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A Word from the Associate
THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH
Back in the days when the great heresies were raging and the Church was fighting for its survival, it became common to look for certain qualities that would distinguish the real thing from the counterfeit. These qualities were codified in the creeds, and have come down to us as the "notes" of the Church, aspects of the divine society that show something of its true parentage. We repeat these four "notes" every Sunday when we recite the Creed: we believe in "one, holy, catholic and apostolic" Church. Note that the word "catholic" here has a small "c." We are not saying here that we believe in the Roman Catholic Church as opposed, say, to the Orthodox Church. The Creed is using the word in its wider sense: catholic means "universal, relating to all of humankind." We are saying that we believe in a "universal" Church.
It is one of the great boasts of the Catholic (capital "C") Church that it is catholic (small "c"), meaning that it is universal. It understands that its message is not just for one group of people in one place or time, but rather that it is the true home of all people, of all times and places. It proclaims a Gospel that is meant for everyone who has ever, or will ever, live. This is because it is the Gospel of Christ, who is Lord of the whole human race, who is the Word through whom the human family came into being. This universality is incomplete, and will be until the coming of Christ. But even now the Church is the seed of the new human race, and in its still incomplete state it has existed in every age, and its geographical extension has continued to grow until it has touched the whole of the earth. There is still a lot of work to be done, especially among the Asian peoples, but even there the Gospel has made its appeal and has won followers. The next millennium may well be the Christian millennium of Asia.
So what? Well first, there is something beautiful about this remarkable communion between times and cultures and peoples. The Catholic Church is the most impressive truly multi-cultural organization that has ever existed, and we know that this has been possible only because it has a divine origin. It is God's undoing of the Tower of Babel. But there is another side to this. The call to universality can be annoying to us. We like to be particular, to go our own way. Whether as individuals, as families, as congregations, or as countries, we can lose this universality and become resentful of the claims of catholicity. As with all truth, we have to fight for this catholic vision.
We have, at this moment, Palestinian brothers and sisters, Iraqi brothers and sisters, millions of brothers and sisters south of the border, millions more in black Africa and Asia. Hundreds of thousands of our own spiritual family have been killed around the world during the past fifteen years alone because of their faith in Christ. Millions more are in need. The response of the one who thinks with the Church is to suffer with them, pray for them, try to find practical ways to support them, to express our brotherhood in Christ with them. Whatever political or economic realities may be present, we never forget that our first allegiance is to the Kingdom of Heaven, and to our brothers and sisters, wherever they may be, who share our hope, our faith, our eucharist, our life in Christ. As St. Paul writes (Ephesians 6): "Let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith."
How good to belong to the universal Church, the true home of humanity.
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