Loving the Church: Retreat to John Paul II and the Papal Household by Schoenborn Cardinal Christoph

Author:Schoenborn, Cardinal Christoph [Schoenborn, Cardinal Christoph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9780898706765
Published: 2013-11-04T05:00:00+00:00

THIRD DAY

Fourth Meditation

The Church Born from the Side of Christ

The whole earthly life of Jesus is “foundational” of the Church in the broad sense that we have outlined in the three previous meditations today. Now we need to go one step farther in the company of the Catechism:

The Church is born primarily of Christ’s total self-giving for our salvation, anticipated in the institution of the Eucharist and fulfilled on the cross. “The origin and growth of the Church are symbolized by the blood and water which flowed from the open side of the crucified Jesus” [LG 3]. “For it was from the side of Christ as he slept the sleep of death upon the cross that there came forth the ‘wondrous sacrament of the whole Church’ ” [SC 5]. As Eve was formed from the sleeping Adam’s side, so the Church was born from the pierced heart of Christ hanging dead on the cross (CCC 766).

Here the Council takes up a common theme of the Church Fathers. The Church owes everything to the self-giving of Christ on the Cross. Here is her source of life and renewal. From this source flow the sacraments of the Church. This source is present in the Eucharist, which is why the Eucharist is called “the source and summit of the Christian life”.1

The Church owes everything to the Cross. What does this mean for her being, for her course through history, for us as servants of the Church? The Cross of Jesus is a historical event, not a “natural necessity”. It is an event willed, procured, and carried out by men. At the same time it took place “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). The Cross stands at the intersection between the historical actions of men and the saving plan of God. It is one of the most horrific instruments of torture ever devised by man’s imagination, but at the same time we greet it as our “only hope”: “Ave Crux, spes unica.” The arms of Jesus, dislocated and stretched out on the Cross, are a terrible sight, and yet these far-extended arms both symbolize and effect what Jesus promised: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (Jn 12:32).

In terms of her origin in the Cross, the Church has two characteristics: she bears with Christ the shame of the Cross, and, through Christ, she is a sign of hope. But there is a tremendous difference between the two: Christ alone bears the reproach of the Cross without blame. The Cross of the Church is always the shame of her sinful members. That is why it is his Cross that is our spes unica. That also is why, as the Catechism explains, we do not say that we “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” (CCC 750). And it is

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