THE IMAGE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (From Father Odon's Blog)
Because Pope Benedict is one of the most intelligent and the clearest presenter of Catholic truths among recent Popes, it is good for us to study what he had taught during his Pontificate.
The first step the Holy Father gave us that leads to eternal life is CONVERSION, a topic that was sadly excluded from the Lineamenta sent to the Bishops for the Bishop's Synod in Rome. The topic which Pope Benedict considered as the crucial and most important topic, though mentioned in passing in Proposal 22 was not well explained. Because of this neglect, the Holy Father repeated the need to emphasize 'conversion' immediately after the Synod.
This is the reason why we,too, have emphasized it in these posts. 'Conversion' is the very 'Act of Faith.' No conversion, no Act of Faith. Faith, on the other hand, is the door into the Kingdom of God or the Catholic Church. It is the virtue that makes us Catholics. And Faith perfected by Charity is what makes us deserve eternal life.
The Catholic Church has four visible signs that we repeat every Sunday at Mass; One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. These signs are visible signs that must show in every Parish, Diocese and every Catholic. But in a recent talk Pope Benedict mentioned that the Church has lost its Unity or Oneness. Oneness is the foundation of the three other visible signs. That is like saying 'we have lost all the signs of Catholicity.'
Without these four visible signs we would not know where to enter. In this 'Year of Faith' we should make certain we undergo 'conversion' because that is the only way we can know the entrance into the True Church, the Kingdom of God here on earth. When we have Faith then we know we are inside.
Thus after 'Conversion' Pope Benedict describes 'Entrance into the Kingdom of God' as the second step. This is Faith. After conversion we receive the supernatural virtue of Faith.
What is most important in this second step is to know how the Church looks like. Otherwise we could enter one of the thousand false christian churches. And this is the greatest danger today as mentioned by Pope Benedict on Ash Wednesday......the danger of a strong movement in the Catholic Church of a theology that is creating a new man-made false catholic church, a very insidious imitation that it is undetectable to most minds including theologians. It is detectable only to those with Faith.
The clearest description of the Catholic Church is from the Liturgical ....and not from the just concluded Bishop's Synod. It is not clear from the Documents of Vatican II where the fathers had such a difficult time describing the Church though 'Lumen Gentium' was just repeating the teachings of St. Robert Bellarmine. So the Holy Father had to warn us to stop interpreting it and to wait for its official interpretation from the Magisterium.
The Liturgy of Advent does not speak of Christmas, the first coming of Christ. In fact it did not mention Christmas. The focus was on the Second coming of Christ, the general Judgment that we must all fear. If we have the gift of the Holy Spirit. called the fear of God taught in the Advent message, we should understand the several feast within Advent and the Christmas season. The feast of the Immaculate Conception, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of God, Holy Family, Shepherds, Magi.....these are not historical feastd but images of the Catholic Church. The Immaculate Conception is the image of the sinlesness of the members of the Catholic Church (as described by the fishing incident in Lake Tiberias.) The feast of Three kings is not a commemoration of the three Magi. It is the image of the gifts a soul within the Catholic Church offers to God. The Holy Family is not a feast of Mary, Joseph and Jesus. It is the descriptions of a house, the Church, where Faith grows. If we get all those feasts within Advent and Christmastide and include the Sundays in Ordinary time we should have a very clear picture of the Catholic Church....a clearer picture than it is described by the Constitution on Ecclesiology ' Lumen Gentium.' Ordinary people can easily understand the image of the Catholic Church from those feast. It is almost impossible to understand it from "Lumen Gentium' which up to now is still being interpreted.....and often wrongly, Pope Benedict warned last Ash Wednesday.
Using the feasts of the Liturgy let us paint a picture of the Catholic Church...and we shall use the words 'Catholic Church' and 'members of the Catholic Church' interchangeably.
The members of the Catholic Church are those who have undergone conversion and thus have received the virtue of Faith. As a consequence all their past sins are forgiven and by the grace of Faith they would not fall into serious sins again.....except for small imperfection and venial sins. In effect, they are sinless or immaculate like the Immaculate Conception.
