As previously explained, I've enrolled in the University of Notre Dame's Satellite Theological Education Program (STEP) to pursue their Certificate in Doctrine. I am currently taking my third of the required courses: Ecclesiology. This week's topic is what is the Church?
This week's discussion question is:
How does Lumen Gentium 5 set forth the relationship between the person and work of Jesus, on the one hand, and the identity of the Church, on the other? How might this affect our understanding of the Church and its mission?
First, a bit of background. Lumen Gentium is the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. It was one of the principal documents produced by the Second Vatican Council. It was promulgated by Pope Paul VI on November 21, 1964.
The Berkley Center offers a nice summary of the document's place in Church doctrine:
Beginning with an examination of the early Church, the encyclical traces the development of the hierarchy down through the modern period, arriving at a renewed understanding of ecclesiastical structure. In addition to reaffirming the apostolic succession of bishops, the letter articulates the notion of collegiality and portrays the pope not as a ruler of subjects, but as a unifier of equals. The encyclical furthermore insists that the entirety of the people of God constitute the structural Church and lifts up the laity as full co-participants with clergy and religious. It incited considerable debate as to whether it represented a departure from previous delineations of the role of the hierarchy, particularly with respect to governing and guiding the Church on questions of faith and morals.
Here is the relevant passage:
5. The mystery of the holy Church is manifest in its very foundation. The Lord Jesus set it on its course by preaching the Good News, that is, the coming of the Kingdom of God, which, for centuries, had been promised in the Scriptures: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand"(18). In the word, in the works, and in the presence of Christ, this kingdom was clearly open to the view of men. The Word of the Lord is compared to a seed which is sown in a field;(19) those who hear the Word with faith and become part of the little flock of Christ,(20) have received the Kingdom itself. Then, by its own power the seed sprouts and grows until harvest time.(21) The Miracles of Jesus also confirm that the Kingdom has already arrived on earth: "If I cast out devils by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you".(22) Before all things, however, the Kingdom is clearly visible in the very Person of Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man, who came "to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many:"(23)
When Jesus, who had suffered the death of the cross for mankind, had risen, He appeared as the one constituted as Lord, Christ and eternal Priest,(24) and He poured out on His disciples the Spirit promised by the Father.(25) From this source the Church, equipped with the gifts of its Founder and faithfully guarding His precepts of charity, humility and self-sacrifice, receives the mission to proclaim and to spread among all peoples the Kingdom of Christ and of God and to be, on earth, the initial budding forth of that kingdom. While it slowly grows, the Church strains toward the completed Kingdom and, with all its strength, hopes and desires to be united in glory with its King.
I think a useful starting point for discussion would be the meaning of mystery in this context. In colloquial English, we tend to think of a mystery as a problem--usually a crime--to be solved through the application of reason.
In contrast, as I understand it, a mystery in Catholic doctrine is a truth that cannot be discovered by mere reason and whose essence can be grasped only poorly through drawing analogies that are, at best, only partially apt. Hence, as Scott McKellar explains:
Bishop Emilio Guano, of Livorno suggested that the Pauline term, ‘mystery’ (Ephesians 5:32) would be an appropriate scriptural expression to describe the fact “that the external visibility of Church, like the holy human nature of Christ, both conceals and reveals the inner divine reality of the Church, a reality which surpasses all knowledge.” Pope Paul VI opened the Second Session (September 29, 1963), with the words, “The Church is a mystery, a mystic reality, steeped in the presence of God.” After much discussion the Fathers placed the title “The Mystery of the Church” before the first chapter of the Constitution repeatedly referred to the Church as a Mystery. For example in in LG 5 we read, “The Mystery of the holy Church is manifest in its very foundation” (cf. LG 5, 39, 44, and 63).
Bishop Kloppenburg, a Peritus of the Brazilian Bishops at Vatican II observes that the official explanation given to the bishops in 1964 read:
“The word ‘mystery’ in this context does not indicate simply that a thing is unknowable or hidden. Rather, as many authorities recognize today, it points to a transcendent, divine reality that has to do with salvation and that is in some sensible way revealed and manifested. The term, therefore, which is found in the Bible, is very suitable as a designation for the Church.”
Bishop Kloppenburg notes that, “the expression, ‘the Church is a mystery,’ means that the Church is a divine, transcendent, and salvific reality which is visibly present among men.” The Greek word ‘mysterium’ has as its Latin equivalent ‘sacramentum.’ The definition of mystery is very close to that of the definition of sacraments as “efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us.” (CCC 1131).
This strikes me as a very useful clarification.
With that background in mind, let us turn to LG 5. The symbols used in article 5 invoke the Parable of the Sower. The Church is the "seed fell on rich soil and produced fruit." Thus, once constituted by Jesus as the Sower, the Church grew "by its own power" and "yielded thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” We thus understand our identity as the fruit of Jesus' mission on Earth.
At the same time, we understand that the original sower--Jesus--left the Word as a deposit for the Church, which is now tasked with spreading that seed to all mankind. The Church now becomes the sower. This is made explicit in the Great Commission, which tasks the Church with making "disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."
In addition to the obvious analogy to the seed and sower. LG 5 speaks to directly to the nature of the Church as it relates to the Kingdom of God. Richard McBrien explains:
This conciliar teaching was in sharp contrast to the widespread preconciliar assumption that the church is the Kingdom of God on earth. Thus, the parables of the Kingdom were regularly interpreted by preachers, catechists, and even some theologians as parables of the church.
The tendency to equate the church with the Kingdom of God was denounced as a form of “triumphalism” in a famous intervention at Vatican II by the late Bishop Emile Jozef De Smedt of Bruges, Belgium.
Article 5 was added to the Dogmatic Constitution on the church (Lumen gentium) precisely to counteract this residual habit of equating the church with the Kingdom of God.
Just as Jesus came to announce, personify, and bring about the Kingdom of God, so too the church exists to proclaim, witness to, and help establish the Kingdom on earth and to facilitate its fulfillment at the end of history.
But unlike Jesus, the church cannot claim to be itself the Kingdom of God. It is at most “the seed and the beginning of that Kingdom. While it slowly grows to maturity, the Church longs for the completed Kingdom and, with all its strength, hopes and desires to be united in glory with its king” (n. 5).
In other words, the Church is not the Kingdom of God. Instead, the Church again is both seed and sower. It is simultaneously "the initial budding forth of that kingdom" and the sower tasked with proclaiming that kingdom to all mankind.
