Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 121 - Part III.

YOUCAT Question n. 121 - Part III. What does “Church” mean?

(Youcat answer - repeated) The Greek word for Church is “ekklesia” those who are called forth. All of us who are baptized and believe in God are called forth by the Lord. Together we are the Church. Christ is, as Paul says, the Head of the Church. We are his body.    

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 752) In Christian usage, the word "church" designates the liturgical assembly (Cf. 1 Cor 11:18; 14:19, 28, 34, 35), but also the local community (Cf. 1 Cor 1:2; 16:1) or the whole universal community of believers (Cf. 1 Cor 15:9; Gal 1:13; Phil 3:6). These three meanings are inseparable. "The Church" is the People that God gathers in the whole world. She exists in local communities and is made real as a liturgical, above all a Eucharistic, assembly. She draws her life from the word and the Body of Christ and so herself becomes Christ's Body.      

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) When we receive the sacraments and hear God’s Word, Christ is in us and we are in him—that is the Church. The intimate communion of life with Jesus that is shared personally by all the baptized is described in Sacred Scripture by a wealth of images: Here it speaks about the People of God and in another passage about the Bride of Christ; now the Church is called Mother, and again she is God’s family, or she is compared with a wedding feast. Never is the Church a mere institution, never just the “official Church” that we could do without. We will be upset by the mistakes and defects in the  Church, but we can never distance ourselves from her, because God has made an irrevocable decision to love her and does not forsake her despite all the sins of her members. The Church is God’s presence among us men. That is why we must love her.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 753) In Scripture, we find a host of interrelated images and figures through which Revelation speaks of the inexhaustible mystery of the Church. The images taken from the Old Testament are variations on a profound theme: the People of God. In the New Testament, all these images find a new center because Christ has become the head of this people, which henceforth is his Body (Cf. Eph 1:22; Col 1:18; LG 9). Around this center are grouped images taken "from the life of the shepherd or from cultivation of the land, from the art of building or from family life and marriage" (LG 6).     

(This question: What does “Church” mean? is continued)

Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 121 - Part II.

YOUCAT Question n. 121 - Part II. What does “Church” mean?

(Youcat answer - repeated) The Greek word for Church is “ekklesia” those who are called forth. All of us who are baptized and believe in God are called forth by the Lord. Together we are the Church. Christ is, as Paul says, the Head of the Church. We are his body.    

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 750) To believe that the Church is "holy" and "catholic," and that she is "one" and "apostolic" (as the Nicene Creed adds), is inseparable from belief in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the Apostles' Creed we profess "one Holy Church" (Credo… Ecclesiam), and not to believe in the Church, so as not to confuse God with his works and to attribute clearly to God's goodness all the gifts he has bestowed on his Church (Roman Catechism I, 10, 22).

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) When we receive the sacraments and hear God’s Word, Christ is in us and we are in him—that is the Church. The intimate communion of life with Jesus that is shared personally by all the baptized is described in Sacred Scripture by a wealth of images: Here it speaks about the People of God and in another passage about the Bride of Christ; now the Church is called Mother, and again she is God’s family, or she is compared with a wedding feast. Never is the Church a mere institution, never just the “official Church” that we could do without. We will be upset by the mistakes and defects in the  Church, but we can never distance ourselves from her, because God has made an irrevocable decision to love her and does not forsake her despite all the sins of her members. The Church is God’s presence among us men. That is why we must love her.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 751) The word "Church" (Latin ecclesia, from the Greek ek-ka-lein, to "call out of") means a convocation or an assembly. It designates the assemblies of the people, usually for a religious purpose (Cf. Acts 19:39). Ekklesia is used frequently in the Greek Old Testament for the assembly of the Chosen People before God, above all for their assembly on Mount Sinai where Israel received the Law and was established by God as his holy people (Cf. Ex 19). By calling itself "Church," the first community of Christian believers recognized itself as heir to that assembly. In the Church, God is "calling together" his people from all the ends of the earth. The equivalent Greek term Kyriake, from which the English word Church and the German Kirche are derived, means "what belongs to the Lord."    

(This question: What does “Church” mean? is continued)

Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 121 - Part I.

YOUCAT Question n. 121 - Part I. What does “Church” mean?

(Youcat answer) The Greek word for Church is “ekklesia” those who are called forth. All of us who are baptized and believe in God are called forth by the Lord. Together we are the Church. Christ is, as Paul says, the Head of the Church. We are his body.    

