Of Christ and His Church

Memorial of St. Elizabeth of Hungary

The gregarious Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, launched the annual meeting of that august body earlier this week with a delightful address on a theme from Blessed Pope John Paul II: "Love for Jesus and His Church must be the passion of our lives!"

You can read the full text of Archbishop Dolan's remarks here.

Archbishop Dolan offered a stirring vision of what faith in the 21st century must mean for Catholic Christians.  His positive message of passion and love reminded me of the premier episode of Fr. Robert Barron's monumental series Catholicism, which I watched last night on EWTN (interestingly, Archbishop Dolan also gives a shout out to Fr. Barron in his address).  In the premier episode, which focused on the preaching message of Jesus, Fr. Barron emphasized that, despite the horrifying violence of the crucifixion, Christ's core message is one of joy and love.  The Gospel is a pathway of happiness and freedom.

In his presidential message to the bishops, Dolan stressed a key component of our witness to that message of joy and love is the realization that Christ's  message cannot be separated from the Body of Christ alive in the world today, which is His Church.  Quoting the late Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac ("For what would I ever know of Him, without her?"), Dolan emphasized that the Church is ultimately where the world encounters Christ. 

The Church we passionately love is hardly some cumbersome, outmoded club of sticklers, with a medieval bureaucracy, silly human rules on fancy letterhead, one more movement rife with squabbles, opinions, and disagreement.


The Church is Jesus -- teaching, healing, saving, serving, inviting; Jesus often "bruised, derided, cursed, defiled."

Because of this, Dolan encouraged the bishops to renew their commitment to renewing the Church itself.  Part of this work of renewal is acknowledging that the Church has failed the Gospel in countless ways through the sinfulness of its human members.  The world is lost, and sadly the Church has contributed to its lostness.  But Dolan offers a rallying cry to bring the work of redemption - of the world and the Church - to the Church itself, where Christ pours out forgiveness, renewal, and rebirth through the sacraments and the life of faith.

We who believe in Jesus Christ and His one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church interpret the sinfulness of her members not as a reason to dismiss the Church or her eternal truths, but to embrace her all the more! The sinfulness of the members of the Church reminds us precisely how much we need the Church. The sinfulness of her members is never an excuse, but a plea, to place ourselves at His wounded side on Calvary from which flows the sacramental life of the Church.

We have failed to live up to Christ's message, but for this reason we need to conform ourselves to the message - and share it with the world - all the more.  It is through the renewal of the Church and its faithful witness to the eternal truth of the gospel that it remains relevant, vibrant, and immediately important for today's world:

It is always a risk for the world to hear the Church, for she dares the world to "cast out to the deep," to foster and protect the inviolable dignity of the human person and human life; to acknowledge the truth about life ingrained in reason and nature; to protect marriage and family; to embrace those suffering and struggling; to prefer service to selfishness; and never to stifle the liberty to quench the deep down thirst for the divine that the poets, philosophers, and peasants of the earth know to be what really makes us genuinely human.

Holy One, pour your renewing life out into your people and your Church.  Forgive us for our many failures and remake us in your image so we may continue to be your Body in a world desperate for your love.  Amen.