121. In Christ we the baptized are the Church.

In Christ we the baptized are the Church.

YOUCAT Catechism + Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 121

Ave Maria series

I Believe in the Holy Catholic Church, …”

121  What does “Church” mean?

Parishioners receiving Holy Communion at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, Cross Plains, Wisconsin. …..121

The Greek word for Church is “ekklesia” = those who are called forth.  All of us who are baptized and believe in God are called forth by the Lord.  Together we are the Church.  Christ is, as Paul says, the Head of the Church.  We are his body.  [748-757]

When we receive the sacraments and hear God’s Word, Christ is in us and we are in him—that is the Church.  The intimate communion of life with Jesus that is shared personally by all the baptized is described in Sacred Scripture by a wealth of images:  Here it speaks about the People of God and in another passage about the Bride of Christ; now the Church is called Mother, and again she is God’s family, or she is compared with a wedding feast.  Never is the Church a mere institution, never just the “official Church” that we could do without.  We will be upset by the mistakes and defects of the Church, but we can never distance ourselves from her, because God has made an irrevocable decision to love her and does not forsake her despite all the sins of her members.  The Church is God’s presence among us men.  That is why we must love her.

Church (from the Greek Kyriake = belonging to the Lord): consists of those called together from all nations (from Greek ex kaleo, ekklesia) who through Baptism belong to the Body of Christ.

He (Christ) is the head of the body, the Church.  Colossians 1:18a

“The Church is an old woman with many wrinkles and furrows.  But she is my mother.  And no one strikes my mother.  The theologian Fr. Karl Rahner, S.J. (1904-1984), when he heard unseemly criticism of the Church.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.  Genesis 1:27

[748-757]

"I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH"

748 "Christ is the light of humanity; and it is, accordingly, the heart-felt desire of this sacred Council, being gathered together in the Holy Spirit, that, by proclaiming his Gospel to every creature, it may bring to all men that light of Christ which shines out visibly from the Church." (Lumen gentium 1; compare Mark 16:15)¹³⁵  These words open the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. By choosing this starting point, the Council demonstrates that the article of faith about the Church depends entirely on the articles concerning Christ Jesus. The Church has no other light than Christ's; according to a favorite image of the Church Fathers, the Church is like the moon, all its light reflected from the sun.—Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

749 The article concerning the Church also depends entirely on the article about the Holy Spirit, which immediately precedes it. "Indeed, having shown that the Spirit is the source and giver of all holiness, we now confess that it is he who has endowed the Church with holiness." (Roman Catechism I,10,1)¹³⁶  The Church is, in a phrase used by the Fathers, the place "where the Spirit flourishes." (St. Hippolytus, Trad. Ap. 35: Sources Chrẻtiennes 11,118)¹³⁷ –CCC

750 To believe that the Church is "holy" and "catholic," and that she is "one" and "apostolic" (as the Nicene Creed adds), is inseparable from belief in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the Apostles' Creed we profess "one Holy Church" (Credo . . . Ecclesiam), and not to believe in the Church, so as not to confuse God with his works and to attribute clearly to God's goodness all the gifts he has bestowed on his Church. (Roman Catechism I,10,22)¹³⁸ --CCC

The Church in God's Plan

NAMES AND IMAGES OF THE CHURCH

751 The word "Church" (Latin ecclesia, from the Greek ek-ka-lein, to "call out of") means a convocation or an assembly. It designates the assemblies of the people, usually for a religious purpose.( Compare Acts of the Apostles 19:39.)¹³⁹Ekklesia is used frequently in the Greek Old Testament for the assembly of the Chosen People before God, above all for their assembly on Mount Sinai where Israel received the Law and was established by God as his holy people.( Compare Exodus 19.)¹⁴⁰ By calling itself "Church," the first community of Christian believers recognized itself as heir to that assembly. In the Church, God is "calling together" his people from all the ends of the earth. The equivalent Greek term Kyriake, from which the English word Church and the German Kirche are derived, means "what belongs to the Lord."

