24. RCIA The Church

The Church

The heart of Christianity is a person, not a book, not an institution, not a set of rules. The most important fact of the Catholic churches history is that it was founded personally by Jesus Christ. He is the source of its life, not just it's beginning but throughout its entire existence, including what is yet to come.

'I am with you always, even until the end of time.'

However, it is not a human institution founded by a particular person at a particular point of history, but the church founded by Christ is in a mysterious way the body of Christ in the world - the continuing prescience of Jesus Christ the Son of God.

The purpose of Christ's coming among us is to unite us to God and unite us to each other. You could say that Christ is the manifestation of the Father and His saving love. The work of Christ is the work of God, redeeming & reconciling, saving and forgiving, and restoring us to life by sharing His life with us. Christ is the effective prescience of God within his creation. The Catholic Church is the living sign and effective means of this unity and communion.

Jesus gathered about himself certain individuals and taught them both by word, and by example. His teaching has been handed down through successive generations of the church to us now alive in our time. This is why the tradition of the church is so important

Christ did not abandon the church he founded. He sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to inspire and guide the church into all truth. The church was to grow in it's understanding and wisdom. This is why the church through the ages has argued, discussed and debated within itself to reach an ever deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the unchanging truth.

'In the same way that a child becomes an adult but retains the same identity, so a doctrine can develop and yet remain the same'

(St Vincent of Lerins d.450)

All doctrines, dogmas, and teaching of the church exist to point us in the direction of a truth that will always remain more than any human mind can fully understand.

In Catholic thought, the church is a Divinely inspired institution - it is not merely the sum of those who make up its number. In saying that the Church is the body of Christ Catholics are saying that the church is a community made up of ourselves alive now (the church militant), all those from the Apostles who have gone before us, (the church triumphant), all those who are to come after us, and Christ himself.

AD33 Pentecost. The Birthday of the Catholic church.

The twelve in the upper room grew rapidly in number after the coming of the Holy Spirit. St Peter's first sermon saw 3,000 instant converts to the church! But, this very early church was initially seen as a Jewish sect (read Acts). The Disciples attended Synagogue on a Saturday and met in each others homes on a Sunday to remind themselves of Christ's words during his earthly life, to pray and to share in the breaking of bread. This is where we see the foundation of the Mass. This sect became known as Christians, which means followers of or mimics of Christ, and this term was originally used as an insult.

St Paul had a mission from God to preach to Gentiles (non Jews), and as he travelled he established churches further and further away from Israel. Thus an increasing number of the new Christians had no Jewish background, and the Jewish customs and traditions began to die out amongst them. We know from Scripture that Ss.Peter and Paul had a major argument in the market place over whether or not a Christian needed to be circumcised.

After the Jewish temple was destroyed in AD 70 ( just as Jesus had prophesied), the Jewish authorities blamed the Christians. Although it was actually the Roman General Titus who gave the order to the Romans for its destruction. This was the end of the Christians in Israel enjoying peaceful relations with the Jews. They were now a distinct and seperate religion.

The Jews persecuted the Christians for a) the temple, and b) the sins of blasphemy and heresy for they claimed to worship Jesus as the son of God. And the Romans persecuted the Christians for they worshipped an executed criminal which was politically dangerous and carried the death penalty itself.

So, the first Christians were persecuted from all sides. Thrown to lions & crocodiles for sport, covered in pitch and burnt alive to be used as lampposts, used as scaffolding, skinned alive etc. During the rite of election when those wishing to become Catholic meet the Bishop, their names are written in a book and this still happens today. If you had lived in the first century having your name written in that book made you an automatic candidate for execution. Deciding to become a Christian was not something to be taken lightly, and you are less likely to be executed for Christianity in England today, but it is still not a decision to be made lightly.

After the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, the church moved its base from there to Rome, partl ybecause both Peter and Paul were there. Rome, known even then as the centre of the world and the eternal city, from now on was the permanent centre of the Church. The fierce and genocidal persecution by the Romans lasted for 300 years. Many of our greatest saints and martyrs were executed by the romans in this period.

NB: it was reported on social media last week that ISIS are using roman amphitheatres to execute Christians now.

AD 313

The Roman persecution ended when Emperor Constantine legalised Christianity in the edict of Milan in 313. It was now no longer a crime punishable by death to be a follower of Christ. It was in this period (AD325) that the council of Nicea met to end the Arian heresy, and the Nicene Creed written then is still used at Mass today.

AD 380

Christianity became the state religion of the Roman empire.

When the church was a persecuted underground religion, we literally worshipped underground in secret in the catacombs. Now we had the use of the previously pagan temples, we also had land, property and status. Some argue that this was the worst thing that happened to Christianity.

