The Church of Mercy (4 page)

In the Creed we say, “I believe in one . . . Church.” In other words, we profess that the Church is one, and this Church by her nature is one. However, if we look at the Catholic Church in the world, we discover that it includes almost three thousand dioceses scattered over all the continents: so many languages, so many cultures! Present here are many bishops from many diverse cultures, from many countries. There is a bishop of Sri Lanka, a bishop of South Africa, a bishop from India, there are many here . . . bishops from Latin America. The Church is spread throughout the world! And yet the thousands of Catholic communities form a unit. How can this be?

We find a concise answer in the
Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church
, which says: the Catholic Church in the world “has but one faith, one sacramental life, one apostolic succession, one common hope, and one and the same charity” (no. 161). It is a beautiful definition—clear, it orients us well. Unity in faith, hope, and charity, unity in the sacraments, in the ministry; these are like the pillars that hold up the one great edifice of the Church. Wherever we go, even to the smallest parish in the most remote corner of this earth, there is the one Church. We are at home, we are in the family, and we are among brothers and sisters. And this is a great gift of God! The Church is one for us all. There is not one Church for Europeans, one for Africans, one for Americans, one for Asians, and one for those who live in Oceania. No, she is one and the same everywhere. It is like being in a family: some of its members may be far away, scattered across the world, but the deep bonds that unite all the members of a family stay solid however great the distance.

I am thinking, for example, of my experience of World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro. In that endless crowd of young people on the beach at Copacabana we could hear many languages spoken, we could note very different facial features, and we came across different cultures. Yet there was profound unity—they formed one Church, they were united, and one could sense it. Let us all ask ourselves: As a Catholic, do I feel this unity? As a Catholic, do I live this unity of the Church? Or does it not concern me because I am closed within my own small group or within myself? Am I one of those who “privatize” the Church to their own group, their own country or their own friends? It is sad to find a privatized Church out of selfishness or a lack of faith. It is sad! When I hear that so many Christians in the world are suffering, am I indifferent, or is it as if one of my family were suffering? When I think or hear it said that many Christians are persecuted and give their lives for their faith, does this touch my heart or not? Am I open to a brother or sister of the family who is giving his or her life for Jesus Christ? Do we pray for each other? I have a question for you, but don’t answer out loud, only in your heart. How many of you pray for Christians who are being persecuted? How many? Everyone respond in your heart. Do I pray for my brother, for my sister who is in difficulty because they confess and defend their faith? It is important to look beyond our own boundaries, to feel that we are Church, one family in God!

Let us go a step further and ask ourselves: Are there wounds in this unity? Can we hurt this unity? Unfortunately, we see that in the process of history, and now too, we do not always live in unity. At times misunderstanding arises, as well as conflict, tension, and division, which injure the Church, and so she does not have the face we should like her to have; she does not express love, the love that God desires. It is we who create wounds! And if we look at the divisions that still exist among Christians, Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants . . . we are aware of the effort required to make this unity fully visible. God gives us unity, but we often have a lot of trouble putting it into practice. It is necessary to seek to build communion, to teach communion, to get the better of misunderstandings and divisions, starting with the family, with ecclesial reality, in ecumenical dialogue too. Our world needs unity; this is an age in which we all need unity. We need reconciliation and communion, and the Church is the home of communion.

St. Paul told the Christians of Ephesus, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:1–3). Humility, meekness, magnanimity, and love to preserve unity! These, these are the roads, the true roads of the Church. Let us listen to this again. Humility against vanity, against arrogance—humility, meekness, magnanimity, and love preserve unity. Then Paul continued: there is one body, that of Christ, that we receive in the Eucharist; and one Spirit, the Holy Spirit, who enlivens and constantly re-creates the Church; one hope, eternal life; one single faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all (see Eph. 4:4–6). The wealth of what unites us! This is the true wealth: what unites us, not what divides us. This is the wealth of the Church! Let each one ask him- or herself today, “Do I increase harmony in my family, in my parish, in my community, or am I a gossip? Am I a cause of division or embarrassment?” And you know the harm that gossiping does to the Church, to the parishes, the communities. Gossip does harm! Gossip wounds. Before Christians open their mouths to gossip, they should bite their tongue! To bite one’s tongue: this does us good because the tongue swells and can no longer speak, cannot gossip. “Am I humble enough to patiently stitch up, through sacrifice, the open wounds in communion?”

Finally, the last step, which takes us to a greater depth. Now, this is a good question: who is the driving force of the Church’s unity? It is the Holy Spirit, whom we have all received at baptism and also in the sacrament of confirmation. It is the Holy Spirit. Our unity is not primarily a fruit of our own consensus or of the democracy in the Church, or of our effort to get along with one another; rather, it comes from the One who creates unity in diversity, because the Holy Spirit is harmony and always creates harmony in the Church. And harmonious unity in the many different cultures, languages, and ways of thinking. The Holy Spirit is the mover. This is why prayer is important. It is the soul of our commitment as men and women of communion, of unity. Pray to the Holy Spirit that he may come and create unity in the Church.

