The Catholic Church

The Church in this world knows all the vicissitudes of human history: successes and failure, persecution and prosperity, heroism and betrayal, glory and shame, periods of fervent growth and periods of sad decline. She experiences a great tension in being called to holiness which she must ever strive for, but which she can never perfectly attain in this world. In some of her most admired members she reveals marvelous goodness and holiness, in her more ordinary and sinful members she reveals mediocrity, sin, and even great scandal. While she is always blessed with the presence of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and always remains the visible sacrament of salvation for all mankind, as long as the Church is on pilgrimage in this world, she must groan under her own imperfections, and must struggle on, ever renewing herself, to attain the holiness and glory to which the Risen Lord calls her.

The Church is also drawn by Christ to her future existence beyond time. When Christ comes again in glory, and the last enemy, death, has been destroyed (1Cor 15.26f), when sin has been cast out and every evil overcome, and every tear has been wiped away (Rev 7.17, 21.4), the Bride of the Lamb will appear in all her radiant beauty, without stain or wrinkle, and will enter into the unimaginable glory of the Lord. The Heavenly Jerusalem will be revealed in all its splendor (Rev 21), which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man ever conceived (1Cor 2.9). The corruption of this world will pass away, and a new heaven and a new earth will appear, this present world having undergone a profound transformation that fills it with the glory of God. The risen Lord will raise up our mortal bodies, endowing them with the marvelous qualities of His own glorified body: spirituality, incorruptibility, agility, and resplendent glory (1Cor 15. 42-44).

We shall be one with God; indeed, we shall be like God, since we shall see Him as He is (1Jn 3.2). Thus we shall fully experience what it means to be sons of God. Unless we see the Church from this perspective and unless we live in this lively hope, we are missing the richest dimensions of the Church’s total existence. But we must also remember that the Church as she exists now is already participating in the eternal! Listen to the words of Lumen Gentium:

The promised and hoped for restoration has already begun in Christ. It is carried forward in the sending of the Holy Ghost and through Him continues in the Church…Already the final age of the world is with us and the renewal of the world is irrevocably under way. It is even now anticipated in a certain real way, for the Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real though imperfect…

In Christ,

Rev. Jeffery A. Fasching