THE CORRECT NOTION OF THE CHURCH

Lenten Pastoral: 1988

By
Rt. Rev. Dr. Victor A. Chikwe
Bishop of Ahiara.

THE CORRECT NOTION OF THE CHURCH:

1. Fear not little flock, it is along the Path of the Church, with love and a living faith, that we walk in our commitment to the building of the Church in Mbaise. Our task is not to the church of Mbaise, not to THE Mbaise church, not even to a church FOR Mbaise, but to the Church of Christ IN Mbaise. Yes it is His Church, Ecclesiam Suam, not our own because we re His Church.

2. The Church as the New People of God is a concept which readily brings our minds to the implications of our personal and communal commitment to God as the Church. “The consciousness of the Church as the People of God”, says Pope John Paul II, as a Cardinal, “presupposes awareness of creation, salvation and redemption and is based on such awareness … The essential point is that the whole reality of the People of God has its permanent source and origin in God ‘who reveals himself’: while in turn, man’s faith and that of humanity determines the reality of the people of God, since it constitutes a reply to God expressed in men’s minds and lives” (Sources of Renewal, 1980, p. 112).

3. The Church as the New People of God is the subject of the second chapter of “Lumen Gentium”. It is important to observe that chapter one of that Constitution teaches all of us that “Christ is the light of all nations”. This designation of Christ gives the Christological and biblical vision of the church. Here it is Christ, at the Church, that is the light of the nations (Lk. 2:34. Jn. 8:12). But “By her relationship with Christ, the Church is a kind of sacrament of intimate union with God and of unity of all mankind, that is, she is a sign and an instrument of such union and unity” (L.G.I.). Taking recourse to the analogy of the incarnation, L.G. 8 throws more light on that unity in diversity which is essential to the life of the Church. It brings out clearly the relationship between Christ and His Church.

4. In order to impress on the minds of all the faithful – the Church – the importance of “personal freedom and responsibility” in the Christian Community, L.G. 6 tells us that “The Church is a cultivated field, the tillage of God (Cor. 3:9). On that land the ancient olive tree grows whose hole roots were the prophets and in which the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles has been brought about and will be brought about again (Rom. 11:13-26)”. The process by which reconciliation will be brought about again is the process of individual and communal purification of the Church. It is important to recall that the Second Vatican Council returned to the idea of Ecclesia semper purificanda est in avoidance of the popularised and often misapplied ecclesia semper reformanda est. Therefore G. S. 21 tells us that”… it is the function of the church, led by the Holy Spirit who renews and purifies her ceaselessly, to make God the Father and His incarnate Son present and in a sense visible”.

The idea of purification and renewal here is a return to the fact that “The Church, however, clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and always in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal” (L.G.8). This is a recognition of the ancient notion of the Church as the Bride purchased and purified by the blood of her Groom – Christ.

CULTIVATING THE CORRECT ATTITUDE TO THE CHURCH:

5. Surely, all of us are aware of the different ideological currents in the Church since the Second Vatican Council. I mean the currents which talk of CHANGING the Church and of CHANGES in the Church. Vatican II, to be sure, never talked of, nor initiated a process of CHANGING the Church. It initiated a process of purifying the Church.

In this sense it is a process which introduced changes in the church leading to the renewal of the Church and to ‘reform’ in the Church in this strict sense. It began the task we all know as “aggiornasmento”. One may ask, what are the areas of the Church concerned with this “aggiornamento”? it sis safer her to recall that Pope Paul VI, in this regard, asked the Council Fathers in his opening speech to the Second Session of Vatican II, and I quote him: “If the Bride of Christ discovers “some shadow, some defect, some stain upon her wedding garment, what should be her instinctive, courageous reaction? There can be no doubt that her primary duty would be to reform, correct and set herself aright in conformity with her divine model”. Therefore, “aggiornamento” imposed on all a change of attitude to and in the Church. It demands the cultivation of the sense of community and of community attitude. The nature of this community attitude is very much emphasized in many texts of Vatican II documents and those texts “show its essence and clarify its relation to the building-up of the Church as the community of the people of God and the Body of Christ”. (Sources of Renewal, p. 367).

