The identity of the Church is not mission. If it were, it would be left abstract and defined by whimsy.
The identity of the Church is Christ. We are the Mystical Body of Christ, His hands and feet. We are in the mystical sense, and tangible (sacramental in Baptism), Christ the King, the Prophet, and the Priest.
Without this understanding, we cannot begin to imagine our mission. But when we are steeped in the identity of Christ living in us, and our vocation to be united to Him by the Power of the Holy Spirit, then we understand what we must do.
Action (mission) flows from Being (what we are). What we are informs what we can do. Thus the Church is marked with oneness, as God is the principle source of unity. The Church is marked by holiness, since God alone is holy. The Church is marked by Universality, in that God sends us out to all nations, seeking to include all people in His meritorious works. And the Church is marked by Apostolic work, for this was not instigated by ourselves but rather we were sent, Apostles were chosen, and that authority has had its succession to this very day.
Note, Christ’s temptation in the desert pertains to His identity in the Word “if” you are the Son of God. If the devil seeks to confuse Christ and undermine His mission, he will do so first by trying to thrust our Lord into an identity crisis. If Christ is not God, than all He can offer us is mere bread, and yet we do not live on bread alone. If Christ is not God, then He can be a political king, and only offer solutions to temporal matters, evading the deep wound which is sin. Would it not make sense that these very temptations are also the Church’s?
Our identity is greater than ourselves, for by baptism we are configured ontologically to Christ, marked as God’s children by grace. To lose a sense of this truth will immerse the church in seeking salvation through politics rather than a relationship with God. It will immerse the Church into a mere humanist endeavor that ignores the real wound (Jeremiah 6), which is the alienation of sin (broken relationships with God and each other). It will divide the Church, which is meant to be the vehicle for God’s grace to reach out to the people. It will become a scandalous counter-sign of Christ as though Christ’s body was divided by dissension (1 Corinthians 1).
If we have our identity straight, we know what to do.
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Photo: “Camp Grace, Mobile, USA”, Michael O’Sullivan, Unsplash / PD-US
1 thought on “The Identity of the Catholic Church”
Catholic identity is often defined in terms of Catholic versus Protestant beliefs. Christ, when His Spirit lives within us, defines our identity. He alone can provide the peace and strength to be true Christians. Religious activities, of themselves, cannot do this. They are supposed to be the results of holiness, and not the cause. The misunderstanding of this is the reason why so much of Christianity believes that it can change the world by good deeds rather than the inner transformation that Christ can bring. Economic and political systems, of themselves, have no redemptive value. Humanism can only do so much. If it was all-sufficient, there wouldn’t have been any reason for the Redemption.