the glory of mother church (continued)

Irish Jesuit Province

The Glory of Mother Church (Continued)Author(s): Michael ConnollySource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 72, No. 858 (Dec., 1944), pp. 502-507Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20515324 .

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502

The Glory of Mother Church (Continued from November issue)

By Michael Connolly, S.J.

?5

ONE of the reasons why Christ is Called Head of the Church (says Pius XII) is because He founded the Church; and He founded her not

merely when He sketched her constitution, chose her

first rulers and commissioned them, but also when He

died upon the Cross. Just as Eve, the Mother of all the living, was formed from the side of the first Adam as he lay asleep in

Paradise, so the Church, the Mother of all who live supernatur

ally, issued from the pierced side of the New Adam, as He slept in death on the Cross (27). What is the meaning of this figura tive language used by the Fathers and by Leo XIII ? That the Church derives the supernatural efficacy of her teaching, ruling and sanctifying from Christ's painful death on the Cross. Were

it not for that death the pastors of the Church would instruct "heir flocks with as little power to move them as the old pagan

philosophers of whom Voltaire said that not one reformed even

the street in which he lived. In vain would the Church's

Hierarchy pass laws for the guidance of the Faithful, if Christ's death had not lent force to their ordinances. The Seven Sacra

ments were empty rites if the invisible influence streaming from the Cross did not touch them to life (30).

This vivifying influence of Calvary (the sanctifying and actual

grace merited for us by the death of Christ) has the effect of



THE GLORY OF MOTHER CHURCH 508

transforming the souls subjected to it into the likeness of Christ. And membership of the Church is the normal method of coming under that influence; extra Eccles?am nulla saius. The visible Church is the means which God has devised for effecting that

wonderful exchange by which the Divine became human in order that humanity might become divine.

" God became man in

order that man might become God ", as St. Augustine boldly puts it. The Eternal Word has shared our human nature in order that we might be made sharers in the Divine Nature

(Cf. ii, Peter, 1, 4). It is as living members of the Church that we share the Divine Nature and thus, resemble Christ in His

Divinity as well as in His Humanity. This is another reason why Christ is the Head of the Church. The head of the body, though the most excellent member, resembles the other ipembers in nature. And in the Church, Christ, however exalted His

dignity and excellence, yet resembles the faithful in His

Humanity and in His Divinity (44). "

Ye shall be as gods ", said the tempter to the first Adam ; and by a divine irony the

New Adam makes the unwitting prophecy come true. A consequence of this supernatural resemblance by which men

become Children of God is that the Blessed Trinity dwells in them as in Its temples.

" If any man love me my Father will

lov0 him and we will come to him and make our abode in him ". As a foretaste of Eternal Life the Three Divine Persons give themselves to the members of the Mystical .Body of Christ in such a way as to be known and loved in a unique, supernatural and

mysterious way. Pius XII illustrates this by comparing it to the union by knowledge and love which is the Beatific Vision. Fr. Faber expresses the same idea briefly and beautifully: "

Grace is Glory in exile, Glory is Grace at home "

(79). A further point of resemblance between Christ and the Church

may best be expressed in the Pope's own words :



504 THE IRISH MONTHLY

" The whole Body of the Church, no less than the individual

members, should bear resemblance to Christ. Such is His will. And we see that realised when following in the footsteps of her Founder she teaches, she governs and offers the Divine Sacrifice.

Embracing the evangelical counsels she reflects the Redeemer's

poverty, obedience and virginal purity. Enriched with religious orders of many different kinds as with so many precious jewefs, she points out Christ deep in prayer on the mountain, or preach ing to the people or healing the sick and wounded and bringing sinners back to the path of virtue, or in a word doing good to

everyone. What wonder then if, while she walks this earth, ?he be persecuted like Christ, hounded and weighed down with sorrows." Readers will remember what an eloquent commen

tary on this passage is Monsignor Benson's Christ in the Church.

?6

" Of His fullness we have all received ". In Christ, Our

Redeemer, is an inexhaustible reservoir of the Grace by which men are made holy. Through union with Him in the Church that Grace is poured into our soulsf. Here again the metaphor of head and members is very apt. The head of the physical body is far more richly endowed than any of the other members ; it is the seat of all five senses, while the rest of the body has only the sense of touch. And " as the nerves are diffused from the head to all the members of our body, giving them the power to feel and move, so Our Saviour pour? forth into the Church His

power and virtue, giving to the faithful a clearer understanding and a more ardent desire of the things of God

" (47). The head

vitalises the rest of the physical body, and Christ, the Head of the Church, vivifies supernaturally the members of the Church.



