“The Beauty and Scandal that is The Church”
Fr. John Riccardo
September 1, 2021
On this first day of September, we come to the penultimate excerpt of what has been an extended peak at our recently published book The Christian Cosmic Narrative: The Deep History of the World. Oftentimes, the week after Labor Day sees parish life kick into an even higher gear than it is usually in, with school starting in some places, religious education classes, RCIA, and myriads of opportunities for men, women, and children to have what one parish calls “a life-changing encounter with Jesus.” This short book, at once so easy to read and so profound, is a great resource for experiences like RCIA, small groups, and other such things.
We left off last week with Jesus’ defeat of the powers of Sin and Death in His glorious resurrection. Yes, we will still have to face death, but because Jesus has defeated it the disciple no longer has to be “held bound by the fear of it” (Heb 2:14). And, yes, we still struggle all too often with sin, but we really can—by the power of the Holy Spirit alive in us—overcome it and grow in virtue and freedom. Next week, in the final excerpt, we will conclude with a sort of “commissioning,” a look at the part we are called to play in the drama that is human history. Before that, however, let’s take a look at the reality that is the Church, the Body of Christ.
“The Incarnation did not end when Jesus slipped through the veil into the invisible world at his Ascension. In Jesus, God became man such that he could be seen, heard, and known. When the Spirit of Jesus came to dwell among his disciples at Pentecost, God once again took on human form, this time in the Church. Christians understood the Church to be Christ’s body, not just in a metaphorical sense but as a mysterious reality. Just as the humanity of Jesus was the veiled road by which his divinity made itself known, so the humanity and materiality of the Church was the veiled road by which Jesus continued to make himself known through the Holy Spirit. The Church had thus both a human and a divine aspect, a shocking combination that has made it a constant source of delight, hope, and scandal to the world.
“The word Christians have used to describe this union of the visible and invisible, the divine and the human, is sacrament. In the Christian vision, the visible world in its entirety possesses a sacramental dimension: it is the outward clothing of an invisible reality and a road to that hidden realm. This sacramentality is intensified in the Church, where Christ dwells visibly on earth. And in the seven sacraments of the Church the invisible presence of God is conveyed with unequaled potency and immediacy. For the Christian, the world is an enchanted place, hiding and partly revealing the invisible realities behind it. And the Church, for all its obvious humanity, is the outward clothing of Christ himself, as he continues his battle against Satan and ceaselessly offers forgiveness, reconciliation, and divine life to the human race until the time comes for the preliminaries to end.
“To trace the 2,000-year history of the fortunes of Christ’s body from the day of Pentecost would take us far beyond the constraints of this narrative. But it will be worth sketching very briefly the course of the colony of heaven as it has continued the mission of Christ down the years.
“First, it will help to identify a challenge that arises in any attempt at giving an account of the Church’s life. There is an inherent difficulty in grasping the dynamics of Church history, a problem that mirrors the difficulty of rightly seeing the progress of Jesus’ public life. When Jesus is understood as both God and man, the extraordinary impression he made on all who met him has a clear explanation. If he really was God himself among us, waging a battle against spiritual forces and opening the hearts and minds of his hearers to a great promise and a momentous choice, then both the profound veneration and the furious opposition that he produced make sense. But this is a big ‘if.’ Those who deny the divinity of Christ need to go looking for other, more humanly explicable reasons for the adulation Jesus received and the opposition he provoked, and are then forced to create other Christs: the radical revolutionary, the erratic prophet, the demonic schemer, the misunderstood moralist, the gentle dreamer, none of which carry much conviction. The same holds true for Christ’s body, the Church. If the Church is what it has always claimed to be—Christ really present on earth by the Holy Spirit—then both the ardent loyalty and the virulent hatred it has inspired through the ages make sense. But if it is a merely human organization, then other human factors have to be called in to explain its remarkable course through history. The high devotion it has so consistently engendered must be the result of masterful practices of deceit, and the hatred it has so often aroused must be due to its vicious crimes. Its stubborn existence and growth in the face of steady opposition and internal troubles can only point to hidden conspiracies and crafty manipulations of power. Otherwise how could the annoying thing keep going on as it does?
“This difficulty of perception helps to explain the origin and longevity of the so-called ‘black legend’ that has haunted the Church from its earliest days. Romans called the early Christians orgiastic cannibals and enemies of the human race. Since that time, there has been no lack of similar accusations: the Church has been labeled a pitiless persecutor, an oppressor of peoples, a hater of women, an opponent of science, an enemy of human liberty, an exterminator of Jews, a fomenter of war, and a haven of barbarism and ignorance. At the same time, the Church has been hailed as the ark of salvation, a friend to the poor and oppressed, a cradle of justice, a nurturer of scholarship and the arts, a wise teacher of the nations, a lover of freedom and opposer of tyrants, a benefactor of humanity, and the true home of everything truly human. In one view, the Church is a dark dictatorial figure, brutal and cunning, whose lies have often enslaved humanity, to which the only reasonable response is Voltaire’s cry: ‘Annihilate the horrible thing!’ In another view, the Church is a lovely and tender-hearted queenly figure, whose beauty and wisdom bring light and joy to an otherwise darkened and hopeless world…
“A vision of heavenly worship was recorded by John the Apostle in which he saw people of every tribe, language, and nation, the regenerated human race, saved from death and delighting in divine life with God. The last two millennia have seen that prophetic vision significantly fulfilled. From its origins in Jerusalem, the Church has found its way, often by unpredictable and unlikely means, into every corner of the world. Inspired by the words and the Spirit of their Master, Christians have crossed seas, traversed deserts, and braved physical danger to bring the news of reconciliation with God to the peoples of the earth. The Church has also grown organically and has taken deep root in the cultural soil of whole nations and civilizations. Often persecuted during its first centuries, the Church penetrated the life of the Roman Empire, eventually becoming its preferred faith. Armenia was converted to the faith, Egypt and Ethiopia became centers of Christian life, and the Good News spread along the great eastern trade routes, arriving and establishing itself in Mesopotamia and Persia, in India, and even to the borders of China. Germanic and Slavic peoples of the north came under its influence. When the Mohammedan Empire arose and submerged much of the Asian and African church under its dominions, the previously backward peoples of northern Europe became the main bearers of Christian faith and put on strength and growth under the Church’s influence. From that European center, the Gospel again spread rapidly in all directions. Soon there were large Christian communities living on the continents of the Americas, and seeds of Christian growth were sown in many parts of the world. As Europeans in their turn have increasingly turned their backs on their Christian heritage, the Gospel has flamed up anew in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia. The ancient prophecies spoke of gentile kings who would bring their crowns and treasures to Jerusalem, seeking the God of Israel and submitting to his rule, and foretold a day when all the nations and even the distant coastlands would hear God’s word and would be joined to the renewed Davidic Kingdom. Those prophecies have had a literal fulfillment, even if it is still a partial one, in the fortunes of the Christian Church through the centuries, as nations, peoples, and individuals across the globe have willingly embraced Christ as their King.
“In every age, the human and imperfect element of the Church’s life has been most visible: the persistent divisions among its adherents, the slow corruption of its divine life, its creeping forgetfulness of the invisible world, the all-too-human abuses of power or descent into avarice or sensuality among its leaders. Yet in every age, the Church mysteriously renews itself, gains adherents, and produces marvels of graced humanity as its invisible life regenerates its human matter and brings divine grace and strength to bear upon the world by means of weak and unworthy instruments. Jesus once said that he had come to cast fire upon the earth. The Church, his body, continues in every age to fuel the conflagration he began, setting hearts aflame amid battle, suffering, betrayal, and ultimate triumph.”