My Friend the Friar
A podcast where we learn about our faith and share what it takes to live a Catholic Christian life through conversations and contemplations with my friend the friar, a Discalced Carmelite Priest.
My Friend the Friar
Lumen Gentium and The Mystery of the Church
In this episode, John and Father Stephen explore Pope John XXIII's vision of the Pilgrim Church as detailed in Lumen Gentium, emphasizing the Church's ongoing mission away from a triumphalist view. They reflect on the veneration of saints, with a special focus on Mary, and how these practices weave into the Church's mission toward unity with God and humanity. They discuss Christ’s role as the light of nations and how the Church acts as a beacon and instrument of divine unity.
What role does the Holy Spirit play in the Church’s theology? Fr. Stephen unravels the profound mysteries of the Church as both the body and bride of Christ, animated by the Holy Spirit. They discuss the essential role of sacraments, especially the Eucharist, in fostering unity and the Church’s mission of witnessing God's reconciling love. Highlighting insights from Yves Congar and the Second Vatican Council, they delve into the restored Augustinian view of the Holy Spirit as the soul of the Church, emphasizing Trinitarian aspects and the interconnectedness within the Church community. Join us for a dialogue that challenges and enriches your understanding of these complex theological concepts.
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Speaker 2:Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me and my friend, the friar Father Stephen Sanchez, a Discalced Carmelite Priest. Good evening, father. Good evening Good evening. Are those more boxes in the background?
Speaker 1:Yes, more boxes. I have more boxes still to bring. So, oh my goodness, little by little the majority of my stuff is here. Now I've got a few things left still to bring, some kitchen stuff that I use, right so for my cooking, baking and all that stuff. So I'll store that away. When I get bring it back down, but yeah.
Speaker 2:I was just gonna say I was just there, I just cleaned up this mess.
Speaker 1:I know, so I just brought this back and then the last two weeks I've just been crazy busy, so it's okay.
Speaker 2:Speaking of baking, I've just been crazy busy. It's okay. Speaking of baking, your persimmon bread was so good.
Speaker 2:Did you like it? It was so good I had to, so I did just like you said. I cut off a nice thick piece and I'd like toast it and then smear butter on it and stuff like that. But I made the mistake of sharing some with Sophia and then I was like fighting her for it. So it just like the bread, the little loaf went like it was like gone. Did Betty get any? Yeah, she did. Everyone loved it, so it's like it. So is it like a banana bread base, just with persimmons instead? Or like how did you? I've never had persimmon bread before, but it reminded me of banana bread it's a quick yeah, it's a quick bread recipe.
Speaker 1:So basically it's. I had some persimmons, I had made some. We had a big bunch of persimmons last fall.
Speaker 1:And so after they had ripened I said, well, I don't want them to spoil. So I scooped out all the fruit and put them in little Ziplocs and threw them in the freezer and I said later I'll make some later. My sons in San Antonio, the ones that got me sick I had visited them the last time before I got sick. I had been promising them for years, like I got to bring you some persimmon bread. I got to bring you some persimmon bread. And so the last time I was there I'm tired of hearing about this fantasy persimmon bread I said so I had to take some out of the freezer. Okay, baking in the summer is a pain if it's hot. So then I took them some persimmon bread. And then when I told you about that, you said what I said yeah, next time I'll make a couple of loaves and I'll bring you a loaf. So that's what I did.
Speaker 1:So it's really good, it's very enjoyable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, look how those rascals repaid your kindness. Yeah, contaminating me With germs. Oh man, I just got done. While I was waiting for you, I was watching this guy was cooking lamb chops in polenta and I was like ooh.
Speaker 1:Ooh, that's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, food, food, food. You know some food's for the body, some food is for the soul. Yes, and that's a terrible segue into Vatican II teachings, but we're going to try food for the. How would you say that in Latin? If they had all the different decrees and the different, what do you call each one Constitution? What would be the Latin for constitution of food for the soul? How would you say that? I?
Speaker 1:have no idea.
Speaker 2:I have no idea. I have no idea. Well, I'm going to, because now I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 1:I'm not a.
Speaker 2:Latinist. I'm going to see what Google Translate says From English to Latin. Latin Food for the soul. Uh, is a c sent like the letter c? Is it a hard like a k?
