... in his column, "Jesus and His Church Are One", from today's edition of Catholic New York:
Jesus Christ and His Church are one.
Now, that’s a revealed truth that needs repeating today.
What we’ve got now, if the scholarly research is accurate—and I’m afraid it is—is a growing tendency to split Christ from His Church. More and more seem to be claiming such things as:
“Oh, I’ve got faith. I just don’t need the Church.”
“Faith is great; religion stinks.”
“I believe. I just don’t want to belong.”
“I got Jesus. Why bother with the Church?”
“I pray how and when I want. What’s the big deal about the Mass and Church on Sunday?”
St. Paul would take exception. So would Jesus.
When God chose Israel he selected not a person but a people. Faith in God is communal by its very nature.
Like our Jewish neighbors, we Catholics have always believed that God chooses us and gives us the supernatural gift of faith. It’s not that we decide our faith. You bet, we freely decide how firmly and generously we will live out our faith, but we are “born into” a Church. Faith is a gift from God given us on the day of our baptism into His Church.
Just like we’re “born into” a natural family. We are a member of a human family. That family is often flawed and imperfect. In fact, there are times when we’re angry at it and might even drift away from family events. But, family membership is in our blood.
Read the entire column. He concludes with a quote from Cardinal Henri de Lubac (he's popular!):
Speaking of Jesus and His Church, the acclaimed French theologian Henri de Lubac exclaimed, “For what would I ever know of Him without Her.”
The Cardinal-to-be likes the quote, having used it last fall in an address to the USCCB. However, I cannot locate the original source of the quote; it sounds like something from either The Splendor of the Church or The Motherhood of the Church.
There is much that could be said about the "Jesus = good; Church/religion = bad" falsehood (one that I used to embrace as a Fundamentalist), but I'll just note here that the big issue, as Abp. Dolan notes, is ecclesiology. If you don't properly grasp the nature and mission of the Church, mistakes and errors big, small, and always damaging are sure to follow.
What get's me in this kind of stuff, is how often Mother Church must respond to the same old tired boring shallow nonsense, and if the LAST thing any proponent of this idea or that must do these days, is to ask whether anyone has already thought of the idea before, and seen it answered. But respond She must. And does. God bless +TD!
Posted by: Ed Peters | Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 01:00 PM
The quote from de Lubac is from The Church: Paradox and Mystery (1969). Here's the quote location from a Google Books snippet: http://books.google.com/books?ei=McshT536CIHo0QH0-fHbCA&id=HHQVAAAAMAAJ&dq=lubac+church+paradox+mystery&q=what+would#search_anchor
Posted by: dmw | Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 01:55 PM
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP1FAITH.HTM
Pope John Paul I - General Audience 13 September 1978
"It is also difficult to accept some truths, because the truths of faith are of two kinds; some pleasant, others unpalatable to our spirit. For example, it is pleasant to hear that God has so much tenderness for us, even more tenderness than a mother has for her children, as Isaiah says. How pleasant and congenial it is! There was a great French bishop, Dupanloup, who used to say to the rectors of seminaries: "with the future priests, be fathers, be mothers". It is agreeable. Other truths, on the contrary, are hard to accept. God must punish, if I resist. He runs after me, he begs me to repent and I say: "No!" I almost force him to punish me. This is not agreeable. But it is a truth of faith. And there is a last difficulty, the Church. St Paul asked: "Who are you, Lord?" —"I am that Jesus whom you are persecuting". A light, a flash, crossed his mind. I do not persecute Jesus, I don't even know him: I persecute the Christians. It is clear that Jesus and the Christians, Jesus and the Church are the same thing: indissoluble, inseparable.
Read St Paul: "Corpus Christi quod est Ecclesia". Christ and the Church are only one thing. Christ is the Head, we, the Church, are his limbs. It is not possible to have faith and to say, "I believe in Jesus, I accept Jesus but I do not accept the Church." We must accept the Church, as she is. And what is this Church like? Pope John called her "Mater et Magistra". Teacher also. St Paul said: "Let everyone accept us as Christ's aids and stewards and dispensers of his mysteries."
Posted by: beng | Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 01:05 AM