Word to the Wise
Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - Tuesday in the 29th Week in Ordinary Time
[Eph 2:12-22 and Luke 12:35-38,546]So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. [Ephesians]
The centrality of Christ comes through majestically in the words of Ephesians today. However, there is another important aspect, which is the reality that the Church is built not from material stones but from human persons who stand on the shoulders of the apostles and prophets.
Roman Catholic theological tradition offers different ways of speaking about "the Church." One way speaks of the Church as a reality free from human sin and error and transcending history with all its ups and downs. This shows the influence of Platonic philosophy. Another way looks at the church as manifested in its members and its history. It is built of human "stones" and experiences everything that comes with human institutional expression. This shows the influence of Plato's student, Aristotle. Both of the visions of the church are important because the person of Jesus is manifested in the Body of Christ, which means the church is both fully divine and fully human. The one way in which the Church does not manifest Christ is in the effects of original sin which is alive and well in our Church as we well know from recent events.
The Church is made up of faithful, sinful, loving, striving baptized men and women. We may decide we want nothing more to do with the "institutional" Church, but we cannot divorce ourselves entirely without denying Christ! The "institutional" Church has a history that has been both glorious and terrifying, but we human members are the ones who create that history. If we keep Christ as the capstone and follow him, we will find our way through our current mess and through any others that history shows are inevitable with human beings. AMEN