Speaker 1:it depends where it's, if it's followed by a vowel or is it followed what's? It what's what vowel is it followed by? So it's c I b u s, so it's like either sibus or c-i-b-u-s c, it'd be sibus sibus, so it's sibus anime okay, anime is the soul to feed the soul okay anyway, feed us, father, we're, we're hungry so we began last episode, the last episode.
Speaker 1:We began the last episode. We began the history and introduction into the Second Vatican Council and the beginning of Lumen Gentium. Did the overview of the core documents and the three categories of the other documents that the rest of the documents fell into? Yeah, documents fell into, yeah, and we talked a little. We ended on the difficulty of grasping the council's teachings. Um, that had to do with um, a different presentation, whereas vatican one and trent were more using scholastic language, right, and whereas the Second Vatican Council it was using a lot of biblical references. There was historical expositions, there's analyses of contemporary issues, citations of previous councils and all that stuff, right.
Speaker 2:Like the Pope. Yeah, papal texts and everything.
Speaker 1:All that right all that, so it's a much more complete. I would say complete presentation, right.
Speaker 1:And also that we talked about this. You brought this up this question of compromise, how two-thirds majority, was something that Paul VI was pushing for, which led to a lot of adjustments in the narrative right, how it was presented. And then, thirdly, the most difficult aspect of it is that each document needs to be read in the context of all the documents, and most people nowadays don't like to read, so that makes it very difficult. So anyway, those were some of the difficulties in grasping the Council's teaching. So now I want to go over just the eight chapters, just the titles of the eight chapters.
Speaker 1:So it's the Dogmatic constitution on the church, and chapter one is on the mystery of the church. I'm going to touch a little bit on that. Chapter two is on the people of God. Chapter three is on the hierarchical structure, whereas before in Trent, and I think even in Vatican I, it began with the hierarchical structure, especially Trent right. So this is now chapter three, so it's not the very beginning of the document. Chapter four is on the laity, so I'm going to touch a little bit on the laity, chapter four. Chapter five is the universal call to holiness, so I'll be talking a little bit about that Chapter 6 is on religious, chapter 7 is the pilgrim church and chapter 8 is the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God in the mystery of Christ and the church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and all of this this is why I love this stuff, stuff. All of this is just so. Later we can finally talk about chapter eight yes, yeah he's like let me tell you a story. So I can tell you a story.
Speaker 1:It's, it's contextual everything builds on everything else and so if you just go, if you just read the last chapter of a novel, you go like, okay, I'm done, but you don't understand the context of it, right? So it's interesting that in the history of the development of this particular constitution, the last two chapters chapter seven on the pilgrim church and chapter eight on the Blessed Virgin Mary they were not part of the original draft. What was originally presented were 11 chapters and then the 11 chapters going through. You know all the modifications and, as we said earlier, the give and take of dialogue with all the bishops, right, they reduced 11 chapters to four in the first revision. That's a lot of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, might be a little harsh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then the four chapters became five and then so that was in the second revision. So then the chapter on Our Lady, chapter eight. So then the chapter on Our Lady chapter 8, existed as a separate draft, as a separate document, right, Not part of Lumen Gentium and was not seen as part of the constitution of the church. And chapter 7 on the Pilgrim Church. It's the reason that we have it in Lumen Gentium is because of Pope John XXIII, his intervention. He wanted a chapter on the Pilgrim Church, the fact that we are continuously traveling towards the celestial Jerusalem, right. I think part of it was trying to get rid of the idea that the church would get away from that idea that we've arrived, we're here, this is yeah, Right, so that we still have work to do, in other words, and so he wanted us to enter into that, into the idea of being a pilgrim church which is later confirmed by Paul VI.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I was just going to say, and I like that they tied Mary into the church, kind of thing I think it's very fitting, and I think we'll see that here, but we'll also see it when we dig into chapter 8, later episodes.
Speaker 1:So the prefect of the Congregation of Rites, in conjunction with a small commission, prepared a text concerning the Catholic doctrine on the veneration of the saints as part of the Church's self-explanation in the dogmatic constitution. So it's a very small part in terms of the veneration of saints, of the veneration of saints right. And so this is then where, all of a sudden, mary, as the saint then, is brought in instead of a separate constitution, brought into the believing body of the church as one of the first redeemed right. So let me read a quote here from Otto Simmelroth, chapter 7, the Eschatological Nature of the Pilgrim Church. Here he says, the introduction of this theme, pilgrim Church and Our Lady, proved to be of major service to the church in her self-presentation, for it called attention to the fact that an essential feature of the church, without which she cannot be properly described, had not indeed been forgotten but had not been explored her eschatological dynamism. Remember that word? Okay, so the whole eschatological nature of the church.