752 In Christian usage, the word "church" designates the liturgical assembly,( Compare 1 Cor 11:18; 1 Cor 14:19,28,34,35.)¹⁴¹ but also the local community(Compare 1 Corinthians 1:2; 1 Cor 16:1.)¹⁴² or the whole universal community of believers.( Compare 1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:13; Philippians 3:6.)¹⁴³ These three meanings are inseparable. "The Church" is the People that God gathers in the whole world. She exists in local communities and is made real as a liturgical, above all a Eucharistic, assembly. She draws her life from the word and the Body of Christ and so herself becomes Christ's Body. –CCC

Symbols of the Church

753 In Scripture, we find a host of interrelated images and figures through which Revelation speaks of the inexhaustible mystery of the Church. The images taken from the Old Testament are variations on a profound theme: the People of God. In the New Testament, all these images find a new center because Christ has become the head of this people, which henceforth is his Body.( Compare Ephesians 1:22; Colossians 1:18; Lumen Gentium9.)¹⁴⁴ Around this center are grouped images taken "from the life of the shepherd or from cultivation of the land, from the art of building or from family life and marriage."( Lumen Gentium 6.)¹⁴⁵ –CCC

754 "The Church is, accordingly, a sheepfold, the sole and necessary gateway to which is Christ. It is also the flock of which God himself foretold that he would be the shepherd, and whose sheep, even though governed by human shepherds, are unfailingly nourished and led by Christ himself, the Good Shepherd and Prince of Shepherds, who gave his life for his sheep.( Lumen Gentium 6; compare John 10:1-10; Isaiah 40:11; Ezekiel 34:11-31; John 10:11; 1 Peter 5:4; John 10:11-16.)¹⁴⁶ –CCC

755 "The Church is a cultivated field, the tillage of God. On that land the ancient olive tree grows whose holy roots were the prophets and in which the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles has been brought about and will be brought about again. That land, like a choice vineyard, has been planted by the heavenly cultivator. Yet the true vine is Christ who gives life and fruitfulness to the branches, that is, to us, who through the Church remain in Christ, without whom we can do nothing.( Lumen Gentium 6; compare 1 Corinthians 3:9; Romans 11:13-26; Matthew 21:32-43 and parallels; Isaiah 51-7; John 15:1-5.)¹⁴⁷ –CCC

756 "Often, too, the Church is called the building of God. The Lord compared himself to the stone which the builders rejected, but which was made into the corner-stone. On this foundation the Church is built by the apostles and from it the Church receives solidity and unity. This edifice has many names to describe it: the house of God in which his family dwells; the household of God in the Spirit; the dwelling-place of God among men; and, especially, the holy temple. This temple, symbolized in places of worship built out of stone, is praised by the Fathers and, not without reason, is compared in the liturgy to the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. As living stones we here on earth are built into it. It is this holy city that is seen by John as it comes down out of heaven from God when the world is made anew, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.( Lumen Gentium 6; Compare 1 Corinthians 3:9; Matthew 21:42 and parallels; Acts of the Apostles 4:11; 1 Peter 2:7; Psalm 118:22; 1 Corinthians 3:11; 1 Timothy 3:15; Ephesians 2:19-22; Revelation 21:3; 1 Peter 2:5; Rev 21:1-2.)¹⁴⁸ –CCC

757 "The Church, further, which is called 'that Jerusalem which is above' and 'our mother', is described as the spotless spouse of the spotless lamb. It is she whom Christ 'loved and for whom he delivered himself up that he might sanctify her.' It is she whom he unites to  himself by an unbreakable alliance, and whom he constantly 'nourishes and cherishes.'"(Lumen Gentium 6; Compare Galatians 4:26; Revelation 12:17; Rev19:7; Rev 21:2,9; Rev 22:17; Ephesians 5:25-26,29.)¹⁴⁹ –CCC

Church—St-Francis