1.THE CHURCH The eternal and all-glorious God, the Father almighty, created the whole world for his glory. He created the human race to share in his own life and to serve him, ruling over all creatures. Even when the human race disobeyed him and lost his friendship, he did not abandon his own creation, but sought to return it to his original purpose. In Abraham God promised to bless all nations. At Sinai he chose a people for himself to witness to his faithfulness and truth. In the fullness of time, he sent his Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, to be the savior of the world. Through his life, death and resurrection, Christ redeemed the human race, destroying death and restoring life. That we might live for the purpose for which we were created, the Holy Spirit was sent by the Father through the Son as the promised gift of blessing to complete the work of the Son on earth and to bring us the fullness of grace. Throughout his work of re-creation, it has pleased God to make men and women holy and save them not merely as individuals without any mutual bonds, but by making them into a single people, a people which acknowledges him in truth and serves him in holiness (LG 9). The Israel of the old covenant was the original revelation of God's purpose to have a people for himself, a holy nation, a royal priesthood (Ex 19:5-6). However, even before the foundation of the world God chose us in Christ to be his sons and daughters, priests before him (Eph 1:4-5). Those he chose, he redeemed, justified, sanctified and reconciled to God as one body in Christ (Eph 1:12). The Church of Christ is the vehicle of God's purpose, the instrument of God's plan. By its service of God in the world, especially by its missionary service of calling the human race to return to its Father and to find life in God's Son, the Church of Christ furthers God's plan. But even more, it fulfills God's purpose for the human race by what it is. In its life, in its very existence, it is the household of God, a holy temple to the Lord, a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Eph 2:19-22). As such, the Church is the initial budding forth on earth of the kingdom of God (LG 5), a sign of that union with God which is his plan for the human race (LG 1), a plan that will only be fully accomplished when Christ comes again and God is everything to everyone (1 Co 15:28). Those human beings who respond to God's call through the gospel of Christ receive their share in the fulfillment of God's purpose by being built into the holy temple so that they might be a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Eph 2:22). Their Christian life, then, is a partnership with other Christians in which they share the same inheritance, claim the same promise and belong to the same body; for Christ has only one (Eph 3:6). In entering into communion with one another, they enter into communion with God (1 Jn 1:3). What the Church is in Christ can only be fully seen by the eyes of faith, because it is established in heavenly places and exists through the Holy Spirit (Eph 1:3, 2:18). At the same time, the Church is visible now because the Lord intends it to be the earthly expression of human life renewed in the image and likeness of the creator (Col 3:10). Even more he intends the life of the Christian people, especially in its oneness, to be something that the world, the unspiritual, unconverted world, might see and so believe in Christ's word (Jn 17:21). To be sure, by God's design the life of the Christian Church on earth is incomplete in its realization in this age. Likewise, it is marred by the weakness and sinfulness of its human members, including its leaders, and is therefore not an unflawed accomplishment of God's purpose. God has, however, achieved in his work that which he aimed at, and his Church truly exists. The visible assembly of the Christian people and the spiritual community, the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly things, are not two separate realities, but one interlocked reality comprised of a divine and human element, in a way similar to the divine and human united in Christ (LG 8). Both together are the one Church of Christ. As an earthly, visible body of people, the Christian Church has to be ordered, with a common pattern of life and a government. If it were not, it would lack the completeness of a human community and so fall short of God's purpose for its earthly existence. In our day, however, there are many bodies of Christians ordered into churches and into ecclesial communities that live separately from one another, even though present in the same geographical locality. That might lead us to believe that the Church of Christ has lost elements essential to its oneness. However, we believe that the Catholic Church has preserved all the elements God intended it to have, and we recognize that the Catholic Church has a special place among the various Christian bodies because of the way the Church of Christ subsists in it (LG 8). We do not deny the presence of Christ and of his truth and his sanctification in other bodies of the Christian people, but we recognize in the Catholic Church a continuation of the Church of Christ from the days of the apostles. This continuity is especially due to the preservation of the apostolic succession and the universal presidency of the first bishop, the successor of Peter at Rome. We likewise recognize that all divinely revealed truth and the fullness of salvation have been given to the Catholic Church (UR 3). We can acknowledge that greater holiness and greater Christian zeal as well as a greater appreciation for certain elements in divine revelation can be found in some of our fellow Christians who are not Catholics than we ourselves possess as individual Catholics. Nonetheless, we believe that being a member of the Catholic Church is the way to be most fully incorporated into the Church of Christ. We therefore wish all that we do, in whatever circumstances of life, to be the expression of our life as Catholics. Some of what we do, we do as members of a secular society. Some of what we do, we do as fellow Christians with those who are not members of the Catholic Church in groupings that are not under the direct authority of the Catholic hierarchy. Some of what we do, we do as Catholics in voluntary associations with other Catholics, public or private, officially recognized or not officially recognized. Some of what we do, we do in the context of the normal structures of the Catholic Church under the presidency of the Catholic hierarchy. Nonetheless, our life as Catholics embraces all of these situations, and we wish the way we handle these situations to be an expression of our life as Catholics. We therefore wish them to be carried out in good relationship with the governing authorities of the Catholic Church, under their authority in the appropriate way. We wish our lives and actions in these various situations to be means of extending the reign of Christ and a way for the leaven of the Catholic Church in the world to be a benefit to others.