Speaker 2:What I remember is how hard it is to say for sure no, but like to the end, like to the the completion right when Christ comes in glory right.
Speaker 1:The end point right.
Speaker 1:So, continuing on with the quote, not only can and must it be discussed along with her institutional aspect, so the church as institute but also that there is a future towards she is journeying towards right or the completion when Christ comes in glory. If it is not, then the church will incorrectly be represented, even as an institution. Point or its journey towards this eschaton, the coming of Christ and the fulfillment of the glory that Christ will give to the Father, right with the restoration of all things. It brings the veneration of saints out of the isolation in which its significance could not be properly grasped, showing it to be a concrete embodiment of the Church's eschatological nature. And, conversely, this discussion of the veneration of saints ensures that the conciliar doctrine on the Church must explicitly treat her vital eschatological aspect.
Speaker 1:So what he's saying is it's necessary for us to remember what we'd call the communion of saints, that we're connected to those who have gone before us, marked in the sign of faith. But not only is this a communion that we're engaged in, but that the whole purpose of this is again moving towards holiness, moving towards complete consummation, communion with Jesus Christ in the Holy Trinity right. So that is where we're striving for and it's important then to declare this or else then you can fall into the idea of what they used to call the triumphalist church, where, like we, we're basically heaven on earth already. We've got our liturgy, we've got everything here, and so we're, you know, we don't need anything else, and so I think that was part of the idea of moving away from that type of perception or even that type of posturing in the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like how he says or yeah, I won't even try and say the guy's name in that quote I like how he says that the way that we talk about the church's purpose, right, it's eschatological dynamism. We talk about the church's purpose right, it's eschatological dynamism, right? Like, if you don't do that right, then you can't even talk about the institutional part of the church, right? Correct, because you just don't understand it, correct, correct.
Speaker 1:Correct. So I mean the idea of Peter receiving the keys of the kingdom is not to establish the kingdom on earth, but that the church on earth is preparing itself to journey towards its final realization, which is the celestial Jerusalem, the wedding banquet of the Lamb, whichever ways you want to verbalize that right.
Speaker 1:Yeah verbalize that right. Yeah, I would like to pay special attention on chapters one, which is the mystery of the church, on chapter four, which is the laity, chapter five, on the universal call to holiness, so we can finally get to chapter eight on the Blessed Virgin Mary. Okay, so a little bit on chapter 1, no-transcript, and this is where we get the title Lumen Gentium Christ is the light of nations. Because this is so, this sacred synod, gathered together in the Holy Spirit, eagerly desires, by proclaiming the gospel to every creature, to bring the light of Christ to all men or to all, a light brightly visible on the countenance of the Church. Since the Church is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and the unity of the whole human race, it desires now to unfold more fully to the faithful of the Church and to the whole world its own inner nature and universal mission. This it intends to do following faithfully the teaching of previous councils, the present-day conditions of the world.
Speaker 1:Okay, the reason I'm quoting this number one is what the conciliar fathers want to do is to give an exposition of the church's own inner nature and its mission to the world.
Speaker 1:So this is the purpose of this. The conciliar fathers, in this dogmatic constitution, then, are attempting to verbalize, give expression to the church's own self-understanding and the dual role that we have as church, the dual role that is both the body of Christ and the bride of Christ and, as bride and body, the mission that the church has received from God through Christ for the salvation of all. So already this is a very difficult thing to try to verbalize, that is, that we are the body of Christ and we are also the bride of Christ, and the reason that is goes back to even the nature of Jesus as true God and true man, god and true man. So we are both the body of Christ and the bride of Christ in our union. That is exemplified and modeled for us in the incarnation of the word itself and taking on our humanity. So this is a very deep and existential understanding of itself that it's going to try to explain.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, struck me as I was reading through your notes was how often I hear people argue about what is the church and it seems people tend to a lot of times take the position of it's. It's just this mystical kind of invisible unity, that of all christians all over the world, no matter what their denomination, and all that kind of stuff. So they'll pick like one camp or the other, so they'll say that, or they'll say it's like the hierarchy or something, and this is and, and what we'll get through is how.