SERVICE AND COMMUNION IN THE BUILDING-UP OF THE COMMUNITY:

6. To achieve this change of attitude in the right direction, a renewed emphasis was placed on service/diakonia and o communion/koinonia as two complementary aspects of the same task of ecclesial purification. This is where the role of authority in the Church has its importance as a sacred gift of God to the Church. In the Church there exists communio munerum, communio ecclesiarum and through both we have communio personarum by way of harmonising the function of didactism and prophetism of the New People of God. The basis for the realisation of these in the Church is Christian charity – practical love. The balance between Service and Communion is maintained by love backed by authority, understood in the light of communio munerum.

7. It must be observed that the Cathedral – the bishop’s seat, is the symbol and seat of this love and service in communion. It is very important for both the unity of the people of God, their proper sanctification and sacramental unity. A certain notion of the cathedral must therefore be corrected. For instance, according to New Catholic Encyclopedia, a cathedral is “The principal Church of a diocese in which the bishop has his throne and where he preaches, teaches and conducts religious services”. Attention must be drawn to the fact that what the author calls “the principla Church of a diocese” is better qualified to mean the principal Church building of a diocese. This particular church building is principal because it contains the Cathedra, the bishop’s seat, around which the Church gathers. Since the early Church till date, the Cathedra has been a symbol of apostolic authority – an authority exercised in love and with a love that is not blind to the “pretty follies” of the beloved. Therefore authority in the Church is essentially corrective and constructive of the community. It is necessary for Christian Services. The expression, ex cathedra, signifies the solemn teaching authority of the Pope as the successor of St. Peter. The Cathedral is not necessarily the largest or most splendid religious edifice in a diocese; but it is the only one that contains the Cathedra. The juridical character of a cathedral does not depend on its form, dimensions or decoration. Without undergoing any physical change beyond the erection of a cathedra, a parish or station church building may become a cathedral. Ours is the latest in the recent cases in Igboland.

THE ERECTION OF A NEW DIOCESE AS A DEEPENING OF ECCLESIAL LOVE:

8. Let it be clear that the erection of a new diocese does not mean, nor imply a “division “ in and of an old diocese. It is significant that “erection” in this sense is an ecclesiastical term which explains best that administrative arrangement which helps the Church to bring the Gospel nearer to the people of God. The erection of a new diocese, though involving demarcation of areas, does not break ecclesial unity, nor a break in ecclesial communion. Surely, more local churches exist when a new diocese is erected, but that does not mean “more churches’. It is only a local actualisation of the Church as “that portion of God’s people which is entrusted to a bishop to be shepherded by him with the cooperation of the presbytery” (CD. 11). Therefore the mysterious reality of the Church is actualised in a local church and expressed in ecclesial communion. This ecclesial communion transcends all those who belong to local churches and gather around them throughout the world. It is practicalised in them but it is not divided by them because the Church is not multiplied in them. The Church is always more than local churches are in their socio-emprical realities. This must be borne in mind so that no one falls into that danger, many have really fallen, of thinking of the Church only in sociological concepts of “people”. Have we not been warned not to “replace a false one-sided hierarchical notion of the church with a new one-sided sociological concept”? (Final Report: Extraordinary Synod, 1985).

9. Again, let it be clear that when a new bishop is consecrated, authority – Christian authority – is CONFERRED on him. Authority in the Church is not TRANSFERRED from one bishop to another. It is conferred. It is an authority that derives from Christ Himself living in His Church. Therefore sincere attachment to the Church and a Christian exercise of this authority, cannot be an occasion for canonizing our prejudices, nor for making them part of the Catholic practice. It is important to note that ecclesial communion demands a certain amount of detachment from authority in the secular sense so as to allow the growth, at all levels, of that spirit of communion and reconciliation which results to interpersonal communion – communio personarum – through mutual confidence in the name of Christ which is part of the true spirit of Catholicism.

