Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

After a little hiatus, I will return to (and catch up on) Pope Benedict XVI’s catechetical series on the Church. I left off on his May 3 audience. Here, Benedict continues on the theme of Apostolic Tradition. In the previous installment (April 26) he showed that authentic Tradition is not some dead thing but a living continuation of Christ’s gift of Himself to His Church.

In the May 3 lesson, B16 invokes the teaching of the Second Vatican Council’s Dei Verbum (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation). In citing Dei Verbum, Benedict shows that the Council describes New Testament Tradition in terms of divine revelation that began as oral under the watchful care of the Apostles, who saw their vocations to guard and preach the deposit of faith. However, Tradition extends beyond simply the cognitive content of faith. While it includes the gospel message of salvation from our sins, it also contains the living means of this salvation–namely, our access to grace. Living Tradition then is Church doctrine, life, and worship. It is also the Holy Spirit acting in history and in the lives of those who are being called to salvation.

The Holy Spirit makes Christ present to every place and time; He is the gaurantor of this living river of life the Church calls Tradition. Christ isn’t separated from us by a 2000 year gulf since His Incarnation and Resurrection, but through the Spirit He is present to us today in His Church through His Mystical Body, the Church.

Some things to note in this audience: B16 refers to the Catholic Church as “eschatological Israel” (which is inferred by his theme of apostolic succession). This is significant for several reasons. First, it emphasizes the continuity of the Catholic Church with Old Testament Israel. The Old Testament Church was not abrogated with Pentecost in A.D. 33, but it was brought to fruition as promised by the Prophets. The Prophets told of YHWH’s betrothal to His People (in Hebrew ‘am, connoting family).  Israel in her relationship to YHWH, was eventually referred to as Kahal, the “called out” (connoting those called out of Egypt).  YHWH’s betrothal to Old Testment Israel (the Kahal) is fulfilled with Christ’s marriage to His People, the New Testament Church.

The continuity of the Old Testament Kahal/Church with the New Testament Church (Greek - Ecclesia) can be seen etymologically in the Greek Old Testament (the LXX) in which Kahal is translated Ecclesia. This is the term the New Testament selects for that body which Jesus established upon St. Peter.  Ecclesia makes its way from German to “church” in English. But this continuity is more than etymological. When it comes time for the marriage, the betrothal is not abrogated; it is completed and brought to fulfillment. There is a real continuity between the Old Testament and New Testament people of God.  This covenantal understanding of man’s relationship with God is the context behind Benedict’s use of the term “eschatological Israel” and it explains why he shows that Israel, in Christ, is being opened and extended to the whole world.

A second point to be made here is that in calling the Catholic Church “eschatological Israel”, the Pope is contradicting modern notions that the Catholic Church is just one Church among many (I am thinking here especially of those who make much of Lumen gentium’s use of “subsists in” [8]). Rather, he intimates that Christ founded one Church and all who belong to this monolithic (in terms of its being) Church, belong to the Catholic Church in varying degrees, depending upon the extent to which each person possesses the fullness of truth.

Back to the issue of continuity: another thing to notice here is the importance B16 places on the continued continuity of the Church from the Apostles until the present time. Benedict cites Pope St. Clement of Rome (the 4th Pope) as a first century voice of the Church (well before Constantine by the way) who emphasized Apostolic attestation to the divine institution of the Church hierarchy. In other words, those who dream dreams of the Church as an egalitarian commune, or a western democratic political entity impose an anachronistic view on the reality of the first century when they claim the Church was without a hierarchical structure in the earliest of days. One need only read through the Early Church Fathers to see how anyone from the time was to determine if they were in union with Jesus’ gospel message. The Fathers asked them if they were in union with their bishop. It soon became clear that the bishops were in union with the Church, if they in turn were in union with the Pope.

Benedict wants to make clear, as he said at the beginning of this series, to accept Christ is to accept the whole Christ.  This includes the Church structure that he established.