Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

The Holy Father’s Wednesday audience catechesis series continued this week with a look at the origins of the Church to see what this reveals of Her essential aspects and Her structure.  He continues to demonstrate that the anachronism of Christian “individualism” is problematic by showing that Christianity has always understood that in order to embrace Christ one must accept the Whole Christ–which includes His Church in her totality.

B16 continues to go back to the early Church Fathers for this reason.  He recognizes that those who espouse individualism, incorrectly assume that the early Church was anarchic, egalitarian, and amorphous and that hierarchical Church structure is a mistaken historical accretion.  As such, Benedict cites St. Irenaeus of Lyon in his work, Against Heresies, from the second century:

Where the Church is, there also is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace, as the Spirit is truth” (”Adversus Haereses,” III, 24, 1: PG 7, 966).

Here the Pope finds Irenaeus shows two aspects of the Church and her relationship with the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit edifies and gives truth and grace to the Church.  However, there is a certain reciprocity (though certainly not in the sense of necessity on the part of the Holy Spirit) in this relationship in that the Holy Spirit does not eliminate Church’s humanity–to include human weakness and failings.  Thus, from the Church’s very beginning there has been a communion in truth, love and grace coexisting with experiences of trials, Judas-like betrayals, and wounds to communion.

B16 shows that both divine communion and human failings have always existed in the Church.  St. John shows that from the first days of the Church have been those Christians who separated themselves from Church unity (cf. 1 John 2:19).  John goes on to say that those who separate themselves harm the communion.  However, he also indicates that communion is not possible with those who do not accept the teaching of the Church (cf. 2 John 9-11).

It is left to those on earth to lead the family of God in truth and unity.  Benedict says that this is what the apostles were called to do in their ministry:

And here we come to an important point. The Church is totally of the Spirit, but it has a structure, the apostolic succession, which has the responsibility to guarantee the Church’s permanence in the truth given by Christ, from which the capacity to love also proceeds. The first summary of the Acts of the Apostles expresses with great effectiveness the convergence of these values in the life of the early Church: “They devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship (’koinonia’), to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42).

Here it is.  Unity is ultimately from the Holy Spirit but it is also mediated by human beings.  The Holy Spirit uses the apostolic ministry, the ordained priesthood, to keep and promote communion.  The gift of communion, kept and promoted by the hierarchical aspect of the Church, is a two-fold ministry.  It is a ministry of truth and charity.  These are two sides of the same gift of communion and cannot be separated.  You cannot have one without the other.

Separating oneself from the truth as proclaimed by the Magisterium necessarily separates one (in degrees) from communion with the Church and the Holy Spirit.  Picking and choosing which truths one wishes to follow is not simply illogical because it presumes and denies the authority of the Church at one and the same time, it is also an act which attenuates charity because truth and charity go inseparably together. 

Benedict XVI concludes the lesson exhorting Christians to pray for the successors of the apostles–the bishops, and for him–Peter’s successor so that they may be faithful custodians of the truth and mediators of charity such that communion never be extinguished in the Church and in the world.

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