is to become a “schismatic”.

        • Moreover, as the bishops minister in the place of Jesus, to separate oneself from one’s bishop is an act of disloyalty to Jesus himself (2 Cor. 2.10 (above) and Matt. 28.18ff: “And Jesus came and said to them (the Apostles), "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age"”).

catholicism 101 -- part 2/8

My apologies about the formatting of this. The formatting from MS Word doesn't seem to be conserved in the blogger thing.

CATHOLICISM 101
Church of the Holy Cross
January 27, 2008

Part 2
The Scriptural Foundations of Catholicity:
Catholic Ministry / Catholic Mission

- The Divine Origin of the Church
o Isaiah 14.32: The Lord has founded Zion, and in her the afflicted of his people find refuge.
o We saw last time how the coming of Jesus and the proclamation of the Gospel (Greek “Evangelos” = “Good News”) meant the expansion of the promises God made to Abraham, to the whole world (all “the nations”).
o The Confession of St. Peter
• Matthew 16.15ff
• “Upon this rock I will build MY Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.”
• Jesus announces that he himself will establish the Church, and he calls it “mine”.
• The Lord’s announcement of the establishment of the Church comes on the heals of Peter’s confession: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
• The Church is the domain, the community, of this confession. It is the Kingdom of the Incarnation (the Kingdom of God’s having become carne – meat, flesh). It is the domain within which this wild notion is believed and proclaimed, and by means of which the benefits of the Incarnation, and the Incarnation itself, are perpetuated and extended through time and throughout the world.
o Jesus’ foundation of the Church is the fulfillment and completion of prophecy.
• To David: “Your son, whom I will set upon your throne in your place, shall build the house for my name” (1 Kings 5.5).
• Jesus is called “son of David” throughout the Gospels, especially in Matthew.
• Matthew 1.1: “The Book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”
• Psalm 127.1: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.”
o Because God has himself established the Church, we may have confidence:
• in its teaching,
• that our souls are secure in the Church’s bosom,
• in the sacramental life of the Church,
• by the intentional conformity of our lives to the Church’s moral teachings;
• that the Church will not pass away.
- The Ministry and Mission of the Church
o Jesus is the great High Priest of Christianity
• “Therefore, holy brethren, who share in a heavenly call, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession” (Hebrews 3.1).
o Jesus appointed others to share and perpetuate his apostolic and priestly ministry:
• “And he went up on the mountain, and called to him those whom he desired; and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and have authority…” (Mark 3.13ff).
• ALL the baptized, who believe in Jesus, share in his work, but some among his many disciples are called to be with him and to share in his work, to be sent out, to preach, and to have authority, in a special way…
• “After this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to come” (Luke 10.1).
• “And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves; and he was transfigured before them” (Mark 9.2).
• In these three verses, we see smaller groups of disciples, called out from among the many, for special work (and these are not the only groups, or even the most important – cf. “the women”) – note the three special groups above: the 70, the 12, and the 3 (Peter, James, and John) – what’s going on with these groups?
• Recall that Jesus is the “prophet like Moses” who knows God face to face, and reveals him to the people:
• “And he said to Moses, ‘Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abi'hu [THREE], and SEVENTY of the elders of Israel, and worship afar off. Moses alone shall come near to the LORD; but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him’… And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD. And he rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the TWELVE tribes of Israel.” (Ex. 24.1ff).
• At the Last Supper, Jesus prays for the 12 Apostles (John 17.16ff): “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth. As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth. I do not pray for these only, but ALSO FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN ME THROUGH THEIR WORD, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”
• Paul the rootedness of catholicity in apostolic doctrine: “So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2.19ff).
• Apostolic Succession: the priests and (especially) the bishops of the Catholic Church perpetuate the apostolic ministry of the Word of God (preaching the Gospel, but also pre-eminently offering the sacrifice of the Word made flesh – the ministry of “lifting up” Jesus (cf. John 12.32)).
• “My brother… a bishop in God’s holy Church is called to be one with the apostles in proclaiming Christ’s resurrection and interpreting the Gospel, and to testify to Christ’s sovereignty as Lord of lords and King of kings. You are called to guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church; to celebrate and to provide for the administration of the sacraments of the New Covenant…” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 515)
• The succession of bishops (and priests) from the Apostles has been taught since the very beginning:
o St. Clement of Rome (who knew Saints Peter and Paul, and who was himself the third pope) writes about the year 80 AD: “Through countryside and city [the apostles] preached, and they appointed their earliest converts, testing them by the Spirit, to be the bishops and deacons of future believers. Nor was this a novelty, for bishops and deacons had been written about a long time earlier. . . . Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have already been mentioned and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry” (from St. Clement’s Letter to the Corinthians)