Christ’s church is one.
The Creed affirms:
I believe in one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic church.
The idea of catholicity is easily misunderstood. Often we are told that this means “universal” and that is true, but can be misleading. The church is not an aggregate of all the faithful. The church does not get larger when a soul is converted, the soul grows larger! Instead, the church is whole when Jesus enters the person.
Jesus is the head of His church, the chief priest, and when He is present in the simplest of the faithful, the Lord of the church is present. When Mary said “yes” to God, hearing the word of the Lord and doing it, then the church was full and as universal as the day they dedicated the Hagia Sophia or when all of Russia converted to Christianity. The macrocosm is reflected in the microcosm.
If in some terrible Last Days everyone should fall away, then the church will still be present. The righteous who have died live with God and they too are the church. The Spirit of the Lord could raise a remnant and the church, the Bride of Christ, would be full, potent, and one. In that dark time, the faithful would see the true light and God would raise up a bishop to speak for the faithful and to guide them. They could stand with Peter, Paul, James, and John, all the apostles, because the apostles live. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. With Bible in hand, the ancient prayers of the church could be heard again as they have been heard in gulags, palaces, and from the lips of men who lived in deserts alone. The church would be there fully, united, visible, one.
The angels would rejoice at Christmastide with the remnant and saints of all the ages rejoice at Pascha.
And yet rarely are times so bleak, certainly not this time in the United States. We are separated in many cases, but there are many of us, more than we know. The Spirit moves where He wills to move and so where two or three are gathered in Christ’s name, there is the the mighty church.
We gather, because the common Spirit of Christ draws us to a place connected to the global church, the historic church, and that lives the Apostolic faith and practice. We look for the Spirit in a gathering with a bishop who can think of no century since the very start of the church without brothers. He may not have literally been touched by a long chain of leaders leading back to Christ (though who can be sure?), but he is in harmony with them.
We receive good medicine for our souls in the Body and Blood of Christ. We pray together and sing asking for God’s mercy and rejoicing when we find that mercy. Yet even when we cannot meet, if the Spirit is within us, then the Church is there. A great cloud of witnesses is in glory and angels defend us on the day of battle.
We are never alone.
Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner!
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In