Archbishop Dolan's Thought for the Week

May 6, 2008

“Christ, yes!
Church, no!”

Seems to be the chant these days. Many want a King without a kingdom; a shepherd, but not a sheepfold; a general with no army; a spiritual family where I am the only child; faith, but no faithful.

Many, we are told, want Christ without His Church.

The Pew Center’s recently-published report on religion in America, containing doses of both good news and bad, verifies this. A quarter of our people raised Catholic no longer consider themselves such. The faith of our fathers apparently has no claim on them. Some seem more loyal to the baseball team they cheered as a kid than to the Church in which they were baptized and raised. Believe, yes; belong, no.

These want the Lord, my Lord, not our Lord.

This, or course, is a sharp pastoral challenge to the Church, one we cannot ignore.
It cuts to the core of Catholicism, for, of course, we believe that Christ and His Church are one. As we pray every Sunday at the Creed, and have been for seventeen centuries:
“We believe in God, the Father Almighty . . .

We believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, 
    Our Lord . . .
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord
    and giver of life. . .
We believe in one, holy, catholic, and
    apostolic Church.”

It’s a package deal for a Catholic: Jesus Christ and His Church.

This mystery of our faith is wonderfully evident now, as we prepare for Pentecost, which we call “the birthday of the Church.”

Think about it: when our Lord ascended into heaven, forty days after He rose from the dead -- the feast we celebrated Sunday -- His disciples could well have split up and gone their separate ways as individuals. Why stick around? He’s gone. I believe in Him. I’ll go off on my own and try to live as He taught.

The first disciples would have none of that. To stick together was at the heart of His message. They believed in Him as a community, as a spiritual family. He was the vine, they were the branches. They were intimately united to Him and to each other.

In company with His mother, they stuck together as one and prayed hard for the promised Holy Spirit, and on Pentecost Sunday they were not disappointed.

So from scratch the Church was essential. Common prayer, unity in faith, gathered around the apostles, mutual love and charity, Sunday Eucharist, rebirth into something beyond themselves by Baptism, strengthened in confirmation, sent out to invite others in -- the Church was Christ alive!

A couple of weeks ago, during his wonderful visit with us, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the gift all have in the Church. Listen again: “In a society which values personal freedom and autonomy, it is easy to lose sight of our dependence on others . . . This emphasis on individualism has even affected the Church, giving rise to a form of piety which sometimes emphasizes our private relationship with God at the expense of our calling to be members of a redeemed community. Yet from the beginning God saw that ‘it is not good for man to be alone.’ We were created as social beings who find fulfillment only in love . . . If we are truly to gaze upon Him who is the source of our joy, we need to do so as members of the People of God.”

In other words, we are saved as part of His Church!

But, you say, many no longer recognize Christ in His Church. Well, nothing new there: the vast majority of people did not recognize the Christ in Jesus of Nazareth when He was here with us on earth either, did they.

This of course only prods us to make sure that the Church is more radiantly reflective of the teaching, serving, sanctifying, saving, healing Christ.

And this moves us to rejoice in the Church as a golden bond keeping us tethered to Christ, not as handcuffs that we try to get unlocked.

A blessed Pentecost!
 

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan

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