The Mystery Of Church, The People Of God

What do we mean by Church?  How are scripture and tradition interrelated in our understanding of Church?  What does it mean to be Church?  Is going to church for the weekend liturgy what Church is all about?  What are we as adult Catholic Christians to understand and believe? The “Diocesan Formation Guidelines: Forming a People of Faith” give us direction in understanding the richness of Church as people of God.

Prayerful consideration of the God who creates us, the God who saves us and the God who inspires us—the Holy Trinity—provides a framework for growth in our understanding of the Church throughout our lives.  At various times, the answers to “who” and “what” the Church are can emphasize different aspects of the awesome reality of this mystery, of which we are a part. 

As family members are connected one to another, so too are we, as people of God, always in a collective relationship with God and with one another.  The story of this collective relationship, established as a covenant, is recounted in both the Old and New Testaments.  Membership in the community, thus established, entails more than mere card-bearing or passive belonging.  We are called to active participation in the community of faith, since God’s covenants were made with communities, not individuals.  Community is the essence of God’s relationship with humankind.

Communication and a sense of the way family members interact with one another are keys to the faith community as well.  Each family community recounts its story verbally and in written form.  Each family also establishes its own ways of doing things and expectations for belonging to this family. 

The scriptures describe the beliefs and values of the faith community, the Church, at different times throughout its life. Belonging to this faith community means we have a responsibility to understand the scriptures in the context at the time they were written.  As we come to see the interaction between the growth of the community and the formation of the scriptures, we can apply the meaning of the scriptures to our own times. In the Scripture, the Church is described as institution, sacrament, servant, herald of the Good News of salvation, community and disciples.

The guidelines say that the mystery of Church as the People of God is identified through the covenants revealed in the Scriptures.  The covenants or the promises of God, as spoken through the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, extend to all of creation.  We are to practice the concept of covenant in our own personal lives and in our personal relationships.  Church also means to demonstrate an understanding of and an appreciation for active participation in a community of faith. God’s covenants were made to the people and Church to experience in a community of faith, not only by ourselves on a mountain top.

Central parts of our Catholic identity lie within our sacramental beliefs and actions.  We need to be able to articulate the nature of sacrament and sacramentality, and their roles in the development of the People of God.  To do this we need to be able to interpret the mystery of sacramentality and recognize God’s ability to penetrate humanity individually and communally through sacramental rites. Another aspect of sacramentality of Church is to recognize that “secular” and “sacred” are two dimensions of the same reality.

Upon reflection we need to be able to illustrate a basic understanding of the documentary tradition of the universal, national, and local Church.  We need to become aware of how the Church uses its documents to systematically reflect growth in faith.  We ought to become familiar with these documents.  Finally, we need to develop a basic understanding of the history of Church. This will help us to assess the nature of the Church as pilgrim, open to change and further growth.

The mystery of Church, the People of God, calls all of us to continue to gain knowledge and understanding through history, scripture, tradition and theological reflection.  We are challenged as adults to pursue further growth through bible study, small group sharing and reading.