WITH A LIVING FAITH AND ON LIVING STONES WE BUILD THE COMMUNITY:

10. In the true spirit of Catholicism, the bishop on his cathedra and the faithful constituted a local church. The cathedral in which they all gather can symbolise this not in the sense of a building but in the sense of the Church as the New People of God. This brings to mind the words of Origen that “All of us who believe in Christ are said to be living stones according to the statement of Scripture when it says ‘Like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”. Emphasizing further the significance of the Cathedral, Origen says: “But in this building of the Church there must also be an altar. From this I conclude that whichever of you ‘living stones’ are ready for this and prepared to give up time to prayers, to offer entreaties to God day and night and to offer up the sacrifices of supplication, such people I say are the stones out of which Jesus builds His altar” (Origen; On the Dedication of a Church). St. Augustine, in the same way, has told us that “The house then of our prayers is the one before our eyes, but we ourselves are the house of God. If we ourselves are the house of God, we are being built up in this age, that at the end of the age, we may be dedicated” (Sermon 336: 1-6). Love is very essential for the building-up of the church into a community, a community of faith, a community of those who care and work for one another’s salvation.

LOVE AS THE BASIS OF INTERPERSONAL COMMUNION:

11. The theme of love is the basis of the ecclesiology of the Fourth Gospel. This Gospel did not present love in the context of a building. Though aware that Christ is love, John did not present the Christ/Church relationship in terms of a builder/cornerstone to a building. According to Raymond Brown, this is to avoid the impression of thinking that “The builder of a standing edifice did his work in the past: he is present only as a memory. A cornerstone is necessary in the construction if the building is going to stand; but it is inert, and no one thinks much about its presence once the building is dedicated”. (The Churches The Apostles left Behind, 1984, p86-87). This temptation we must avoid. We must think in line with St. John’s Gospel which presents the New people of God as built around the living love which attaches the followers of Christ to him even after he and the apostles had physically left the community. Love is the heritage of the Beloved Disciple of the Fourth Gospel, and John presents Jesus as the true Vine and Christians as the true branches getting their life from the vine. More than the founder of the New People of God, Jesus is the animating principle, which is still “alive and well” in the community of believers through the sacraments. Jesus did not simply institute the sacraments of the Church. He is the life-giver who remains active in the community through those sacraments.

12. It is through the sacraments in general that we are attached to Jesus through the Church. The heritage of the beloved disciple in this regard, a lesson for us, is that through love, he is so attached to Jesus that not even the horrors of the Lord’s Passion could detach him from the Lord. Consequently, he never abandons Jesus. He is bound to him, so much so that at the foot of the Cross he stands not so much as the beloved disciple as the loving disciple, standing near the loving Mother of Jesus, Mary – the two models of sincere attachment of the Church to Christ. They are our models.

THE EUCHARIST IN THE BUILDING OF THE COMMUNITY:

13. The Eucharist is the sacrament that attaches us particularly to Christ. It is the sacrament of a believing community, the sacrament of the loving disciple of Jesus. In the Eucharist, three important factors are inseparable: Sacrament, Real Presence and Sacrifice. The Eucharist under the visible form of a sacred meal contains the true sacrificial presence of our Saviour. In this the church teaches that it is unique in several ways and cannot be put on the same level as the other sacraments (Denz 1603). Its importance derives from the fact that it contains not only the saving grace which the church benefits from constantly as a source of spiritual nourishment, but also through it, the Church’s life is in constant union with Christ, the Author of Grace. This is why participation in the Eucharist is as necessary for the salvation of a believer – the disciple of Christ – as his continued membership of the Church. Christ Himself said: “Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you” (Jn. 6:54). We can now see why St. Thomas Aquinas affirmed that all other sacraments can be seen as leading to and preparing for the Eucharist – the sacrament through which we have life and salvation. (ST. 3.73.1). The Extraordinary Synod of 1985, in considering the “Church as Communion”, affirmed that “the Eucharist is the source of the whole of Christian life and its submit… Communion with the Body of Christ in the Eucharist signifies and brings about, or builds up, the intimate union of all the faithful in the Body of Christ which is the Church…”

14. Therefore, the church as we all know and believe, is necessary for salvation, because through it, life, truth and love in Christ are received. Those attached to the Church through love cannot be separated from Jesus. Christ cannot be found in a perfect way outside the church. Here lies the answer to the question many pose today: why the Church?