At this point there were five main centres of Christianity in the world. Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. Each had their own Bishop known as a Patriarch from the Latin Pater, meaning Father. Within this group the Bishop of Rome had authority over the West, and the Bishop of Constantinople had authority over the East. However, fundamental and final authority rested with the successor of St Peter - the Pope - Bishop of Rome.

AD 476-570

The establishment of religious life. Monks, men who dedicated themselves to lives of prayer, holding all their possessions in common. Taking vows to live lives of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Now that Christian life had become comfortable, they searched for a way of being counter cultural. The monks had left the cities to live in hardship in desert places and in doing so escaped the barbarian invasion of Rome, however Rome fell in

AD476.

The Bishop survived the fall and the pagans negotiated not with the senate of Rome, but with the Bishops of the church, and the faith was thus introduced to the barbarians. The monks helped greatly with this because, being outside of the cities their monasteries hadn't been destroyed and they were able to go out and preach, and many converts were made. The monks were aso responsible for civilising the barbarians. They stopped pillaging, and they learnt to read and write. For who had preserved Latin and Greek both written and spoken, who had preserved the books of philosophy, law, poetry, literature, geometry, and grammar, and who ultimately facilitated culture to flourish - the monks. They also taught previously nomadic peoples farming, both livestock and crop farming, how to build bridges and roads, and make laws. So despite the decline and fall of the whole roman empire, the one thing that survived was the Catholic church. With one head - the Pope, one law - canon law, and the same sacraments all over the world.

The East/ West split

Relations had grown distant between the church in the East and the West after the fall of Rome. But a formal split between the two didn't happen until 1054. The Eastern half of the Church became known as the Orthodox Church severing all ties with the Western Roman Catholic church

Crusades

The original purpose of the crusades was a response to a plea for help from the Byzantine Empire, who asked the Pope for help defending Christianity from Muslim attack. The Muslims had captured Jerusalem and controlled all of the Christian pilgrimage sites. A campaign to free the Holy Land was established. The pope also thought this would reunite the East and Western churches.

There were eight in total and they were a total failure. The Holy land wasn't set free, and greed injustice, petty infighting, and prejudice broke out on both sides of Christianity preventing them from working together. Brutality, and a lack of human decency crossed all religious boundaries, and men women and children were slaughtered horribly. However, many historians now believe that the crusades prevented an Islamic assualt on Europe, and they reopened trade routes that had been closed for centuries.

The Middle Ages

In particular the 13th century was a golden age for the church where christianity flourished.

14th and 15h centuries

Now, this is where things started to go downhill. The King of France Philip IV was bitter enemies with Pope Boniface. In 1303 he tried to have him arrested and bullied into resigning. He refused to quit and set in motion the Kings excommunication, but he died before it was enacted.

Then Benedict XI was elected but was not strong enough to handle King Philip, and was Pope for only nine months.

Then came Pope Clement V. He was made pope in Lyons and never actually went to Rome, his papal palace was in Avignon, allegedly because Rome was dangerous, but really because he was French and under the control of the King. Popes lived here for 70 years. This is sometimes referred to as the Babylonian captivity of Popes. Until St Catherine of Siena, went to France to plead with the Pope that his place was in Rome, and he returned.

Two Popes

Pope Gregory XI died in 1378 & the conclave wanted another Frenchman, however the Italians thought it was time there was an Italian Pope, and a mob prised the roof off the Vatican during the conclave & threatened the Cardinals into choosing an Italian. They picked a really old and sick one thinking he would die soon. However, after being elected Urban VI perked up, his health improved and he began to reform the French abuse and corruption.

The French declared his election as Pope was invalid, as he was elected under the threat of an angry mob. So with the King's blessing the French cardinals met and elected an anti pope ( invalidly elected), Clement VII.

At that point there was a full blown schism - some Catholics following Urban, and others Clement. When Urban died in 1389 he was succeeded by Boniface XI and five years later Clement died, and this whole sorry thing could have ended, but the French elected another antipope Benedict XIII.

Having two popes caused so much confusion that the secular rulers of the world intervened and demanded that the church hold a council. However, only a Pope can call a council and only a Pope can approve or reject it's decrees. Neither Pope wanted to resign or step down. In 1409 an illicit council met in Pisa with neither Pope present, these Cardinals deposed both popes and elected Alexander V.

Now 3 Popes claimed the chair of St Peter. A Pope in Rome, a Pope in Avignon, and a Pope in Pisa. Each one denounced the other two and most people were thoroughly confused as to who the real pope was.

In the end it was the Roman emperor Sigismund who demanded a general council be held in Constance to sort it out, this met from 1414- 1418, all the Cardinals and Bishops had to attend and 18,000 clerics took part as well. Martin V was chosen to be the one and only Pope and the others told to resign.

The Catholic church, survived this mess too, but the wounds ran deep. The church's political power on the world stage was greatly weakened, and the seeds were sown for anti papal arguments during the Reformation.