FAITH OF OUR FATHERS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 40, 21 October 1925, Page 51

FAITH OF OUR FATHERS

(By the Right Reverend Mon signor Power, V.F., for the N.Z. Tablet.)

lyt As Original Justice was given to and lost Hby man as a race, we naturally came to the conclusion in the preceding ■ chapter that, in His work of regeneration, Our Lord would , deal with man as a race also, that He would be a. Second Adam through Whom and whose . Kingdom grace would flow upon all its members. As the first Adam summed up in himself his whole race, and would have transmitted to it Original Justice, so now Christ and His Church would form one body for the transmission of the gift of regeneration. “The whole Christ,” says St.'"Augustine, “is not Christ alone, but Christ and the Church; the whole Christ is made up of the Head and the Body. The Head is the Only-Be-gotten Son of God, and the Body is the ' Church, two in one flesh.” This new Society or Kingdom was clearly sketched by the prophets in their description’ ® of Christ’s triple office of King, Priest, and Prophet. Isaias writes in his fifty-second, chapter: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, and that preaeheth peace: of Him that showeth forth good, that preaclieth salvation, that sayeth to Sion ; Thy God shall reign.” In' the twenty-third chapter of Jeremias we read: “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will raise up to David a just branch: and a King shall reign, and shall be wise and. shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In those days shall .ij, Juda be saved, and Israel shall dwell oonfid{ dently: and this is the name, that they shall call Him: the Lord our Just One.” But if the Messiah will be a reigning King, He must have a Kingdom. The Prophet Daniel - saw many powerful kingdoms crumble to pieces; but one after another they were unconsciously preparing the way for a new Kingdom which he beheld in vision as a spiritual, world-subduing force. After explaining in his second chapter -the four kingdoms of Nabuchadonosor’s dream, He - proceeds to say: “In the days of those kingdoms, the God of Heaven will set up a Kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and His Kingdom shall not be delivered up - to another people : and it shall break in pieces and consume all those kingdoms, and itself shall stand forever.” The foundations of this new Kingdom were laid by the Son of Man, Whom Daniel beheld in a vision of the night coming with the clouds of Heaven: ‘ “And-He came even to the Ancient of Days: and they presented Him before Him. And He gave Him power, and glory, and a Kingdom : and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him; His power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away: and His Kingdom that shall not be destroyed.” .When the prophets had done their work, , j and the Baptist had come as the immediate £ precursor of the Messiah, he preached the near approach of the Kingdom. And as a proof that it had already come, Our Lord : Himself appealed to His power of working miracles and casting out devils: “If Aby

16. THE CHURCH A SOCIETY (Continued)

the Spirit of God cast out devils, then is the Kingdom of God come upon you.” And now, right through the New Testament, the? v nurch is described by Our Lord and the sacred writers as one perfect and independent Society or Kingdom. It is presented as one external and visible community with a compact and definite organisation, a new commonwealth founded by Christ, into which people of all nations are to be called. The beautiful Parables of the Kingdom represent it as a visible society, and predict its interna! growth and its outward expansion. It is a building set on Peter, the visible Rock, and composed of visible stones, the Apostles and the faithful ; it is a City set on a Hill, to be seen by all, and offering shelter to all. To its ruler is given the power of binding and loosing, a power which will be exer--5 cised with divine sanction, and with authority to exclude delinquents that the visible unity of the living organism may be preserved intact. The inspired book of the Acts, that detail-. the work of the Apostles and. the growth of the infant Church, tells us how the external signs of visible communion and of interior grace were applied to those who came Hocking to it: they made their profession of faith, they were baptized, they received the Holy Eucharist, they joined in common liturgical prayer. These were the visible sign and seal in the first age of the Church, as they are to-day, of the external union with one another and of the internal union with God of those who were added to and absorbed by the already existing Church. "When Saint Peter, _on the day of Pentecost, at the end of his first sermon, had exhorted his hearers to accept his word and save themselves from the perverse generation around them, many were converted, ••and there were added in that 'day about three thousand souls.” That is, they were admitted into an already existing Society. Summing up the effect of this first day’s preaching the Acts of the Apostles say: “And the Lord increased daily together such as should be saved.” He led them for salvation into the one body, the one society which He had set up. In his various Epistles Saint Paid views the particular churches to which he js writing, as parts of this one brotherhood, as members of this one community called together by' Jesus Christ: all are fellowcitizens of one Kingdom, all are members of one household, all are fitly compacted . and joined together to form one living temple of God; “You are no more strangers and foreigners, hut you are fellow-citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone; in Whom all the building being framed together, groweth up into a holy temple in the Lord.” T, The Holy Ghost was promised and sent to the Church to preserve her internal unity, for the Church is not a merely material body ,

it is a living body, the Body of Christ; It ? is the Holy Ghost Who controls the working ; of grace in the Church,' preserves its unity, and enables it to bear perpetual witness to? the truth. .. In the? twelfth chapter of his. first Epistle to the Corrinthians Saint Paul enumerates the inward workings and the outward manifestations, of the Holy Spirit, in order to impress upon the faithful that the Church is a united organism, a perfect society: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministrations, and the same Lord. And there tire varieties of workings, but the same God, who worketh all things in all. But to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit - for the (general) profit. To one through the Spirit is granted utterance of wisdom; to another utterance of knowledge, according to the same Spirit ; to another faith, in the same Spirit; sand to another, working of miracles, to another, prophecy, to another discerniugs of spirits, to another, (divers) kinds of ‘tongues,’ and to another, the interpretation of ‘ tongues.’ But all these are the work of one and the same Spirit, who apportioned! severally to each as He will.’ Then in the fourteen following verses he goes on to point out a telling analogy between the functions of the members of the one Mystic Body of Christ and those of the several members of the individual human body. “For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of the body, many as they are, form one body, so also (it is with) Christ. For in one Spirit all we, whether Jews ' or Greeks, whether slaves or free, were baptised into one Body and were all given, to drink of one Spirit. . . Now you are (together) the Body of Christ, and severally His members.” Saint Paul is very severe with those who would break up the unity of this society: there could be no greater sin. To him the unity of the Blessed Trinity is the pattern of the unity of the Church. Mark how in the fourth chapter to the Ephesians he joins in nnforgetable phrase the unity of the • body,’ Hiat is, of the Church, with the unity of the Three Divine Persons whom he mentions in inverse order; “I exhort you, therefore, 1, a prisoner in the Lord,-to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called, with all humility,,and meekness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in charity, careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as also ye were called in one hope, that of your calling: one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, Who is above all and throughout all and in all.” Thus wo see from the teaching of Christ and from the Sacred Scriptures that -the Church is a distinct and complete society set up by Christ Himself as the ordinary means of salvation, as the ordinary channel of His graces to the souls of all who would,be saved. Those who faithfully adhere to this Society will not be “carried around by every wind of doctrine, through the trickery of men crafty in devising error,” but will “grow in all things into Him Who .is the Head, Christ. I rom Him the. whole body ... , deriveth its increase, unto Hie;, building up of itself in charity.” ' if.rTl-T--' ?A; v .-y-.;