OUR CHALLENGE:

I. It is top most in our list of priorities to resist the forces that lead our young ones out of the Church or incite them against the Church through false doctrines and mistaken ideologies. The rate of which young people group themselves together in search of the word of God or in search of deeper Christian life is self-evident to contradict the opinions of those who believe that the young ones are not interested in things holy and sacred. However, these forces challenge us into finding a way of BEING in touch with the young ones so as to touch their hearts more ardently with the Gospel of Salvation. It demands new techniques of dialogue. It imposes on us the task of a thorough evangelisation of our natural communities. Ours, it has been noted is a rural diocese which offers the church a unique opportunity. Our communities are natural communities and are therefore basic communities. All they need is to be evangelised not to be re-organised into artificial basic communities. In many parts of the world people are talking of “Basic Christian communities”, and some call them “basic critical communities”. We all, clergy and lay, must see to it that our apostolate is adopted to our own conditions and culture. Pope John XXIII strongly spoke of “the need to adapt this form of apostolate to local needs and conditions”. He warned that “what has proved successful in one country cannot without more ado be transferred to another”. (Prineps Pastorum, no. 40).

DEEPENING MARIAN VIRTUES:

II. We have been blessed with a new diocese, the first to be erected in this province in the second century of our evangelization. This blessing, fortunately came to us during this Marian year and our diocese was aptly entrusted to the patronage of Our Mother Mary. Maria Mater Ecclesia diocese is a Marian Diocese. We have a great obligation of promoting the Marian virtues through evangelization at the grass roots. Luckily many pious associations and Marian societies exist. We must give them all the encouragement they need. The link between Mary and the Church in the work of our salvation must be inculcated at all levels. The title, Mary, Mother of the Church, was employed by Pope Paul VI on the occasion of the promulgation of Lumen Gentium. According to Bishop Kevin McNamara, this was to emphasize that Mary “personifies the whole church as she stands at the cross in unshaken faith, in compassionate love, mother of charity, mother of the believer, mother of the disciple (Jn. 19:25-27), mother of the Church”.

In ANSWERING GOD’S CALL, Cardinal Arinze writes about the Mary League Girls’ Association that it was brought into Nigeria, “First to Ahiara…” (p. 112). Ahiara Diocese must strive to propagate marian virtues through a sound marriage between ecclesiology and Mariology.

MAINTAIN THE PROPER PASTOR-PEOPLE RELATIONSHIP:

III. After the second Vatican Council, people began to talk of “conservative” and “progressive” bishops. By the time of my stay in Rome, one often heard student priests talking of Cardinal “Preconcilio” and Cardinal “Dopoconcilio”. To bring home to you our challenge here I have to recount to you this anecdote. Once, it is said a bishop (progressive) was going to heaven with his flock. He was going so fast that his flock could no longer follow. They quarrelled. The bishop went on alone abandoning his flock. He arrived at the gate of heaven and St. Peter asked him of his sheep. He retorted that the sheep turned into goats half the way. St. Peter told him that since he could not bring them along as sheep he could not enter into heaven because he ceased to be a shepherd at the moment his sheep became goats. As this shepherd stood there disillusioned, a number of sheep that had rebelled against their shepherd because he was not going fast enough, rushed to the gate of heaven. St. Peter asked them of their Shepherd, they replied that they refused to move at his pace. They too were told that they could not enter heaven without their shepherd. As they looked on disappointed, they saw a third group of Shepherd and sheep, singing and praying and moving at the pace and rhythm of the church in harmony. They came to the gate of heaven and it was opened to them without any questions and they entered. This last group must be our model. The lesson here is that those who want to go to heaven either without their sheep or shepherd may arrive at the gate of heaven and may not enter it. Therefore those who think of the hierarchy outside the people or think of a people without a hierarchy are thinking and moving outside the paths of the Church.

BE OPEN TO AND BE IN PRACTICAL COMMUNION WITH THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH:

IV. No local Church is self-sufficient. What one has in excess, another may lack; and what one lacks another may have in excess. Charity demands inter-ecclesial dependency as a necessity for ecclesial communion. We must find out what we have in excess and be ready to share it with our sister churches. Cooperation in the work of evangelization implies collaboration among local churches. In many overseas countries, people are talking of a re-evangelisation of their communities. Here we often talk of a new era of evangelization. This, among other things, demands a sharing, not a division of our Christian resources. It is through this sharing that we all become co-responsible to the Church and to Christ in the work of evangelization and in the spread of the faith.

 

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