Mater Ecclesia: An Ecclesiology for the 21st Century
Mater Ecclesia: An Ecclesiology for the 21st Century | Donald Calloway, M.I.C.
We must ask ourselves: Is the image of "our Mother the Church" (that has become alien to us, and that we
prefer to replace with the more popular expression "People of God") anything
more than an analogy which was once appropriate, on the basis of prevailing
cultural conditions, and which is no longer appropriate since it no longer
corresponds to our changed ways of thinking and feeling? [1]
In 1974 the renowned theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, concerned about the fading
image of the Church as Mother, wrote:
In asking this question, von
Balthasar brought up a very interesting point concerning a classical image of
the Church. While it is true that the Church holds to no one particular
self-expression, that is, ecclesiology, it does appear that on some levels the
image of the Church as Mother has been slowly declining. Does this historical
shift in ecclesiological expression, a result of doctrinal development, do away
with the maternal analogy all together? I do not believe it does, and neither
did von Balthasar. Rather, under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, the Church is currently seeking to inculcate in the hearts of its
faithful other ecclesiological expressions, such as People of God, Communio and Pilgrim People.
These are good and beneficial expressions. However, they do not rule out or
contradict the dominant ecclesiological expressions of the past, for example,
the Pauline image of the Church as the Body of Christ--an image that has also suffered interest in many circles.
Furthermore, while keeping in mind the manifold ways in which the Church
expresses itself, I believe that the recovery of the classical formulation of
Church as Mater Ecclesia will have
enormous theological importance for the 21st century. The heart of the
importance lies in four ways in which we understand the role of motherhood,
namely, childbearing, teaching, protecting and correcting.
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