Francis and Synod A Propos of the Second Reading of the Office of Readings of Today (Thurs of the 32nd Week)

Consider this reading from the second century, i.e. from the Church’s understanding of itself from the very earliest times: It says that Christ and the Church existed from the beginning of creation: “for Scripture says: God made man male and female. Now the male signifies Christ, and the female signifies the Church, which, according to both the Old and New Testament, is no recent creation, but has existed from the beginning. At first the Church was purely spiritual, even as our Jesus was spiritual, but it appeared in the last days to save us.”

This "spiritual" I take to be "self-gift." John Paul II spoke about self-gift not as the object of a concept like an "essence" but rather as "attitude" - which I take to be an orientation of the self. And he spoke about this as the entire leitmotif of the Second Vatican Council ("Sources of Renewal," Harper and Row [1959] p. 17). The fathers of the Council were not  interested to talk about "this" or "that" truth, but rather about the attitude of believing: i.e. as a subject giving self to receive the Person of Christ Who is Revelation Itself (not an objective truth of faith). 

All talk of “self-gift” has the ring of metaphor and poetry. “Self-gift” is does not fall under the sensibly perceptible. It completely evades the empirically measurable. One can experience it from within as a profound romantic falling in love, or the love a parent has for a child, but it is not empirically perceptible, and therefore, in a culture where everything  real must be reduced to the material bottom line, “self-gift” is religious speak.

This is what pope Francis is taking on because he is holding to people being the bottom line, and he – and the Church – understand that people are what’s real since God has revealed Himself to be people in Jesus Christ Who claimed to be God and rose from the dead. And since the family has been the incubator of what we understand to be people, he is drawing a line in the sand on the meaning of family in the light of Jesus Christ.

He thinks there are many obstacles to left and right on the people issue including doctrine and morality when they replace people as the priority. Of course, doctrine and morality are about Christ and people and are necessary for knowing and defending people. But doctrine and morality are not people, only Christ is. He is the revelation of person. So, what happens when doctrine and morality become the point, and not Christ? You get conservatives and liberals rallying around idols – good idols – but idols, but you don’t get Christ (and therefore, you don’t get person). And the deep truth is that Christ reveals who He is as the Son of the Father on the Cross. And that death is the meaning of “self-gift.”

Now, self-gift is not “doctrine.” Doctrine is made up of abstractions. True abstractions that are in conformity with what is real; but they are in the mind. And when it becomes an idol that we make  a “god,” it is not the real God, Who alone is Jesus Christ, Son of the Father. So, the pope says he wants to create a mess. He wants to break the idols and put them in their right relationship to the one God. And so, he always asks everyone to pray for him, because everyone   - who deeply senses the truth of what he is saying – is very upset at the smashing of his/her idols. And, as mentioned, “self-gift” is not properly speaking “doctrine” because it is not an abstraction. It is an action, an action that is a divine Person engendering Son, or Son obeying Father, or Spirit as the Person-Loving of the Two. We talk about self-gift as though it were an essence, but we don’t have an “essence.” We are talking about but a divine Person who is an Action lived through the assumed humanity that is ours, but also  His. And He wants us to act out what He acts out so that we can become Him.

I write this in view of the reading from today’s office of readings, a second century piece – anonymous – that might make more sense (or less) in the light of the above.

A sermon of the second century

The living church is the body of Christ

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  You surely cannot be ignorant of the fact that the living Church is the body of Christ; for Scripture says: God made man male and female. Now the male signifies Christ, and the female signifies the Church, which, according to both the Old and New Testament, is no recent creation, but has existed from the beginning. At first the Church was purely spiritual, even as our Jesus was spiritual, but it appeared in the last days to save us.

  For the spiritual Church was made manifest in the body of Christ, in order to show us that if we uphold its honour in the outward, visible form, and do not defile it, we shall, through the Holy Spirit, be made its members in the true, spiritual sense. For the body of the Church is a copy of the Spirit, and no one who defaces the copy can have any part in what the copy represents. In other words, brothers, you must preserve the honour of the body in order to share in the Spirit. For if we say that the body is the Church and the Spirit is Christ, it follows that anyone who dishonours his body, dishonours the Church. Such a man will have no part in the Spirit, which is Christ. But if the Holy Spirit is joined to it, this body can receive an immortal life that is wonderful beyond words, for the blessings that God has made ready for his chosen ones surpass all human powers of description.