Speaker 2:It's way more complicated than that because, it's always the both and kind of thing you know, yeah and so there's the fact I was just giving a
Speaker 1:class to some catechists today on faith formation team, right, and basically I said, like you know, we do all these studies and so like, for example, a doctor, he has to study the skeleton, he has to study the mus doctor, he has to study the skeleton, he has to study the musculature, he has to study the cardiovascular system, he has to study the nervous system, he has to study the endocrine system, he has to study all these different systems that make up one body. And so part of the same thing happens here in the church. Sometimes we tend to dissect the church and we forget that it's a living organism. It is breathing the breath of the Holy Spirit, so it's alive and growing right and it's much more than just the local community right, it is the local community, but it's much more than that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so a little bit on the mystery of the church that this number one talks about. So the tradition, capital T. We can go back and listen to that episode too. The tradition of the church understands the word mystery to mean an essential truth of the faith that we cannot fully comprehend, but that God has given us signs towards a comprehension of that truth or that mystery. St Paul applies this term mysterion to Christ in his letter to the Colossians. In Colossians, chapter 4, verse 3, he says and pray for us also, that God may open to us a door for the word. There will always be something about an ecclesial mystery that escapes our comprehension. That is the essence of God. We can't fully comprehend him, or else he wouldn't be God. Fully comprehend him, or else he wouldn't be God, and so our inability to comprehend his Godhead, his essence, is part of the work of faith. So God has chosen to reveal himself to us by breaking into our human history in the mystery of the incarnation, that is, the person of Jesus Christ in his sacred humanity. So continuing on then, in this idea of mystery and essential truth, so in the mystery of the Passover of Christ, or the Paschal mystery of Jesus Christ, the Passover of Christ or the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ, god reveals the reconciliation that Jesus wrought, or that God wrought in Jesus, the reconciliation between humanity and God, and that he himself has worked in the life, death, resurrection of the God-man, jesus Christ. This is God's work and this is part of the Paschal mystery, right, this is part of essential truth of who God is right.
Speaker 1:So, then, I have another quote here, and this quote is from Gilarditz, a book that he wrote on the Second Vatican Council. The hope proclaimed by the prophets and the apostles is realized, and we are now called to be witnesses to God's reconciling love before all peoples. So, okay, this mystery that we celebrate, the Paschal mystery, this part of mystery belonging to the larger church, this idea of the council fathers are trying to declare our self-understanding right. So our self-understanding is that we, each one of us who are part of the church through our baptism, each one of us, is now called to be a witness of God's reconciling love. That is an essential aspect of who we are called to be. So our sacraments are the ways in which we, god's people, participate in the central mystery of faith, this Passover, the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ, jesus handing himself over, willingly to be sacrificed, to be a victim. So this is an essential understanding for us as well, that this is part of who Jesus is in his willingness to give himself up.
Speaker 1:Continuing on with another quote from Galardes, so during the Middle Ages, catholic theology began to apply the category of mystery long understood to refer to as to the mystical body of Christ in the Eucharist, to the mystical body of Christ that is the Church.
Speaker 1:So it expands that understanding of mystery, right, the medieval authors understood that the fruit of participation in the Eucharist is unity, the communion with God and with one another that constitutes the very foundation of church.
Speaker 1:So, again, this is something that needs to be continuously brought up and we need to be convicted of this is my participation in the Eucharist, if I understand what I'm participating in, if I understand the Paschal mystery that I am part of, and if I understand the fact that I am supposed to be an instrument and a sign of God's reconciling love in the world, then there has to be unity, right? And so then the question would be am I working towards unity within my community? Am I moving towards unity in my community and as we look at the humanity that is the church, we see that there are parts that are not right, and so there is that human element, that parts of the church or the body of Christ that enter into division over different things, whether great or small right, but that there's this tendency at times to work against unity instead of towards unity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was thinking about this the other day when we went to mass on oh my gosh, was it yesterday. It's been a long week. Yeah, it was literally yesterday for the assumption, but how quickly. Okay, so, as your quotes are saying that it's the participation in the communion and, as you're saying, the community, as you're saying, the community, how that participation is part of the Eucharist, how, as the church, we are actualizing and witnessing to God's reconciling love for everybody.