At a certain time in her history the Church will not be found in the city of men. As the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe shows, the church will be transfered by God, Himself, into the desert in a special place prepared by God. The desert is a way of life commonly known as monastic life but during a certain age of the Church she is described as a 'new' way of monastic life mentioned by Pope Benedict quoting St. Bonaventure. We shall describe this new way lengthily later on. Because it is a 'new way' nobody seems to have any idea what it is. So ignorance of the 'new evangelization' which is based on this 'new monasticism' is worldwide. Though the Bishop's Synod mentions the words 'new evangelization' quite often, there is absolutely no description or definition of it as Pope Benedict described it. It is in fact described erroneously. If this erroneous description is taught to the Catholic world no one would ever enter the 'door of Faith'.
The soul seeking to have Faith must put himself completely under two souls with perfect Faith as shown by Christ in the feast of the Holy Family. Jesus was subject to Joseph and Mary, two people with perfect Faith. Where will you find parents with perfect Faith today? Where can you find religious superiors or even Bishops and parish priest with perfect Faith? I am sure there are but those with Faith are impossible to find because they tend to live 'hidden lives.'
Catholics must be contemplatives, i.e. continuously offering to God the worship due to his Deity, due to His Priesthood and due to his Human Nature which is symbolized by the gifts of the Magi. Who is doing that unceasingly? Once a year, maybe. But not unceasingly as contemplatives should do. Pope Benedict reminds us that evangelizers, like bishops, priests and layman should be contemplatives like the Magi.
The above are just a few characteristics of the Catholic Church. There are more characteristics within Advent and Christmastide for a more complete picture.
There is an image of the Catholic Church that we often forget. That she is a living spiritual being that grows spiritually. That she looks different at the time of the apostles and different today. Essentially the same but with some difference. Like a 10 year old girl who have grown up to become 20. At 10 she is portrayed as Peter and the apostles fishing and catching all kinds of fishes, both good and bad. This was in Genesareth. But at 20 she is portraned as Peter and the apostles fishing and catching only good fishes. This was in Lake Tiberias. In the latter incident only Immaculate fishes were caught, and only in Lake Tiberias, in a calm lake and approaching Christ waiting on the shore.
We have to master the 'new evangelization' of Pope Benedict because here he described splendidly the image of the Catholic Church. And he is saying that it is impossible to find that Church unless we undergo 'conversion' that leads to Faith....the true Catholic virtue of Faith....an ACT nobody seems to know. It is not described among the 58 proposals from the Synod. While Pope Benedict described it perfectly in his talks. He was planning to summarize all his talks on Faith by the end of the 'Year of Faith' but it was temporarily cancelled because of his abdication. But he had sufficiently described the 'Act of Faith' in his part speeches.
The last post 'the sixth day' is a description of the Catholic Church today. And the reactions to the Pope's move of stepping show ignorance of the image of the Catholic Church at age 20. The image is that the Church with the Pope, all bishops and priests, and the Faithful should all be contemplatives at Mt Tabor.....and not with the Pharisees, Scribes and other Jews down in Jerusalem and other cities.
The image of the Catholic Church continues to appear in the Sunday Gospels of Lent. Like in the Gospel of the vine dresser. Christ entered His vineyard and approached the Fig tree for three times, symbolizing the three times He approached mankind to invite him to Eternal Life. The first time in the garden of Eden where man rejected His invitation. The second time was in the Old Testament where man again rejected His invitation. The third time is in the New Testament where man today had obviously rejected His invitation. Christ had approached the vinedresser, the Pope, who is in-charge of the vineyard and warned him that if the Fig tree does not still bear fruit He would chop it down. And Pope Benedict, just like the vinedresser begs the Lord to leave it alone. I will loosen the soil and apply dung and hopefully when You come unexpectedly there might be fruits. And Christ says OK. So the vinedresser, the Pope, fertilizes the roots with Christian Doctrines in his 'compendium of the Catechism' and applies dung, the symbol of humility, by setting aside the royal vestiments of his Papacy, then goes to pray and plead to the Lord; "Lord, leave it another year". St,Thomas of Aquinas says: 'he goes to pray......for those outside the Church, for those without Faith that they bear fruits of Faith. Obviously, the vinedresser did not resign his office. Pope Benedict once said that he was just a humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord. God had approached him and asked why the fig tree had no fruits and threaten to chop it down. He had loosen the soil around the tree with his teachings and his 'Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.' He had applied the dung of his humility by giving up the royal trappings of his Papacy. But because most members of the Church still had not borne fruits and because God threatened to chop the tree down, he had to resort to the only last thing he could do as Pope. And that is to pray and plead for a little time more. Then he concludes: if after this time there is still no fruit You may chop it down.