2. Renewal The Church, the body of Christ, has Christ and his Spirit dwelling within. It has every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Yet it is in need of renewal. It is at the same time holy and always in need of being purified. It is continually pursuing the path of penance and renewal (LG 9). Recognizing the predestined call and nature of the glorious Church of God (Eph 5:27) should not lead to a failure to recognize the actual state of the people of God and their need. To confess that the essentials of Christian teaching and the means of salvation can be found in the Catholic Church is not to say that the actual life of the Church always adequately expresses what the Church contains. Nor is it to say that its teaching and means of sanctification always effectively reach those who are members of the Church. The gift of God leads to a call to his people to realize ever more fully in the circumstances of this life everything he has called his people to. The renewing work of the Holy Spirit is an ongoing part of the life of the pilgrim people of God. In every age, the Holy Spirit begins movements of renewal. Sometimes he does so through the ordinary forms of church life, sometimes through special interventions that may lead to new forms of Christian living. We live in a special time of renewal in the Catholic Church. We live after a Council that was called to accomplish a needed spiritual renewal, a renewal of its leaders and of the flocks entrusted to them. This renewal was called for so that God's glory might be revealed in the face of Christ and in his Church in a way more manifest to all men and women (Vatican Council: Opening Message). We are called to a renewal of Catholic life through a return to the sources of scripture and tradition. We are likewise called to a Catholic life more up-to-date in the way it takes into account the current realities of our rapidly changing world. We live in an age which makes specially urgent the Church's task of bringing all men and women to full union with Christ, the light of the nations (LG 1). We therefore live in a time in which we cannot simply rely on the accomplishments or forms of life of the past. Rather we must live the unchanging life of Christ and his Church in new ways. These have to be both more effective for our age and more faithful to what was entrusted to the Church in the beginning.
3. Covenant Community
As throughout the ages the Holy Spirit has been active among the Christian people to bring about renewal, groups of Christians have come together to respond. Many Christians have come together to perform some special services or foster spiritual growth with no further bond among themselves than that necessary for achieving particular goals. But the human race is naturally social, and it has pleased God to unite those who believe in Christ in the people of God (cf. 1 Pet 2:5-10), and into one body (cf. 1 Co 12:12, AA 18). Therefore, the very nature of the Christian people is to be brothers and sisters in the Lord, one in the Spirit in the bonds of peace and mutual love (Eph 4:3). Consequently, when the Holy Spirit renews his people, he often leads groups of Christians to join themselves to one another to live more fully the life together of the Christian people. Such a coming together is not intended as an alternative to the life of the Church. Rather, it is a renewed living out of what the life of the Church should be and so signifies the communion and unity of the Church of Christ (AA 18). In our day, desire for such coming together is felt with greater strength because of the loss of natural community in society and in Catholic parishes. With this has come the weakening of mutual help for the needs of human life and of mutual support for Christian living. The Catholic Church has recognized the existence of such a spiritual impetus among the Christian people and has sought to encourage it. Consequently, the formation of new Christian groupings is now canonically recognized by the Church. It is protected by the right to freely establish and direct special associations to foster the Christian vocation in the world (CIC, c 215). In recent years the Lord has brought into existence new forms of Christian life that are called covenant communities. They are covenantal because they are based on the voluntary commitment of members to one another in a serious way that is not necessarily lifelong and does not necessarily partake of the nature of a vow. The commitment is in the form of a personal covenant of brothers and sisters one to another that supplements and strengthens the relationship that comes from being baptized members of the Church. They are communities because they share together their spiritual and material goods as a way of expressing their relationship as brothers and sisters in the Lord. The relationship together of the members of covenant communities is personal and family-like, with a concern that extends to the whole of their lives. In that it contrasts to the partial and functional relationships that predominate in our society and tend to increasingly prevail in Catholic parishes and organizations. At the same time, the members' relationship to one another is not normally the kind of commitment that is found in religious communities and secular institutes, a commitment which puts the whole of each person's life under obedience to the leadership of the community. In this sense, the commitment together is a limited commitment. Those in authority in the community have the role of helping the members to live an active Christian life and to fulfill the commitments to one another they make in the covenant. There are many types of covenant communities. Some are together primarily for mutual support in Christian life and service, while others are missionary bodies, established to be available to the work of the Lord for particular services. Some are together for the renewal of the parochial or diocesan life of the Catholic Church, while others engage primarily in an evangelistic or social apostolate in the wider society. Some are together to live a special spirituality, while others have no other spirituality than the common one of the Church. All these communities are at one in their desire to live together as brothers and sisters their Christian way of life. To the degree that covenant communities arise out of a desire to live more fully the life of the Church, they are patterned upon that life. They look to scripture for instruction in how Christians live together and how Christian leadership functions. They likewise look to the tradition of the Church for models of how to live Christian life together and how to relate to the broader Church. They desire to live the life of the people of God in communion with the hierarchy of the Church within the limits of what Catholic teaching, Catholic canon law and special hierarchical approval allows to them.