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 748) "Christ is the light of humanity; and it is, accordingly, the heart-felt desire of this sacred Council, being gathered together in the Holy Spirit, that, by proclaiming his Gospel to every creature, it may bring to all men that light of Christ which shines out visibly from the Church" (LG 1; cf. Mk 16:15). These words open the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. By choosing this starting point, the Council demonstrates that the article of faith about the Church depends entirely on the articles concerning Christ Jesus. The Church has no other light than Christ's; according to a favorite image of the Church Fathers, the Church is like the moon, all its light reflected from the sun.   

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) When we receive the sacraments and hear God’s Word, Christ is in us and we are in him—that is the Church. The intimate communion of life with Jesus that is shared personally by all the baptized is described in Sacred Scripture by a wealth of images: Here it speaks about the People of God and in another passage about the Bride of Christ; now the Church is called Mother, and again she is God’s family, or she is compared with a wedding feast. Never is the Church a mere institution, never just the “official Church” that we could do without. We will be upset by the mistakes and defects in the  Church, but we can never distance ourselves from her, because God has made an irrevocable decision to love her and does not forsake her despite all the sins of her members. The Church is God’s presence among us men. That is why we must love her.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 749) The article concerning the Church also depends entirely on the article about the Holy Spirit, which immediately precedes it. "Indeed, having shown that the Spirit is the source and giver of all holiness, we now confess that it is he who has endowed the Church with holiness" (Roman Catechism I, 10, 1). The Church is, in a phrase used by the Fathers, the place "where the Spirit flourishes" (St. Hippolytus, Trad. Ap. 35: SCh 11, 118).    

(This question: What does “Church” mean? is continued)

Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 120 - Part II.

YOUCAT Question n. 120 - Part II. What does the Holy Spirit do in my life?

(Youcat answer - repeated) The Holy Spirit makes me receptive to God; he teaches me to pray and helps me to be there for others.         

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 739) Because the Holy Spirit is the anointing of Christ, it is Christ who, as the head of the Body, pours out the Spirit among his members to nourish, heal, and organize them in their mutual functions, to give them life, send them to bear witness, and associate them to his self-offering to the Father and to his intercession for the whole world. Through the Church's sacraments, Christ communicates his Holy and sanctifying Spirit to the members of his Body.     

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Augustine calls the Holy Spirit “The quiet guest of our soul”. Anyone who wants to sense his presence must be quiet. Often this Guest speaks very softly within us and with us, for instance, in the voice of our conscience or through other interior and exterior promptings. Being a “temple of the Holy Spirit” means being there, body and soul, for this Guest, for God in us. Our body is therefore God’s living room, so to speak. The more receptive we are to the Holy Spirit in us, the more he becomes the master of our life, the sooner he will bestow on us even today his  charisms for the upbuilding of the Church. And so, instead of the  Works Of The Flesh, the  Fruits Of The Spirit grow in us.     

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 741) "The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with sighs too deep for words" (Rom 8:26). The Holy Spirit, the artisan of God's works, is the master of prayer.    

(The next question is: What does “Church” mean?)

Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 120 - Part I.

YOUCAT Question n. 120 - Part I. What does the Holy Spirit do in my life?

(Youcat answer) The Holy Spirit makes me receptive to God; he teaches me to pray and helps me to be there for others.         

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 738) Thus the Church's mission is not an addition to that of Christ and the Holy Spirit, but is its sacrament: in her whole being and in all her members, the Church is sent to announce, bear witness, make present, and spread the mystery of the communion of the Holy Trinity (the topic of the next article): All of us who have received one and the same Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit, are in a sense blended together with one another and with God. For if Christ, together with the Father's and his own Spirit, comes to dwell in each of us, though we are many, still the Spirit is one and undivided. He binds together the spirits of each and every one of us,… and makes all appear as one in him. For just as the power of Christ's sacred flesh unites those in whom it dwells into one body, I think that in the same way the one and undivided Spirit of God, who dwells in all, leads all into spiritual unity (St. Cyril of Alexandria, In Jo. Ev., 11, 11: PG 74, 561).    

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Augustine calls the Holy Spirit “The quiet guest of our soul”. Anyone who wants to sense his presence must be quiet. Often this Guest speaks very softly within us and with us, for instance, in the voice of our conscience or through other interior and exterior promptings. Being a “temple of the Holy Spirit” means being there, body and soul, for this Guest, for God in us. Our body is therefore God’s living room, so to speak. The more receptive we are to the Holy Spirit in us, the more he becomes the master of our life, the sooner he will bestow on us even today his  charisms for the upbuilding of the Church. And so, instead of the  Works Of The Flesh, the  Fruits Of The Spirit grow in us.

CCC Comment)

(CCC 740) These "mighty works of God," offered to believers in the sacraments of the Church, bear their fruit in the new life in Christ, according to the Spirit.

(This question: What does the Holy Spirit do in my life? is continued)