WORDS Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ

From its earliest times, the Church has been both intensely local and intensely universal. Being Catholic means being able to encompass both these perspectives.

When people think of the Catholic Church, they often have one of two pictures in mind. The first is of their parish church with its stained glass windows, carpet, choir, parish priest and pastoral associate and mainly older parishioners. It has always had its characteristic smell and feel. Down the hill are the Uniting Church, Anglican and Baptist churches. Catholics are people who go to Mass in their parish church.

When other people think of the Catholic Church, they imagine the Pope in Rome, surrounded by his cardinals, acknowledged by Catholics around the world. He is responsible for the whole Church, appoints all its bishops, lays down its teachings and makes its laws. He is like the chairman of a very large international company. You could even imagine that he might be sued for things done wrongly in the Catholic Church around the world. Other churches have their centres and heads, too. But Catholics are people who acknowledge the Pope as head of the universal Church.

Both these pictures catch something of what it means to be Catholic. But the first picture is too small, and the second is too big. Both pay too much attention to organisation and not enough to spirit. The Catholic Church is local. It is also universal. Being Catholic might lead people in an Australian suburban parish to adopt a rural parish in Africa. In this Explorations we shall reflect on this aspect of being Catholic.

Beginnings of Church

The Church began with a small local group of people who were caught up in a huge idea centred on Jesus. God loved the world that he had made, and promised through the Scriptures that the Holy Spirit would transform Israel into a just and happy society where God would reign forever. Jesus’ life was at the centre of the transformation. The twelve disciples whom he called represented the twelve tribes of Israel.

When Jesus died and was raised from the dead, the disciples realised that his Resurrection was the beginning of the transformation of the whole world. Christ’s presence in his Church was the beginnings of the reconciled world. These few Palestinians formed the seed of something that would flower in the whole universe. The life of the community that they formed would be an inspiration to their neighbours. They would see in the Church the triumph of love over hatred, unity over division and hope over despair.

Life of the early Church

The Acts of the Apostles describes the urgency with which the early Christians took the Gospel through the known world. It spread first from Jerusalem to Syria, where Christians realised crucially that the Gospel was not simply for Jews but for the whole human race. This insight led Paul to preach the Gospel in present day Turkey and Greece. He finally came as a prisoner to Rome. The arrival of the Gospel there meant that Christ had come to the centre of power and of order in the known world. It showed that the Church was Catholic, a word that means ‘through the whole world’.

As he went from city to city Paul gathered small communities of Christians. They met to celebrate and pray in their own houses. The communities were influenced by their local cultures and had to resolve local problems. Paul always encouraged them to lift their eyes from themselves and their own preoccupations to see God’s plan for the whole human race. They were part of the Church, and so were partners in God’s larger plan.

The churches of different cities were also connected with one another in practical ways. When the Christian community in Jerusalem was in desperate need, Paul gathered money from the overseas churches to send to it. In urging people to give generously he writes powerfully about God’s generosity.  Our kindness to others in need mirrors the love that God shows us to us in our need, and so helps others to believe in Christ.

The churches in different cities, too, were very busy connecting with one another. At the end of many of his letters Paul mentions many people who were going from church to church. So does St Ignatius of Antioch who, as he was being taken to Rome for trial, wrote to the surrounding churches. He records the names of people who were visiting other churches, preaching and witnessing there, bringing comfort to suffering churches and encouraging people to live faithfully and to be united in faith. With so much travelling, hospitality to guests could be a problem. An early Christian document insisted that visiting prophets should always be welcomed and fed. But if they stayed more than two days they were not genuine prophets.

The early Christians found themselves in trouble because they were Catholic. The Roman authorities saw people as belonging to the Empire, united in worship and in public life in their own towns. The Christians saw themselves as resident aliens, almost as asylum seekers, in exile from their homeland with God, but united throughout the world by their faith. Through their faith they blessed the Empire. But Roman officials suspected them of being unpatriotic, unroman and subversive. Today they would suspect them of being terrorists.

As the number of Christians grew in towns, they met in different places to celebrate the Eucharist. But they saw each congregation as part of the wider Church. On Sundays the Bishop would send to each church in the city a part of the Eucharist that had been consecrated in his celebration. The churches were in communion with one another.

In hard times many refugees from plague, famine or war moved from city to city. In contrast to the city authorities, who often drove these asylum seekers away, the Christian churches offered them food and shelter. They did not exist simply to support the faith of their own congregations, but tried to make their church life mirror God’s love for the whole world. They were Catholic, not tribal.