Speaker 2:And so the two things that stood out in my head was when you see a very selfless act from one person to another, a very caring act or a very selfless act to me at least I can't help but be drawn into what Jesus' love must have felt like in person, what we're all called to, and what we're all called to because the church is at its greatest, in my opinion, not when the architecture is grand and the music is great and the liturgy is performed perfectly and all that. The church is greatest when somebody sacrifices something to help someone else Correct. And how often this is the second thought we miss that, even amongst our own, in our own community, amongst ourselves, because we go to church and then we're racing out to the parking lot to try and get out. You know before.
Speaker 1:Everybody else does right. Yeah, before you get caught up in the car jam. Yeah, and so it's. And I understand, and we do too right, because it's been a long day you're trying.
Speaker 2:you got other things you, before you get caught up in the car jam. Yeah, and I understand we do too, right, because it's been a long day. You got other things you got to do. I get it. But how do, like you're saying, how do we become so convicted that we're willing to stop and go? Well, oh, my goodness, all the things God has done in my life. Can I just spare five minutes to help someone out? Or can I not see an opportunity and go? Oh, somebody should do something and instead go? I'm going to do something right now, right, right.
Speaker 1:And I think it's the continual call to conversion, right? I think that's something that we all need to continuously challenge ourselves and feel convicted, so okay. So then, continuing on with this, right? So about, the foundation of the church is unity and communion with God. So this theology left unaddressed, again, what we just talked about the very human face of the church. And, as historical circumstances accumulated, the beautiful theology of the Middle Ages was replaced by the very real worries of wars, famines, droughts, right, remember, during the Middle Ages, during the Protestant Revolution, the religious wars, the famines, and you have Catholic kings fighting Catholic kings, and so all this is going on, right? And so then the Protestant rebellion, or reformation, claimed that the true church of Christ was no longer visible.
Speaker 1:Yep yep Right Because of everything right the human element or the human nature of the church. So then Cardinal Bellarmine argued against this Protestant idea. He argued against this and put forward the idea that the church is a perfect society. Right, the Church is a perfect society. So Cardinal Bellarmine's view lasted for several centuries, that the Church is a perfect society. The teaching of Vatican II is an effort to restore a balance between understanding the inner spiritual dimensions of the church and its concrete, historical and visible human reality, trying to demonstrate or show the we say actualidad, the real, the real situation right.
Speaker 1:So this is what the council was trying to do as well. So, to accomplish this, the council returns to the theology implied in the biblical and patristic understanding of mysterion or mystery, which grounds a more incarnational theology of the church and the sacraments. It's not pie in the sky, right, it's very real, okay. So that's one of the things that the council was trying to do, was trying to come to a greater balance of that truth. So then, part of the mystery of the church is that the Holy Spirit dwells in the church. So, in number four of chapter one, the mystery of the church, the Mystery of the Church, states the Spirit dwells in the church and in the hearts of the faithful, as in a temple, citing Corinthians. In them, he prays on their behalf and bears witness to the fact that they are adopted sons, citing Galatians and Romans.
Speaker 1:The church which the Spirit guides in the way of all truth, citing John, and which he unified in communion and in works of ministry. He both equips and directs with hierarchical and charismatic gifts and adorns with his fruits. By the power of the gospel, he makes the church keep the freshness of youth Uninterruptedly, he renews it and leads it to perfect union with its spouse. Yes, there is a very human element of the church, but it should not forget the fact that the Holy Spirit dwells and that the Holy Spirit is still inspiring and pushing and moving people towards God and that completion of the mission, of our own conversion, our own changing, our own transformation, being considerate, being kind, being merciful, and that it's not just about a beautiful liturgical service, it's about living what we have celebrated right. So the council fathers are trying to reach a balance here, a balance of what is real, but also that the real is not just the incarnational and the broken aspect of humanity, but also the fact that we have the indwelling of the spirit, and that is the truth as well.
Speaker 1:And it goes back to the whole idea of the earthen vessel right. So this is part of the earthen vessel kind of understanding of the essence of the church or the mystery of the church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the error that people think that, like when I sin, I just hurt myself and when I'm healed I'm healed. Instead, I think more appropriately, it's when I sin I hurt the church, yes, the community, the entire community. Yeah, and that's part of why there's that public aspect of reconciliation right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it affects reconciliation, right. Yeah, it affects everyone, right. So before the council, several decades before the council, one of my favorite theologians, pneumatologist on the Holy Spirit, yves Congar, french Dominican In the decades prior to the Second Vaticanatican council, is congar, criticized the church, criticized ecclesiology due to its lack of attention due to the holy spirit. He said that the holy spirit was the forgotten person of the trinity. So this reluctance to address the role of the Holy Spirit in the theology of the church was due to a hesitancy based upon a medieval reluctance, mostly because of the heretical sex appealing sex S-E-C-T-S.
