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BOOK SECTION THURSDAY. SEPTEMBER 26, 1963
THEOLOGIANS VIEW
Sunday Morning Crisis In Church
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Jesus offers a divine answer
to this impotence and baffle
ment and guilt. In spite of all
our limitations he allows us
to see God, and to see God in
our likeness, making the human
pilgrimage his own in the Word
made flesh, so that all pilgr
ims (Joined to him) may share
the assurance of his resurre
ction-victory. His divinity cuts
across the barriers which de
fine our lives, so that we who
share the Food which Is his
Body actually live in him and
he In us. His personality re
veals a living God who loves
as, in our experience, person
loves. His sharing of our hu
man lot elevates our hope to
confidence in the hghest com
munion, communion in the life
of God himself.
Mother, condition and effect
our acceptance of salvation in
Jesus Christ is the Church, the
worshiping community. The
love-covenant, dominant theme
of Old and New Testaments, im
plies relationships and mutua
lity. Since the Bible sees indi
vidual salvation always as a part
and an effect of the communi
ty of salvation, it is neither
difficult to see why Jesus wil
led his Church nor easy to im
agine another vehicle of human
sharing in the resurrection-
victory. Our part in the coven
ant of divine love is to love
God In and as and through the
community, the people of God,
the royal priesthood, the cons
ecrated nation.
So Jesus willed that entrance
into the new family of man, in
to the fellowship of those who
are "in him" and who there
fore share his life and victory,
should be by an act of cor
porate worship, baptism. If
dark, Sunday afternoon, corner
baptisms have robbed us of the
relization that this sacrament
is properly celebrated in con
nection with Mass and particul
arly in the Easter Vigil, this
does not change the fact that
it is clearly a liturgical act,
a worship-act of the Christian
people.
And, askjwe enter the Church
through the liturgy, as the lit—
turgy is the means by which
the Church bears its children,
so we build, stregthen, nourish,
feed the same Church through
the liturgy, so Christ at Mass
(the Lord's Supper, the Euch
arist) enlivens his members
and effect their solidarity. Bap
tism is once for all. It is in
the Eucharist that the Church
weekly and even dally realizes
Itself-above all at the Easter
Vigil of which every Sunday is
a festal commemoration.
The Mass is the public wor
ship of the Church, in the sense
that all sacramental rites are
related and subordinate to It
and all other services of wor
ship must also look to it as
to their center and their norm.
In the Mass the Mystery of
Christ to which the Christian
was introduced in baptism is
regularly celebrated, exper
ienced: the mystery of Christ,
which Frank Norris, S. S. de
fines in God's Own People as
"the divine plan to make all
men one in and through Christ.
A Catholic, then, may live a
life quite remote from parish
and diocesan organizations,
from Catholic social action gro
ups, from (to descend a bit)
bazaars and lawn parties. I do
not recommend this; 1 merely
state a fact. But when he lives
a life remote from the public
worship of the Church he cea
ses to be a Catholic. Because
the Church is the worshiping
community. 1 do not mean at
all to imply that it is possible
to celebrate the liturgy without
after effects, or that it is possi
ble to divorce the liturgy from
the human quest for a better
life for all men. No one can
participate in the Mass properly
without bringing to it and car
rying from it a sense of mis
sion, a commitment to love and
serve his brothers. But there is
a variety of ways to serve and
to love. There is no alternative
to the Christian assembly and
its sacramental common pra
yer.
"Assembly," according to
Father Norris in the book mem-
tioned above, is about as close
as we can get in English to the
meaning of the biblical word
which we translate as "Ch
urch." So the Church of Jesus
Christ is the Redeemer's as
sembly, the assembly of those
who have found in Christ a new
relation to the Father and to
one another. It is a living un
ion, as branches and vine are
one, as the members of a body
are united to its head. It is a
personal union, as bride is
Joined to groom in the ma-
crocosmic love-covenant, mar
riage. It is a worshiping union,
for the liberation its members
know, the new freshness and
beauty "deep down things" (hi
Hopkins* phrase)—all of it —
is the gift and the aura of the
transcendent Other who has
spoken a word to us and to
whom, if we would hew, we
must orient ourselves.
The typical assembly of the
Church, the Eucharist or Mass,
Is what ail Christians must do
‘Will he comes" (1 Cor 11:26)
He used the form of a last will
and testament when he told his
apostles, "Do this for a com
memoration of me” (Lk 22:19)
If you will, "Church" is the
name given to this eucharistic
gathering, to the assembly of
disciples fulfilling Jesus' will.
It is a covenant act, and the
bond which it establishes is a
permanent bond, as the Church
is a permanent reality existing
even when the Eucharist is not
being celebrated. In "doing
this" that the Father recognizes
us as sons and daughters and
that we recognize one another
as brothers and sisters. Bap
tism is for the sake of ' Doing
this." Because we ‘Mo this''we
are Christians, in a permanent
filial relationship to die Father.
And without "this," we can
move mountains and it avails
nothing.
"Remember that we have
changed over from death to life,
in loving the brethern as we
do" (1 Jn 3:14). We have al
ways accepted "loving the bret-
hein” as a moral obligation,
no matter how bad our perfor
mance has been in any given
period. But holy writ is saying
more than that — much more.