4. Relating to Others
While there are covenant communities whose members have a special life together in one location with common ownership of goods, most covenant communities are made up of Christians who live among non-Christians in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life. They engage in secular professions and occupations (LG 31). They are commonly involved with others in a variety of relationships outside the context of the covenant community. Insofar as members of covenant communities live in secular nations, they should be subject to the government of the nation they belong to and should abide by its laws (Ro 13:5, Tit 3:1). They should be ready for any honest work, including work to improve the temporal order (AA 7, 5, Tit 3:1). They should seek to do good to all, including those not of the household of the faith (Gal 6:10). They should be especially zealous to shoulder the splendid burden of working to make the divine message of salvation known and accepted by all men and women throughout the world (AA 3). Members of covenant communities, as members of the Christian people and of human society, should see no necessary conflict in belonging to both at the same time. Rather they should strive to harmonize the rights and duties that belong to their membership in the Church and in human society, including their responsibilities to the two authorities (LG 36). At times they may engage as members of their covenant communities in special services to society joined with others who are not Christians. In such cases, it is preferable to do so in a way that allows joint supervision to be exercised by responsible Christians along with others. Members of covenant communities should also recognize the great importance of unity among all Christians, one of the chief concerns of the Second Vatican Council. They should desire to cooperate in that movement which was fostered by the grace of the Holy Spirit for the restoration of unity among Christians. They do so by prayer, brotherly love, and concern for renewal in the Catholic Church, as all members of the Catholic Church should (UR 4). They also can do so by living their Catholic life in a way which, while preserving the essentials, expresses in the most effective way possible a Catholicism which is now accessible to other Christians. It therefore should appear in as Christ-centered, scriptural, and patristic a light as possible (UR 11, DV 21). Sometimes members of covenant communities join with their brothers and sisters in the Lord who are not Catholics for joint works of Christian outreach and service. They especially join in that evangelistic and missionary outreach that can be fostered by unity among the followers of Christ. It is preferable to engage in such works with joint supervision by Catholic leaders and others. Such works should follow the ecumenical guidelines of the Catholic Church and the local dioceses. Members of covenant communities also at times enter into brotherly relationships within a broader ecumenical community, relationships involving a bond of charity, prayer and witness with Christians or groups of Christians belonging to other confessions. When they do so, they normally form, with the approval of the bishops, Catholic associations or fellowships. The leaders of such associations share with other leaders in the supervision of the ecumenical body. Members of covenant communities sometimes make those in mixed marriages a special concern. They help the partners to see how there can be a life together that reaches to all things and a respect for the authority of the husband as head of the family without weakening the Christian faith of the family, compromising the faith of the Catholic partner, or failing to respect the authority of the leaders of the churches the partners belong to. Sometimes they reach out to Catholics involved in Christian outreaches led by non-Catholics, teaching them the value of their Catholic faith and supporting them in living it. In all this they seek to confess before the whole world with all Christians their faith in God, one and three, and in the incarnate Son of God, our Redeemer and Lord (UR 12). Finally, members of covenant communities as members of the wider Catholic Church seek to be a benefit to the whole Church. Some work in and contribute to dioceses, parishes and church organizations that are not sponsored or led by the covenant community. Some promote renewal or stand for integral Christian truth in the crisis of faith in our day. All pray for the Church and live the life of members of the one Church whether within the context of the covenant community or within other contexts. The covenant communities themselves sometimes serve corporately within the Church, although more commonly their contributions come through their members engaging directly in Church life and organizations. Even where the community as a whole does not serve corporately within the Church, they should always seek to strengthen the Church by the testimony of a renewed Christian life. The communitarian spirit of covenant communities should lead them to seek to contribute to the unity and common good of the broader people of which they are a part. |