Speaker 2:Right it's such a hard word to say S-E-C-T-S.
Speaker 1:right, it's such a hard word to say Heretical sects appealing to the charismatic work of the Holy Spirit. Right and because of those heretical movements the church kind of backed away from you know, nematology or, uh, uh, the theology of the Holy spirit in the church, right?
Speaker 1:Just like we talked the other day about typology, uh, the church kind of backed away from typology because the Protestants were kind of abusing and overusing, right? Same thing happened here, um. So modern ecclesiology began the recovery of the role of the Holy Spirit in a theology of church, as exemplified by the incarnational and pneumatological encyclical of Pope Pius XII Mystici corporis 12th, mistici Corporis. So I remember Pius XII was also the one that wrote the Divino Afflantu Spiriti, which opened up biblical studies as well. So Pope Pius XII is very important. I think he's overlooked, unfortunately. Yeah, so one of the most important and frequently overlooked contributions of the second vatican council lay in the decisive steps the council took toward recovering the role of the holy spirit in the life of the church. It recovered the augustinian view of the Holy Spirit as the soul of the church, right, and so of course a lot of people are going to like, oh, yeah, the charismatic movement, yeah, the charismatic movement, yes, praise God that the Holy Spirit was allowed some freedom there. But the whole idea of the Spirit's active participation in the life and the soul of the Bride of Christ, right, and this is a very important consideration. So then, after after paul pope, pius, the 12th mystici corporis and eve's congar's work, there was a growing sensitivity to the study of the holy spirit, or pneumatology, and it's seen throughout all of the documents of the second vatican council. They're always, you know, referring to the trinitarian aspect of God, right, so this is a very important thing. So this pneumatology can be seen, especially in the document De Verbum on the Incarnation, god's Word, right, we talked a little about. God reveals Himself, so De Verbum. God reveals himself, so Dei Verbo.
Speaker 1:And in the council's consideration of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit's role in sustaining the communion of the church, the theology of charism and in charismatic character of religious life. So, going back to that, that's one of the things the gift of religious life, the gift of religious leaders. So, for example, you have the gift of hierarchy but you also have the gift of charism, or so you have hierarchy and charism as gifts of the church to the church. So you have the hierarchy and you have religious right, church. So you have the hierarchy and you have religious right. And so that's why religious are always kind of a hybrid, right, they're kind of on the edge, right. It's sort of like they're not hierarchy and they're not just regular lay folks. They're consecrated, they make up their own category, right yeah, so that's part of that whole idea of the charismatic character. So it is then through the work of the Holy Spirit that we come to faith and are capable of accepting the kerygma, the declaration of who Jesus is right.
Speaker 1:The evangelization kerygma, the declaration of who Jesus is right. The evangelization so it is through the work of the Holy Spirit that we are capable of receiving God's word. The kerygma, which in turn leads the neophyte, or the one that's learning, or the child that's learning, to become a disciple. So he leads this person into a spiritual communion with other believers, right. And then so the spiritual communion with other believers, this family that I belong to, I desire to belong to this family of faith. Then that leads to the service of those within the community I want to serve my community and then also that leads us the service of those within the community I want to serve my community and then also that leads us to service outside of the community. Right. And so in theology and spirituality they talk about kerygma, koinonia and diakonia. So kerygma is the proclamation of faith or coming to faith, the koinonia is the service, and then the diakonia is the service to those outside of the body. Right. So those are kind of the three stages, that the Greek words, to use, those three stages of coming to faith, coming to communion and coming to service.
Speaker 1:Pope John Paul II in his apostolic exhortation on the laity Christi, fidelis Laetitiae, affirmed the judgment of the 1985 Extraordinary Synod that the notion of communion was the central and fundamental idea of the Second Vatican Council. There's that word again Synod?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it just keeps popping up. It's weird.