It is using the phrases "change
over from death to life" and
"loving the brethern" almost
interchangeably. We change
over from death to life when we
enter the Mystery of Christ,
identify ourselves with him in
baptism and faith. And because
Christ’s Body is the Church,
this is equal to "loving the
brethern." We find the Savior
in the worshiping community,
and we find the worshiping com
munity in the Savior.
So one is not named a Cat
holic because of his virtue or
because of meeting some pre
conceived standard on a scale
of morality or "spirituality"
or intellectuality. Jesus* par
ables make this clear. Wheat
and tares together, bad fish
and good ones, judgment and
purification only when time blo
ssoms into the heavenly king
dom. One is named Catholic,
as Ignatius assured us more
than eighteen centuries ago, be
cause one takes part in a Euc
harist at which a bishop is the
president. One is named Cathol
ic because he is found in the
worshiping community.
How uncomplicated it isl A
community of bread and book
and bishop. All for die sake of
that common worship in which
we recognize the Father and
be recognize us. All instru-
instruments, means, tools of
Jesus Christ who, despising
nothing, took the form of a ser
vant. All existing for him and
communicating his life. And no
one of these elements indepen
dent of the others, but beauti
fully interdependent, beau
tifully related. All are earthy
sacramental, fairly bursting
with problems for the purist and
die proud and the would-be
angel.
personalized (LhristmaS (Lards
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Spirit used the community to
forge his ageless witness.
Only the bishop is ordinary.
Apart from the perhaps unavo
idable pun, this is profoundly
true. God's great gifts have
been confinded to weak men.
And the bishop, as the Church's
minister of book and bread,
shares all our human infirmit
ies. But he trembingly accepts
from God a character and grace
of office in the sacrament of holy
orders. He is a bishop in the
Church, within a living, wors
hiping and infallible community.
And for the sake of the com
munity, the Spirit honors Jesus’
promise of guidance for the
college of bishops, the apostolic
college, in union with the bishop
of Rome, the pope.
In the bread and the book we
have the food of fraternity, the
common meal and the common
word, ancient symbols of human
communication and community
now divinized and effective for
divinization. In the bishop we
have the necessary minister and
preacher of the divine and sac
ramental realities in the Ch
urch and the necessary human
bond and link for the Church's
social organization.
And what a prophetic reality,
his holy Catholic Church, even
in terms of man's political and
economic evolution! In it we see
God's answer to a desire which
he himself has planted in the
human heart, a desire that will
not limit Itself to the religuous,
to the sphere of the sacred. It
is the desire we see in such
basic facts as the impulse to
union between male and female,
and in such advanced products
of social progress as the United
Nations and the Common Mar
ket.
From one point of view we
are indeed, in today's world,
in a better position than any
of our ancestors to appreciate
the phenomenon we call the
Church. For our world has at
tained through hard experience
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JA 5-138®
and devoted study a heightened
consciousness of the folly of
political and economic isolat
ion, every demand for a mino
rity's civil rights — each Is
an expression of the deep, gna
wing need of men and women to
feel and act in cosmic unity.
We might say that were there
no such reality as die Catholic
Church we would be forced to
try to Invent it. God's love ant
icipated and prevented our In-
inevitable failure. For our pol
itical and economic inventions
—even should they, as we hope,
result In ever-more-perfect
forms we have thus far achie
ved are themselves, to an ex
tent no one can measure, die
product of a subtle influence
emanating from the Church, the
Gospel's home and timely in
carnation.
The human social order re
turns the compliment by it
self prodding and encouraging
the ecumenical movement am
ong nineteenth and twentieth
century Christians. If the comp
liment is unconscious and it,
on the conscious level, the bra
ins, the lights, the prophets of
the social order are imprison
ed in the same world of the ap
parent as most of us, and are
therefore inclined to reject the
Church (not knowing it) — then
we can only hope that the act
ion of the Second Vatican Cou
ncil In giving priority to the
liturgy will open the eyes of
us all.
Bread and book and bishop.
The Catholic believers that
there is no Christianity in any
full sense, no liturgy in any
full sense, no Church in any
full sense, without these three.
And all are seen and experie
nced in their prpoer relation
ships to one another and to the
priestly community as a whole
only in the celebration of the
Lord's Supper, Holy Mass. For
the community which Jesus cre
ates and ever renews with such
instruments is a community of
worship. This is the Church.
S
TRANGE BUT TRU
Little-Known Facts for Catholic*
By M J. MURRAY ***** »-
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The bread is no ordinary br
ead. It is Christ's Body we
share and Christ's Body we
become. An early Christian
prayer (in the Didache) asks:
"As this bread that is broken
was scattered upon the moun
tains and was gathered toget
her and became one, so let your
Church be gathered together
from the ends of the earth into
your kingdom." It is not only
a bread of commemoration, not
only a bread of union, but also
a bread of promise.
The book is no ordinary book.
Incensed and kissed during the
liturgical assembly in reverent
homage to ’he unique character
of Its message, the Bible sta
nds alone (within the worship
ing community in which it took
shape) as source and norm.
Modern biblical scholarship has
helped us immeasurably to un
derstand both its message and
the extent to which the Holy
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