YOUCAT Question n. 122 - Part V. Why does God want there to be a Church?
(Youcat
answer - repeated) God wills the Church because he wants to redeem us, not
individually, but together. He wants to make all mankind his people.
A deepening through CCC
(CCC 765)
The Lord Jesus endowed his community with a structure that will remain until
the Kingdom is fully achieved. Before all else there is the choice of the
Twelve with Peter as their head (Cf. Mk 3:14-15). Representing the twelve
tribes of Israel, they are the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem (Cf. Mt
19:28; Lk 22:30; Rev 21:12-14). The Twelve and the other disciples share in
Christ's mission and his power, but also in his lot (Cf. Mk 6:7; Lk 10:1-2; Mt
10:25; Jn 15:20). By all his actions, Christ prepares and builds his
Church.
Reflecting and meditating
(Youcat comment)
No one gets to heaven
by the asocial route. Someone who thinks only about himself and the salvation
of his own soul is living a-socially. That is impossible both in heaven and on
earth. God himself is not a-social; he is not a solitary, self-sufficient
being. The Triune God in himself is “social”, a communion, an eternal exchange
of love. Patterned after God, man also is designed for relationship, exchange,
sharing, and love. We are responsible for one another.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 766)
The Church is born primarily of Christ's total self-giving for our salvation,
anticipated in the institution of the Eucharist and fulfilled on the cross.
"The origin and growth of the Church are symbolized by the blood and water
which flowed from the open side of the crucified Jesus" (LG 3; cf. Jn
19:34). "For it was from the side of Christ as he slept the sleep of death
upon the cross that there came forth the 'wondrous sacrament of the whole Church"
(SC 5). As Eve was formed from the sleeping Adam's side, so the Church was born
from the pierced heart of Christ hanging dead on the cross (Cf. St. Ambrose, In Luc. 2, 85-89: PL 15,1666-1668).
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