The relations between churches reflected the patterns of the New Testament. When conflict arose about the meaning of faith, Christians appealed to the faith of the apostles.  Because the spirit of the apostles continued within the churches they had founded, the faith of these churches provided a standard.  The church of Rome, where tradition said that both Peter and Paul had died, had a particularly important place. As Peter was the centre of unity among the Twelve, so the Bishop of Rome has continued to strengthen the other churches in their faith. This role was especially critical in times of dispute.

As the resources of the Church grew, its international character was expressed by missionary journeys. Christian traders from the Eastern churches brought the faith along the silk route into China. The faith also spread into Ethiopia and India. To be Catholic was to be walk with your faith and talk it.

The Catholic Church today

The early Church was intensely local and intensely international.  It had to be both if it was to be true to Christ. The same is true today. Being Catholic means believing in God’s promise to save the whole world through Christ’s death and Resurrection, and believing that we are part of God’s plans for the world.

Being Catholic is more than being devout. It is a way of living and thinking that reflects God’s interest in the world. To be Catholic is to look compassionately at the world which God wants to make whole, and to ask how in our own small ways we can help make the world a better place. It asks more of us than to pray for the poor. It asks us to walk with them, to help them, and to be a voice for them.

Being Catholic also means that we live fully in our local church, but also look out together at the needs of the whole Church and the whole world. Our hearts are open to people throughout the world. That kind of faith leads people to go to work in many parts of the world. Once we thought of them mainly as missionaries sent to spend their lives abroad preaching the Gospel. That remains important. But now people often go for shorter periods of time to build up local churches or to meet the needs of simple people for water, food, medical attention and education.

Acting Catholic

The early Church view of Christians as resident aliens is challenging. How might we act if we saw ourselves as people whose homeland is with God, but who are spread throughout the world, serving the people among whom we live? How would we act Catholic?

We would act Catholic above all in the way we pray. Our prayer would include earthquakes in China, tsunamis in Asia, tyranny in Myanmar, asylum seekers on Christmas Island, and people suffering from AIDS in Africa. We would have a special place in our hearts for resident aliens who were doing it hard in their countries—for the persecuted churches in the Middle East, for those killed in communal violence in India and Africa, and for asylum seekers on Christmas Island.

Prayer grows when we are attentive to what is going on around us. So does our encouragement to act Catholic grow when we see the connections between the large ideas that govern societies and their consequences.  We shall not only be moved by the murder and exile of so many Chaldaean Christians in Iraq, but also acknowledge that this tragedy followed from the invasion in which Australians took part. We shall be compassionate for the victims of violence in our cities, and also recognise how the profits derived from the sale and taxation of alcohol create the conditions in which violence flourishes.

To act Catholic is also to recognise that we are a church of resident aliens who can never identify ourselves simply as Australian citizens. We are also citizens of God’s world. So we should not roll our eyes when priests and people from other countries come to our parish. We should welcome them, help them to enter the culture and language through which we speak of God, while letting them lead us into their values, their ways of praying and their devotions.

To act Catholic will also naturally lead some people to give part of their lives to nations and churches where there is great need. We should celebrate their generosity. Some will build up the local churches so that they can live the Gospel more richly.  Others will work with poor people through church or secular organisations. The compassion of Christ has no boundaries.

Catholic parishes in Australia can also act Catholic by twinning with parishes in less wealthy countries. Twinning often begins by supporting parishes with funds. But in El Salvador and East Timor, for example, it had led parishioners to visit their twin parishes and to build friendships. In turn, the parishioners from the overseas church visit Australia with the result that in both countries the sense of being Catholic grows deeper and broader.

Finally, acting Catholic means keeping in our prayers those who have responsibility for strengthening the links between people and churches which make us Catholic. That is whey we pray particularly for the Bishops and the Pope and those who assist them. Their task is hard. It will be harder if we see them simply as ‘them’ and not as part of ‘us’. They serve our Catholic identity.

Conclusion

Being Catholic is not just about a name, a set of beliefs, a place to worship or acknowledging the Pope. It is a way of life that recognises that God loves the world, that Christ died for all human beings, and that we are invited to share his mind and heart. Being Catholic is to belong to local communities that have the world in our hearts and our minds. Catholic describes who we are, but it also describes the way in which we act.

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