Let us ask the Lord: Lord, grant that we be more and more united, never to be instruments of division. Enable us to commit ourselves, as the beautiful Franciscan prayer says, to sowing love where there is hatred; where there is injury, pardon; and union where there is discord.

In the Creed, after professing “I believe in one Church,” we add the adjective
holy
; we affirm the sanctity of the Church, and this is a characteristic that has been present from the beginning in the consciousness of early Christians, who were simply called “the holy people” (see Acts 9:13, 32, 41; Rom. 8:27; 1 Cor. 6:1), because they were certain that it is the action of God, the Holy Spirit, that sanctifies the Church.

But in what sense is the Church holy if we see that the historical Church, on her long journey through the centuries, has had so many difficulties, problems, dark moments? How can a Church consisting of human beings, of sinners, be holy? Sinful men, sinful women, sinful priests, sinful sisters, sinful bishops, sinful cardinals, a sinful pope? Everyone. How can such a Church be holy?

To respond to this question, I would like to be led by a passage from the letter of St. Paul to the Christians of Ephesus. The apostle, taking as an example family relationships, states that “Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her” (Eph. 5:25–26). Christ loved the Church, by giving himself on the cross. And this means that the Church is holy because she comes from God, who is holy; he is faithful to her and does not abandon her to the power of death and of evil (see Matt. 16:18). She is holy because Jesus Christ, the Holy One of God (cf. Mark 1:24), is indissolubly united to her (see Matt. 28:20); she is holy because she is guided by the Holy Spirit who purifies, transforms, and renews. She is not holy by her own merits but because God makes her holy; it is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and of his gifts. It is not we who make her holy. It is God, the Holy Spirit, who in his love makes the Church holy.

You could say to me, “But the Church is made up of sinners; we see them every day.” And this is true: we are a Church of sinners. And we sinners are called to let ourselves be transformed, renewed, sanctified by God. Throughout history, some have been tempted to say that the Church is the Church of only the pure and the perfectly consistent, and it expels all the rest. This is not true! This is heresy! The Church, which is holy, does not reject sinners; she does not reject us all; she does not reject us because she calls everyone, welcomes them, is open even to those furthest from her; she calls everyone to allow themselves to be enfolded by the mercy, the tenderness, and the forgiveness of the Father, who offers everyone the possibility of meeting him, of journeying toward sanctity.

“Well! Father, I am a sinner; I have tremendous sins. How can I possibly feel part of the Church?” Dear brother, dear sister, this is exactly what the Lord wants, that you say to him, “Lord, here I am, with my sins.” Is one of you here without sin? Anyone? No one, not one of us. We all carry our sins with us. But the Lord wants to hear us say to him, “Forgive me, help me to walk, change my heart!” And the Lord can change your heart. In the Church, the God we encounter is not a merciless judge but is like the Father in the Gospel parable. You may be like the son who left home, who sank to the depths, farthest from the Gospel. When you have the strength to say, “I want to come home,” you will find the door open. God will come to meet you because he is always waiting for you—God is always waiting for you. God embraces you, kisses you, and celebrates. That is how the Lord is, that is how the tenderness of our heavenly Father is. The Lord wants us to belong to a Church that knows how to open her arms and welcome everyone, that is not a house for the few, but a house for everyone, where all can be renewed, transformed, sanctified by his love—the strongest and the weakest, sinners, the indifferent, those who feel discouraged or lost.

The Church offers all the possibility of following a path of holiness, which is the path of the Christian; she brings us to encounter Jesus Christ in the sacraments, especially in confession and in the Eucharist; she communicates the Word of God to us, she lets us live in charity, in the love of God for all. Let us ask ourselves, then, Will we let ourselves be sanctified? Are we a Church that calls and welcomes sinners with open arms, that gives courage and hope, or are we a Church closed in on herself? Are we a Church where the love of God dwells, where one cares for the other, where one prays for the other?

A final question: what can I, a weak fragile sinner, do? God says to you,
Do not be afraid of holiness; do not be afraid to aim high, to let yourself be loved and purified by God; do not be afraid to let yourself be guided by the Holy Spirit
. Let us be infected by the holiness of God. Every Christian is called to sanctity (see Dogmatic Constitution,
Lumen gentium
, nos. 19–42); and sanctity does not consist especially in doing extraordinary things, but in allowing God to act. It is the meeting of our weakness with the strength of his grace, it is having faith in his action that allows us to live in charity, to do everything with joy and humility, for the glory of God and as a service to our neighbor. There is a celebrated saying by the French writer Léon Bloy, who in the last moments of his life said, “The only real sadness in life is not becoming a saint.” Let us not lose the hope of holiness; let us follow this path. Do we want to be saints? The Lord awaits us, with open arms; he waits to accompany us on the path to sanctity. Let us live in the joy of our faith, let us allow ourselves to be loved by the Lord . . . let us ask for this gift from God in prayer, for ourselves, and for others.

