YOUCAT Question n. 122 - Part IX. 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 772)
It is in the Church that Christ fulfills and reveals his own mystery as the
purpose of God's plan: "to unite all things in him" (Eph 1:10). St.
Paul calls the nuptial union of Christ and the Church "a great
mystery." Because she is united to Christ as to her bridegroom, she
becomes a mystery in her turn (Eph 5:32; 3:9-11; 5:25-27). Contemplating this
mystery in her, Paul exclaims: "Christ in you, the hope of glory"
(Col 1:27).
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 773)
In the Church this communion of men with God, in the "love [that] never
ends," is the purpose which governs everything in her that is a
sacramental means, tied to this passing world (1 Cor 13:8; cf. LG 48).
"[The Church's] structure is totally ordered to the holiness of Christ's
members. And holiness is measured according to the 'great mystery' in which the
Bride responds with the gift of love to the gift of the Bridegroom" (John
Paul II, MD 27). Mary goes before us all in the holiness that is the Church's
mystery as "the bride without spot or wrinkle" (Eph 5:27). This is
why the "Marian" dimension of the Church precedes the
"Petrine" (Cf. John Paul II, MD 27).
(This question: Why does God want there to be a Church? is continued)
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