Who do we think we are?

A Mystery?

Over the last couple of weeks, we have seen that we, who are the Church, are more or less ordinary human beings with much good in us but who are also quite capable of weakness and sinfulness.  Last week, we looked at St Paul’s primary image of the Church: the body of Christ.  Does that seem too much to say or think?

The first chapter that the Second Vatican Council speaks of the Church as a mystery; and in deeply significant words, it goes into the depths of that mystery which we are.

What I would like to emphasise this week is just one aspect of that mystery and that is that we are very much earthen vessels containing a treasure.  We are indeed just human beings with all that is in human beings.  The difference is that we have been called into an explicit relationship with Jesus Christ who is the hidden treasure to be found at the heart of this community of faith.

There can be things which turn people off the Church and that is very often more than understandable.  But at the heart of that community of faith, Jesus Christ is to be found.  This is the Jesus who treats human sinfulness and weakness as he did during his life, in the midst of human beings, two thousand years ago, the One who does not shun human beings in their weakness and sinfulness.

This is the aspect of the mystery of the Church that I would like to emphasise this week.  The Lord Jesus has not chosen those who are  perfect to be his followers or to be ‘his body’ but ordinary human beings who have in them all the things that every human being has within them.  As the Lord Jesus wove himself into our humanity and was subject to the things human beings can do to each other, so he remains woven into our humanity in his own self and in his body, the Church.  He remains influential in the lives of those who follow him, but is also subject to the betrayals of which those who follow him are also capable.

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin

Published: 27 September 2024