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It’s Day 105!!
We are reading ARTICLE 9: I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH
We will hear the mission of Christ and the mission of the Holy Spirit ARE THE SAME MISSION
THEY ARE INSEPARABLE!!
All of the Church’s connection to the Lord are ABSOLUTELY INSEPARABLE from the missions of Christ and the Holy Spirit
Paragraph 748 tells us that the starting point for understanding the Church is Christ Jesus
Paragraph 748 says, “By choosing this starting point, the Council demonstrates that the article of faith about the Church depends entirely on the articles concerning Christ Jesus. The Church has no other light than Christ’s…”
THAT IS REMARKABLE!!
The Catechism is meant to reveal, teach, and remind us of things that we maybe didn’t know and things that we maybe did know
Paragraph 748 establishes that everything we believe about the Church flows from what we believe about Christ Jesus
Paragraph 749 says, “The article concerning the Church also depends entirely on the article about the Holy Spirit…”
It makes sense
We have been talking about how the mission of Jesus Christ and the mission of the Holy Spirit are INSEPARABLE
THEY ARE UNITED!!
These missions are brought to completion in the Church so the Church is essentially a SACRAMENT OF THAT JOINT MISSION BETWEEN THE SON AND THE SPIRIT
Paragraphs 751 and 752 talk about some words
HOLY
CATHOLIC
ONE
APOSTOLIC
These come from the Nicene Creed
Paragraph 751 says, “The word ‘Church’ (Latin ecclesia, from the Greek ek-ka-lein, to ‘call out of’) means a convocation or an assembly…the German Kirche are derived, means ‘what belongs to the Lord.’”
Today is almost like a vocabulary lesson
Paragraph 752 says, “In Christian usage, the word ‘church’ designates the liturgical assembly, but also the local community or the whole universal community of believers.”
The liturgical assembly means when we come together for Mass
The local community is the DIOCESE made up of PARISHES
The whole universal community of believers
We will learn over the next few days what is the Church and the Church’s role in our lives
So let’s pray!!
Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, we pray. We ask that you please, no matter where we are at right now, send your Holy Spirit. Wherever we are right now, Lord, if we are at a place of discouragement we ask you to please meet us in our discouragement. If we are in a place of confusion, we ask you to please meet us in that place of confusion. If we are in a place of joy, in a place of deep peace, please meet us. Meet us in your joy. Meet us in your peace. We know that we can trust you. We love you and we dedicate our lives to you. Thank you for giving us the gift of your Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and One Church. We thank you and praise your name, in Jesus’ name. Amen”
So there we are!!
SO GOOD!!
The first two paragraphs highlight what we are going to state about the Church all completely flow from Jesus and the Holy Spirit
This is also directly connected to the Father
What we state about the Church has EVERYTHING to do with what we state about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
PARTICULARLY the missions of the Son and the Spirit
Which are carried out even now in our day and age in the Church
It is the presence and working of the Holy Spirit that makes the Church HOLY
Paragraph 749 says, “The Spirit is the source and giver of all holiness, we now confess that it is he who has endowed the Church with holiness. The Church is, in a phrase used by the Fathers, the place ‘where the Spirit flourishes.’”
THAT IS THE WHOLE GOAL!!
Sometimes that is not our experience
Sometimes our experience is the humanity of the Church has gotten in the way of the Divinity of the Church
The brokenness is giving the humanity of the Church a bad reputation
God’s Divinity has come to SANCTIFY our humanity
God’s Divinity has come to MAKE HOLY where we live and how we live
So humanity doesn’t always equal the broken part of the Church
And at the same time, the broken part DOES NOT COME FROM GOD
Where human beings show up there can be hurt feelings
The Divine Nature of the Church can be obscured by the humanity
When we talk about the mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit and the identity of the Trinity IT IS ALL GOOD
There is no darkness
There is no shadow
There is no brokenness
There is no evil
AND YET…
When we talk about the Church we realize the Holy Spirit is the Soul of the Church
And Jesus has promised to guide the Church into all truth
As human beings that are broken there is going to be shadow
There is going to be darkness
There is going to be history that is shady and evil
IN FACT…
Human beings in the name of Jesus do evil things which dates all the way back to the beginning of the Bible
There were people doing things in the name of God that God actually condemns
AND YET…
Paragraph 750 says, “To believe that the Church is ‘holy’ and ‘catholic,’ and that she is ‘one’ and ‘apostolic’...is inseparable from belief in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
IN FACT…
We are not believing IN the Church
We believe IN GOD THE FATHER SON AND HOLY SPIRIT
We don’t believe IN the Church in the same way
Because we don’t confuse God with His works
The Church is God’s work
The Church is the Body of Christ
The Church is the Temple of the Holy Spirit
BUT…
We don't’ believe in the Church in the same way that we believe in God the Father Son and Holy Spirit
The Church is God’s WORK
We attribute to God all the gifts that He has bestowed upon the Church
We also have NAMES AND IMAGES OF THE CHURCH
ECCLESIA in Latin
EK-KA-LEIN in Greek
TO CALL OUT OF
People were called together
The convocation or assembly
People make the point that church means assembly
Those who are gathered
Those who are called out
Are members of the Church
There is this incredible other term KYRIAK from Greek and KIRCHE from German
It is a unique term that means “WHAT BELONGS TO THE LORD”
The Church belongs to the Lord
The members of the Church are those who belong to the Lord in a unique, powerful, and very real way
THAT IS YOU!!
If you have been baptized and brought into the people of God and the family of God and made into a Temple of the Holy Spirit then you are part of the Church
You are part of what belongs to the Lord
IN FACT…
When we bless/consecrate something we are giving it a new purpose, giving it a new end, and setting it aside for the Lord
Everything that belongs to the CHURCH is what belongs to the LORD
Paragraph 752 says, “In Christian usage, the word ‘church’ designates the liturgical assembly, but also the local community, or the whole universal community of believers.”
Go up and read what Fr. Mike said in the introduction, I’m not going to write it all again
These three levels are always connected
The Church exists in these three real areas that she has made real in these three ways
WHICH IS REMARKABLE!!
Paragraph 752 continues, “She draws her life from the word and the Body of Christ and so herself becomes Christ’s body.”
So that’s what the Church means
You might have known that
You might not have fully articulated that
Tomorrow we will go more deeply into the SYMBOLS OF THE CHURCH
Sometimes we can pray with these symbols
We can take the time to pray with these symbols and images
Images the Church has used about itself
Images Scripture has used about the Church
This is important because you are part of this and this is part of you
You are what belongs to the Lord
As a member of that Body of Christ it is worth meditating deeply on what you are part of
How does this body that has authority in our lives going to continue to feed me and lead me and guide me so that we can then serve the Church (Fr. Mike is doing his stream of consciousness thing now but you get the gist)
How can we live in this Church
How can we help others be led and be fed and be guided
Fr. Mike is praying for YOU!!
Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!! (ESPECIALLY ME!!! PLEASE!!!)
I cannot WAIT to see you tomorrow!!
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