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.”