Who do we think we are?

We are a “WE”!  Even though the call of Jesus to each of us is personal, that is it reaches inside us as a person, right from the beginning those called by Jesus have been called together.  They have been called to form one group.  We hear of the twelve as a group around Jesus and then we hear of a wider group of disciples.  There are people within that group who have special roles such as that of Peter, of the Beloved Disciple, of Mary Magdalen who first announces the resurrection in John’s gospel.

At Pentecost, it is the whole group which receives the Holy Spirit together, even though again we can see people with particular roles within the group.  The whole group came to be called the Church and that word originally meant the whole community of the Church; in Hebrew as in Greek, it meant those called aside by God to be his in a more intense and responsive way.  They were to be His people, as it is expressed in the First Letter of St Peter, they are God’s particular possession (I Peter 2:9).

Throughout the history of the Church, there has been the same insistence on unity as being part of the Church’s identity.  And in matters of great importance, it has always been a unity seen as centred on Jesus the Christ.  And Ecumenical Councils have often been called because it was endangered.

This unity is part of the purpose for the Church’s very existence.  God’s purpose has been not just to draw human beings to himself but to draw them together, to reconcile them to each other, to let HIS peace take root in humankind.

The Church is called to be a sign of this future unity, to begin to embody it, to keep striving for its own unity as a sign of what God wants for all of humankind. 

This is the reason why we need to be turned towards our world and the rest of humankind.  We are not called to be enclosed within our own communities but to be a seed of God’s vision for all of humankind.  And to keep that alive, we need constant contact with God.

It is very significant that Vatican II’s understanding of the Church begins with that vision.  In its very first paragraph, it says that the Church, in Christ, is in the nature of a sacrament – a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all human beings. 

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin

Published: 6 September 2024