A LAY INITIATIVE FORMED TO DEFEND

CATHOLIC TEACHING ON THE FAMILY

From east and west: sermon on the third Sunday after the Epiphany

“Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good.”

We are in the middle of the octave of prayer for Christian unity. It began on Saturday, and it will end this coming Saturday, on the feast of the conversion of St Paul. This octave or eight days of prayer for Christian unity is, as it were, an echo on earth of the prayer that our Lord makes in heaven to His eternal Father: “May they be one, as thou in me and I in thee.”

In fact, of course, the Church is already one, as God is one. It’s even an article of faith that the Church can never lose her unity: we say in the creed, “I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.” After all, our Lord’s prayer to His Father cannot go unheard. So, what we’re doing when we pray for Christian unity, is asking God that those who are already baptised but separated from us may overcome whatever it is that keeps them apart from us, and by grace find their way home to the Catholic Church.

Now, sometimes people get confused about this. They say, for example: “Well, the church is not a visible institution; the church is just made up of whoever in his heart believes in Christ; and God alone sees who those people really are.” But that’s not true. It would be true if they said: “The most important thing about the Church is something invisible, namely divine grace.” The grace that comes to us from Christ through the sacraments is more important than all the church buildings in the world, however beautiful they are. In the same way, we could say that the most important thing about a human being is something invisible, namely, his soul. But if a person went on to conclude, “therefore, you don’t need a body to be human”, he would be woefully wrong.  A man is made of both soul and body.  And the Church of Christ has divine grace for her soul, but she has also a visible body, distinguishing her visibly from all other groups on earth.

Think of the Old Testament figures. For example, the Church was foreshadowed, in the book of Genesis, by the ark of Noah.  Now, Noah’s ark was not simply a beautiful ideal or a union of hearts. No, it was a visible ship; it was made of planks of timber, cut according to precise specifications given to Noah by God. And when the flood came, those who were saved were those who were inside this ark, and not those who simply aspired to stay dry.

Or think of another figure of the Church in the Old Testament, the house of Rahab. If you remember, when the two Israelite spies or scouts came into Jericho, just before the people of Israel took over the promised Land, Rahab hid them. Even though she had been a harlot, she received the grace of faith. So, when the Israelite army conquered Jericho, they destroyed all the other buildings in the city but spared Rahab and who were with her in her house. The Fathers see this house as a figure of the Church. At the end of the world, when the saints inherit the kingdom and all other societies and states on earth must perish, the Church will be spared, and those dwelling within her.

What lesson should we draw from this? Is it that we who by the grace of God are Catholics can be complacent about our salvation? If we were ever tempted to feel that way, then Christ’s words this Sunday will correct us. Our Lord is impressed by the faith of the Roman soldier, and He tells the Jews: “Many shall come from east and west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven: but the children of the kingdom shall be cast into the exterior darkness.” Just as it wasn’t enough for the Jews to be Jews if they didn’t also welcome their Messiah when He came, so it is not enough for us to be members of the Catholic Church; we must be her living members. Christ must live His life within us.

But finally, we are called to pray for our separated brothers. Brothers already, by baptism, and called by Christ to come “from east and west” — from the schisms of the first millennium and those of the Reformation — to sit with the saints in the kingdom of heaven.

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