Tuesday, April 26, 2016
we have only one mother
"It must always be clear, when the expression 'sister churches' is used in this proper sense, that the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Universal Church is not sister but 'mother' of all the particular Churches." ..... "one cannot properly say that the Catholic Church is the sister of a particular church or group of churches. This is not merely a question of terminology, but above all of respecting a basic truth of the Catholic faith: that of the unicity of the Church of Jesus Christ. In fact, there is but a single Church, and therefore the plural term churches can refer only to particular churches."
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
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3 comments:
I understand the logic of this line of thinking.
I've taken to thinking of the evangelical and Presbyterian churches as my mother, and the Catholic Church as my grandmother.
That seems to be consistent with this quote, though perhaps ratzinger/Benedict would refer to those bodies as ecclesial communions rather than churches.
I am guessing that the phrase "particular churches" is a technical term that may be lost on me. Does it only refer to churches that are in full communion with the catholic church?
Much of my Christian formation did in fact take place in the inter varsity Christian fellowship (an evangelical college campus ministry). They do not claim to be a church, and could aptly be described as a Christian community.
But back to the analogy, I love my mothers, the evangelical and Presbyterian churches, and I love my grandmother, the Catholic Church. Of course God is the Father of us all.
So my rebellious mother was disinherited by my grandmother before I was born. What am I to do? I cannot reject my mother who taught me the gospel, yet I saw a beautiful side to my grandmother at the monasteries and in Karl rahner and others. What is my role in helping to .bring the family back together? Am I to be an ambassador and witness to both sides of the rift? A peacemaker? Apparently I haven't done a very good job of this yet. But it is still early in the process. I can learn to do better.
I expect you to say that my role is to be a dutiful and obedient daughter of the church, humbly accepting instruction from my grandmother. Perhaps one day this will happen, but I'm not sure that I fully trust my grandmother yet. I feel like I need to hear my mother's side of the story too, to understand the reasons for her efforts at reform, however imperfect. She is my mother after all. To abandon or reject her feels like rejecting the gospel to me. This may be hard for you to understand.
Obviously these are things I should have worked through before seeking reception into the Catholic Church. I could sense these issues below the surface back then, but I did not know how to articulate them, even to myself, much less to explore them. I still don't really know how. I also knew that working through these issues could take a lifetime of study, and I did not want to live in limbo for that long, I thought I could work through them after becoming catholic, and I have been trying to do just that, and intend to continue doing so. I am not giving up on my grandmother or my mothers.
Perhaps I shouldn't even be writing all this to you. I don't want to disturb you. But your post felt like an invitation for reflection. Sorry if I misinterpreted. If you want me to not talk to you about this stuff I will respect that.
il papa emeritus
spent some effort trying to help define what is meant by
universal church
and
local church
some of his statements created stirs amongst theologians
( I recall killian was perturbed at one point...he thinking that the world is not a good place to promote things catholic too awfully adamantly )
because it was made to sound like he was imposing this catholic thing
and not being sensitive enough to local inspiration
where most people's faith meets the ground
he was afterall merely making the statement that Christ started one church
and unity in that church seems to be a thing fairly high on his mind
if john's gospel is to be believed at all
and the early church believed from the beginning that the church took root first in Mary's womb...this took awhile to unfold but as it did it became like the air catholics breathe...it is integral to anything bearing the name orthodox
his reference to particular churches
which may or may not be sisterly
is a reference to locality
5 catholic churches in a fairly large city like st cloud
can be said to be sister churches
as can 3 Presbyterian communities in the same area
I would like to believe that Christians working together today have a sense of sibling obligation
Ratzinger's insistence was and is
that the church must be expressive of both universal "catholic"
principles and cognitive of local societal cultural elements
for us the symbolism revolves around the blessed mother
the image of mary with her son
('often presented as a grown adult in the size of a baby')
suggests that this is the working paradigm of earthly faith
Christ the body of Christ
inseparably connected to his mother
from whom he came forth into this world
the anatomical references to "womb"
were not lost on the architects of ancient churches
( and some modern ones...the church at new camoldoli comes to mind ...)
this marks the awareness for us of the supernatural reality of
Christ's presence in the world
designed by god himself to reflect the natural reality of
impregnation gestation and childbirth
without mary somehow present in the thinking and expressions of the faithful
it is difficult to be able to claim sisterhood at all in the faith
for while we yearn to worship in unity
we can only do so at her behest...with her hospitality
it's fine for you to have your personal assessment of the 'motherness' of your pre-catholic faith experience...but it rings a little hollow in the catholic ear when there's no mary to be found in any of it...mary may have played or lived the role of grandmother...but her importance to us is mother quite proper with all that entails
this is not to say that the spirit did not work
or Christ was not present in your pre-roman pilgrimage
it's not to say that at all
it's simply to state that the formulation of church
as a maternal entity
was from the start wrapped up in the identity of mary
and it shall always be so
jh
......
.
the early church believed from the beginning that the church took root first in Mary's womb...this took awhile to unfold but as it did it became like the air catholics breathe...it is integral to anything bearing the name orthodox ... the formulation of church as a maternal entity was from the start wrapped up in the identity of mary
i'd never heard this put this way before. I acknowledge a certain beauty in it.
this is not to say that the spirit did not work
or Christ was not present in your pre-roman pilgrimage
it's not to say that at all
thank you for saying this explicitly
this message does not always come through
when you describe my ways of thinking as
"personal protest" or "individual inspiration"
(coming from your comment on earthling wonders)
rather than as my attempts (however imperfect)
to listen to the holy spirit
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