“I believe in one, holy, catholic . . . Church.” Today we pause to reflect on this mark of the Church: we say she is catholic, it is the Year of Catholicity. First of all, what does
catholic
mean? It comes from the Greek
kath’ olon
, which means “according to the whole,” the totality. In what sense does this totality apply to the Church? In what sense do we say the Church is catholic? I would say there are three basic meanings.

First, the Church is catholic because she is the space, the home in which
the faith
is proclaimed to us
in its entirety
, in which the salvation brought to us by Christ is offered to everyone. The Church enables us to encounter the mercy of God, which transforms us, for in her Jesus Christ is present who has given her the true confession of faith, the fullness of the sacramental life, and the authenticity of the ordained ministry. In the Church each one of us finds what is needed to believe, to live as Christians, to become holy, and to journey to every place and through every age.

To give an example, we can say that it is like family life. In the family, everything that enables us to grow, to mature, and to live is given to each of us. We cannot grow up by ourselves, we cannot journey on our own, in isolation; rather, we journey and grow in a community, in a family. And so it is in the Church! In the Church we can listen to the Word of God with the assurance that it is the message that the Lord has given us; in the Church we can encounter the Lord in the sacraments, which are the open windows through which the light of God is given to us, streams from which we can draw God’s very life; in the Church we learn to live in the communion and love that come from God. Each one of us can ask himself or herself today: How do I live in the Church? When I go to church, is it as though I were at the stadium, at a football match? Is it as though I were at the cinema? No, it is something else. How do I go to church? How do I receive the gifts that the Church offers me to grow and mature as a Christian? Do I participate in the life of the community, or do I go to church and withdraw into my own problems, isolating myself from others? In this first sense, the Church is catholic because she is everyone’s home. Everyone is a child of the Church, and in her all find their home.

A second meaning: the Church is catholic because she is
universal:
she is spread abroad through every part of the world, and she proclaims the Gospel to every man and to every woman. The Church is not a group of the elite; she does not concern only the few. The Church has no limits; she is sent to the totality of people, to the totality of the human race. And the one Church is present even in her smallest parts. Everyone can say: in my parish the Catholic Church is present, because it too is part of the universal Church, since it too contains the fullness of Christ’s gifts: the faith, the sacraments, the (ordained) ministry. It is in communion with the bishop, with the pope, and it is open to everyone without distinction. The Church does not rest solely beneath the shadow of our steeple; rather, she embraces a vast number of peoples and nations who profess the same faith, are nourished by the same Eucharist, and are served by the same pastors. To feel that we are in communion with the whole Church, with all of the Catholic communities of the world great and small—this is beautiful! And then, to feel we are all on a mission, great and small communities alike, that we all must open our doors and go out for the sake of the Gospel. Let us ask ourselves, then, what do I do in order to communicate to others the joy of encountering the Lord, the joy of belonging to the Church? Proclaiming and bearing witness to the faith is not the work of the few; it also concerns me, you, each one of us!

A third and final thought: the Church is catholic because she is the “home of harmony,” where
unity and diversity
know how to merge in order to become a great source of wealth. Let us think about the image of a symphony, which implies accord, harmony, various instruments playing together. Each one preserves its own unmistakable timbre, and the sounds characteristic of each blend together around a common theme. Then there is the one who directs it, the conductor, and as the symphony is performed all play together in harmony, but the timbre of each individual instrument is never eliminated; indeed, the uniqueness of each is greatly enhanced!

This is a beautiful image illustrating that the Church is like a great orchestra in which there is great variety. We are not all the same, and we do not all have to be the same. We are all different, varied, each of us with our own special qualities. And this is the beauty of the Church: everyone brings their own gifts, which God has given, for the sake of enriching others. And between the various components there is diversity; however, it is a diversity that does not enter into conflict and opposition. It is a variety that allows the Holy Spirit to blend it into harmony. He is the true “Maestro.” He is harmony. And here let us ask ourselves: In our communities do we live in harmony or do we argue among ourselves? In my parish community, in my movement, in the place where I am part of the Church, is there gossip? If there is gossip, there is no harmony but rather conflict. And this is not the Church. The Church is everyone in harmony—never gossip about others, never argue! Let us accept others; let us accept that there is a fitting variety, that this person is different, that this person thinks about things in this way or that—that within one and the same faith we can think about things differently. Or do we tend to make everything uniform? But uniformity kills life. The life of the Church is variety, and when we want to impose this uniformity on everyone, we kill the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray to the Holy Spirit, who is truly the author of this unity in variety, of this harmony, that he might make us ever more “catholic” in this Church that is catholic and universal!