THE GLORY OF MOTHER CHURCH 505

But this life-giving influence of Christ is more than a metaphor ; the faithful

" in Christ

" really live by His divine life through

Sanctifying Grace; and when, through Christ's supernatural enlightening and impulse, they conserve and augment the divine life within them, Christ is the chief author of those salutary acts by which they grow more like God and more worthy of

Eternal Life. They live by the life of Christ ; Christ lives in them ; He causes them to live and act supernaturally as the tree trunk quickens' to a new life the slip grafted upon it. From all of which it is clear that Christ is the Head of the Church in a much more real sense than that in which a superior is the head of his community ; the Church is not merely Christ's " moral

body "

; she is His Mystical Body (52).

?7

It is woith while, however, to dwell for a moment on the fact that Christ is indeed the Ruler of the Church. He governs

directly, though invisibly, by means of that internal illumination and guidance of which we have just spoken.

" And by this

internal government He . . . not only cares for each individual

but also watches over the whole Church, enlightening and forti

fying her rulers so that they may faithfully and fruitfully dis

charge their functions "

(87). Further, "

the divine Redeemer rules His Mystical Body also visibly and ordinarily through His

Vicar on earth ", and through the Bishops "

each of whom is

also, so far as his own diocese is concerned, a true Pastor who

tends and rules in the name of Christ the flock committed to his care "

(40). And the practical conclusions are : first, that "

it is a dangerous error to hold that one can adhere to Christ as Head

of the Church without loyal allegiance to His Vicar on earth "



506 THE IRISH MONTHLY

(39); and, in the second place, "the people must venerate

Bishops as successors of the Apostles by divine institution "

(40). Obedience to human superiors, even ecclesiastical superiors,

is a yoke which most men find galling at times. Some will find it too galling to be borne if they do not remember that it is Our

Lord Himself who has devised the hierarchical structure of the Church. In a hierarchical society some rule and some must

obey, and in the society which Christ has planned and founded, all, save one only, are in varying degrees subject to human

superiors. That is an indication of the importance which Our Lord attaches to the virtue of obedience. He knows the diffi

culties of obedience, especially when the human failings of ecclesiastical superiors are evident. Therefore, He has taken care to furnish us with example and motive for our obedience.

Example: "

He was subject to them "

(Luke, ii, 51); "

He became obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross "

(Philip, ii, 8). And for motive He gives us love and reverence of Himself : "

He that heareth you heareth me."

It will also fnake our obedience easier if we remember the pur pose of ecclesiastical rule, which Pius XII mentions in passing (36). Christ, like the ideal Kin? He is, rules His followers not for any gain of His own but for the well-being of His subjects. The purpose of ecclesiastical rule is to guide the members of the Church to Eternal life, their truest well-being. The Vicar of Christ and his Bishops are not tyrants governing the Faithful for selfish profit or ambition. They are Shepherds. We are so

accustomed to call them ** pastors

J that we forget the word's

literal meaning. They guide the Flock of Christ to safe pas tures and constrain it to quit regions where dangers lurk. Some times the sheep are wayward and the shepherding must be

vigorous. But if the sheep were wise they would bless the rod of correction. '*Thy rod and thy staff they have comforted



THE QLORY OF MOTHER CHURCH 507

me ", says psalm 22, which commences with the words: Dominus regit me. It gives a picture of what Our Saviour,

" the

model and pattern of Good Shepherds "

(36), meant the human

rulers of His Church to be. Dominus regit me may be trans lated

" the Lord ruleth me " or "

the Lord is my Shepherd ". For the psalmist the good shepherd was the model for the king. And when Christ made St. Peter King of the New Israel, He said to him :.

" Pasee oves meas "

(John, xxi, 15) "

Shepherd my sheep ". The Church is the

" little flock "

of Christ.

?8

These few pages will, it is hoped, suggest to the reader how much of the beauty of the Church, the spiritual daughter of the

King of Heaven, is inward. Though even in her visible external structure she does not lack majesty and grandeur? her chief title to our esteem is that wonderful inner life of hers which is visible

only to the eye of Faith. That life is the life of Christ himself. Our Lord dwells and energises in the Church. She is God's

tabernacle in our midst. Ecce tabernaculum Dei cum hominibus.

Through the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church the Redeemer of the human race teaches, sanctifies and saves the

men of the twentieth century. Her members are truly cives sanctorum et domestici Dei, nationals of the Kingdom of Heaven and members of God's own household (Cf. 44, 66).



the glory of mother church (continued)

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