496. January 21, Octave of Christian Unity - 4
Meditations no. 426 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
The Church is Holy because it is the work of the Most Holy Trinity.
The Church has been willed and founded by Christ, who carries out in this way the will of the Father; the Spouse of the Son is assisted by the Holy Spirit. The Church is the work of the Blessed Trinity; she is holy and our mother, our Holy Mother the Church. We can admire in the Church one perfection which we could call original, and another, final, eschatological. St Paul refers to both of them in his Letter to the Ephesians. Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or winkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (Eph 5: 25-27).
The original and constitutive holiness of the Church can be hidden - but never destroyed, since it is indefectible: The powers of death shall not prevail against it (Matt 16: 18) - it can be veiled from human eyes, as I was saying in certain moments of obscurity, which can become almost universal. But St Peter applies to Christians the title of gens sancta (1 Pet 2: 9), a holy nationā¦ Throughout history and now as well, there have been so many Catholics who have truly sanctified themselves: young and old, single and married, priests and lay people, men and women.
But it happens that the personal sanctity of so many faithful - then and now - is not something externally apparent. Frequently we do not recognise the ordinary people, common and holy, who work and live alongside us. From an earthly viewpoint, what stands out most is sin and unfaithfulness: these are more conspicuous.
Gens sancta, a holy nation, composed of creatures with infirmities. This apparent contradiction marks an aspect of the mystery of the Church. The Church, which is divine, is also human, for it is made up of people, and we have defects: omnes homines terra et cinis (Sir17: 31), we are dust and ashes.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, who founded the holy Church, expects the members of this people to strive continually to acquire sanctity. Not all respond loyally to his call. And in the spouse of Christ, at one and the same time, both the marvel of the way of salvation and the miseries of those who take up that way are visible.
The Divine Redeemer disposed that the community, founded by Him, would be a society which was perfect in its genus and given all the juridical and social elements, that it would need to perpetuate in this world the work of Redemption. ā¦ If in the Church we discover something which bespeaks the weakness of our human condition, it ought not to be attributed to its juridical constitution, but rather to the deplorable inclination of individuals to evil; an inclination that its Divine Founder permits even in the highest members of the Mystical Body, so that the virtue of the sheep and the shepherds is put to the test, and so that the merits of the Christian faith augment in all (Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici Corporis, 29 June 1943).
This is the reality of the Church here and now. For this reason, the holiness of the Spouse of Christ is compatible with the existence in her bosom of individuals with defects. Christ did not exclude sinners from the society that he founded. If, therefore, some members suffer spiritual infirmities, not because of this should our love for the Church be diminished; on the contrary, our compassion towards its members should grow (Pius XII, Ibid. ).
The defects of the members of the Church ought to lead us to make reparation and pray more.
It would be a sign of very little maturity if, in view of the defects and miseries in any of those who belong to the Church (no matter how high they may be placed by virtue of their function), anyone should feel his faith in the Church and in Christ diminished. The Church is not governed by Peter, or by John, or by Paul; she is governed by the Holy Spirit, and the Lord has promised that he will remain by its side always, to the close of the age (Matt28: 20).
Listen to what St Thomas Aquinas says, elaborating on this point. He is speaking about receiving the sacraments, which are the cause and sign of sanctifying grace: He who approaches the Sacraments certainly receives them from the minister of the Church, but not in so far as he is this or that person, but in so far as he is a minister of the Church. Therefore, while the Church permits him to exercise his ministry, anyone who receives the Sacrament from his hands, does not participate in the sin of the unworthy minister, but communicates with the Church, whose minister he is (St Thomas, S. Th. III, q. 64, a6 ad2). When the Lord permits human weakness to appear, our reaction ought to be the same as if we were to see our mother sick or treated with disdain: to love her all the more, to bestow on her a greater manifestation of affection, both internal and external.
If we love the Church, there will never arise in us a morbid interest in airing, as the faults of the Mother, the weaknesses of some of her children. The Church, the spouse of Christ, does not have to intone any mea culpa. But we do: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! The only true mea culpa, is a personal one, not the one which attacks the Church, pointing out and exaggerating the human defects which, in this holy mother, result from the presence in her of men whose actions go far astray, but which can never destroy - or even touch - what we call the original and constitutive holiness of the Church ā¦
The mystery of this holiness of the Church - that pristine light which can become obscured by the shadows of human baseness - rejects even the slightest thought of suspicion, of doubt about the beauty of our mother. Nor can we tolerate, without protesting that others should insult her. ā¦ I cannot conceive of anyone having true affection for his mother who speaks of her with disdain.
Our Mother is holy, because she was born pure and will continue without blemish for eternity. If at times we are not able to perceive her fair face, let us wipe clean our own eyes. If we are aware that her voice does not please us, let us remove from our ears any hardness which prevents us from hearing in her tone of voice the beckoning whistle of the loving Shepherd. Our Mother is holy, with the holiness of Christ, to whom she is united in body - which is all of us - and in spirit, which is the Holy Spirit, dwelling also in the hearts of each one of us, if we remain in the grace of God.
Holy, Holy, Holy, we dare to sing to the Church, evoking a hymn in honour of the Blessed Trinity. You are holy, O Church, my mother, because the Son of God, who is holy, founded you. You are holy, because the Father, the source of all holiness so ordained it.
You are holy, because the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the souls of the faithful, assists you, in order to gather together the children of the Father, who will dwell in the Church of heaven, the eternal Jerusalem.
Personal responsibility so that the sanctity of the Church shines out before men.
Be faithful, because, despite all your own weaknesses and failings, the divine weight of caring for the holiness of others falls on each of you, and likewise the divine weight of protecting the holiness of our Mother the Work, the duty of defending before the world the Christian honour of all your kindred in Holy Church, and the sublime obligation of cooperating in the task of winning souls for God, a work which is so great that in the beginning it is hardly noticeable, but which has no limits. How many great things depend upon us!
We are all responsible for the sanctity, with which Christ endowed his Church, being reflected before the eyes of men. And this will only be possible if we genuinely make an effort, with the help of God, to be perfect like our heavenly Father.
The means to holiness are the same as they have always been, the ones Jesus himself left us: as Christians we donāt have any others at all, preached our Father. Now, nevertheless, especially after the last Council, which, to my - our - great joy has made so many marvellous statements concerning the holy life of Christians, there are present in the very midst of the Church of God innumerable errors, all of them old, some from apostolic times, but reworked.
Many claim that they want to bring the Church up to date; and to do this, with a complete blindness, they cut themselves off from tradition, and end up affirming that what is old is bad, simply because it is old; and that what is new - they think it is new, and they propose it that way - is good just because it is new. What a lack of discernment, isnāt it? I emphasise that we cannot reach sanctity without interior life, without frequenting the sacraments.
If we deal with the Virgin Mary she will lead us to love the Church more, and to increase our sense of responsibility for the sanctity of the other members of the Mystical Body of Christ. While in the Most Holy Virgin the Church has reached that perfection, by virtue of which she is without spot or wrinkle (cf.Ā Eph 5: 27), the faithful struggle still to increase in sanctity and overcome sin completely, and thus they lift their eyes to Mary, who shines as a model of virtues for the whole community of the elect.