Year of faith - By Fr. Tom 05/10/2013

In 1902, the French priest and theologian, Alfred Loisy, said, "Jesus came proclaiming the Kingdom, and what came was the Church". He was disappointed. For Loisy (and many others), the Kingdom of God was good; the Church was not. In the end, Loisy left the Church because he could not believe that Jesus wanted the Church. He accepted Jesus, but refused to believe the New Testament passages in which Jesus talked of the establishment of a community of believers. He was especially hostile to the idea of Church leadership--Pope, bishops, priests--and saw the New Testament passages which speak of this to be "later additions", not part of the original texts.

Loisy, for me, typifies a complaint I have heard many times in the 21st century--"Jesus, yes! Church, no!". I hope to show that you cannot have Jesus without His Church. Please keep reading for a few weeks!

In Matthew 16, Jesus told Peter, " You are Peter and on this rock, I build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it". Here Jesus says clearly that he intended to found the Church to continue His work after His ascension to heaven and that there would be a structure of authority in the Church with Peter as the first among his disciples. Thus, the existence of the Church itself is Christ's will. Likewise, the office of Peter, the Pope, is established by Christ.

As Jesus was about to ascend to the Father (Matthew 28), He commanded His disciples to go to all the world preaching the Gospel and baptizing. And just before leaving the earth, Jesus promised to be with his disciples until the end of the world. In this passage, Jesus gave the Church its mission and promised that He would always be with the Church and never abandon it. These and many passages make it clear that Jesus did intend to found the Church and promised to continue to help and save the Church until the end of time.

The Church really has its origins in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the story of God's choice of Israel as His chosen people. God promised one people, Israel, that He would always be their God and that they would always be His people. The Old Testament does not speak much of God saving individual persons, but of God gathering, sustaining and protecting Israel. In the New Testament, God offers to all people what was once exclusively Israel's, that is, status as the "People of God". The Church is the "new Israel"; in some passages, the "new Jerusalem". So what is said of Israel in the Old Testament, now applies to the Church. Again, it is not God's plan only to save individual people, but to gather them into the Church and there to save them.

The early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles gives us our first glimpse of the Church without Jesus physically present. After Jesus ascended to the Father, the infant Church gathered in prayer--Peter was clearly the leader. Mary was present. And the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost to give birth to the Church by bestowing energy and courage. As the disciples went out to do the work of Jesus, Peter was clearly in charge though his leadership was not that of a boss. He led as Jesus led--in love and respect.

Later in the Acts of the Apostles, when the early Church faced a crisis because of a disagreement among the disciples, Peter gathered the disciples in a council, a meeting to resolve the conflict. Everyone got to speak. Finally a decision was reached. The disciples give their decision and stated explicitly that their decision was also the decision of the Holy Spirit.

How could the early Church be so confident that the Holy Spirit endorsed their decisions made in Church council? Well, before Jesus died, He told His disciples that after His ascension, He would send the Holy Spirit "to remind you of all that I told you". He said that the Holy Spirit would lead His Church "to all truth". The early Church was confident that they acted under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. They believed that the Spirit protected them from error, though they knew that they were still prone to sin. God sent the Spirit, not because the leaders of the Church were sinless or always virtuous, but because He promised to be with us until the end of the world.

And to this day, we gather as the Church, confident that the Holy Spirit is with us, protecting us from error. Peter is still our leader and His ministry is that of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. Mary, who was with the Church at the beginning, is also still with us, praying for us.