Speaker 1:It's not new, yeah, but it's interesting then that, okay. So how would people understand this? So Pope John Paul II is saying that the fundamental or central idea that is being taught by the Second Vatican Council is that communion is the central and fundamental idea. So communion is this belonging to one another, this interdependence, this service to one another in the body and service outside of the body. Right, that's part of the whole idea of the notion of communion. It's not just receiving the body and blood and soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, it is also the communion with those around me, as we all receive the same body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, right? So this is very important and this is again, this is part of the mystery of the church. So, again, this is kind of what defines us right.
Speaker 1:And another thing that happened in the Second Vatican Council too, was that the idea of church. It's called ecclesiology, or how church functions in the idea of sacraments and redemption. So there was a renewal in the study of church, what makes church, what makes ecclesia right. So one aspect of renewal can be traced to a 19th century development In the 19th century, and this is someone I wish I could just study some more. I already have too many books. But if I could get more books, it'd be on this dude, johan Adam Mohler.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I recognize that name. You've said his name a handful of times.
Speaker 1:So, under the influence of romantic idealism, in the University of Tübingen he advanced an understanding of the church as the continuation of the incarnation of Christ in human history. That is a huge statement that we church, mystical body of Christ. This is where we get the mystical body of Christ right, that we are a continuation of Christ's incarnation in human history. We are a continuation of his presence in the world. So Moeller's genius was to consider the church not simply as the bearer of the mystery of faith, but as itself an aspect of this mystery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that man that makes so much sense too, because Jesus tells the apostles, if those who receive you receive me, right.
Speaker 2:So I absolutely see where he's going.
Speaker 2:And something else that kind of strikes me in all of this, especially where the Holy Spirit's role is in the sustaining of the community of church and as we're talking about our brokenness and all this kind of stuff and our growth as well, as you're saying, like the neophyte learns and then slowly starts to develop, learns and then slowly starts to develop, so this thing that keeps happening, and I've never really thought about this before, so excuse me while I try to articulate it.
Speaker 2:So you and I are going to die and someone else is going to replace us and they're going to have to go on the same kind of faith journey as you and I do, where we start out fresh and we learn and our response to God will always be flawed. Somehow it's just the way it's going to be, right, right, and His response of grace to our flawed nature is such that calls us deeper into relationships. So we try again and we try again and we keep getting better and we keep getting better, but then we're going to die, right, and the next dude's going to do the same thing, right, right, and so with that, jesus is obviously flawless.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And the church as the spotless bride is obviously flawless and the church as the spotless bride is obviously flawless. And so all of this makes me think about how it's a logical necessity that the church is infallible. Yes, because I'm not fallible, or I'm sorry, I'm not infallible, I'm very fallible. Bertha here is fallible, you're fallible, everyone's fallible. Buttha, here is fallible, you're fallible, everyone's fallible. But the church can't be. And if the church is a continuation of Jesus' incarnation because whoever receives the apostles receives Jesus well, the apostles are fallible, yes, so there's got to be something here, and it has to be the Holy Spirit that is sustaining that communion and keeping things going.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And so then we have to write this down. We can talk about the Petrine office and the infallibility. That's what it's based on. It's based upon the presence of the Holy Spirit, the keys that are given to Peter the Petrine office. It's not necessarily the person of the Pope who is sitting in that particular cathedra right now, but it is the office of Peter. It is the Petrine office, yeah. And that particular individual happens to be the vehicle through which that particular office functions in the world today, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and that's exactly the same, and this is why, yeah, we've got to talk about this now, because it's exactly the same for the Church. The Church is the vehicle that the Holy Spirit is moving through, and it's completely flawed. As we said in the last episode, we've been trying to mess this up for 2,000 years. We can't kill this thing. It's so exciting. It just gets me all amped up Whenever the little light bulbs turn on and the dots connect and stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm so happy, it's good, but we've been going for a while, so, um, let's go ahead, let's wrap this one up and we'll continue the next time with the primacy of christ, because that's the next chapter. Oh, this is great. Okay, I love this stuff. Thank you, love it, thank you.
Speaker 1:We're just nerds, that's all.
Speaker 2:It's okay yeah, hopefully someone else loves it too. Okay, all right, father, I will see you next time. Everyone who joined us, thank you for joining us. Please share the podcast with others. It really would make a difference if everyone could take the time to share us with one person that you know and just kind of help spread the word yes. Otherwise, thank you. We will keep praying for us. We're going to pray for y'all. Thank you. We'll see you next time. God bless, bye.
