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What Christians Believe
A Brief Presentation of the Idea of Christianity
Contents
I. A Note To The Reader
II. God
i. Knowing the Mystery
ii. Revelation
iii. God the Father
III. Christ
i. The Promised Messiah
ii. The Mission of the Son
iii. The Risen Lord
IV. The Spirit and the Church
i. The Mission of the Holy Spirit
ii. The Holy Trinity
iii. The Church Teaches
iv. The Mission of the Church
I. A Note To The Reader
Old habits die hard. Ever since the olden days, Religion courses have been designed for people who
believe in religion. Certainly most of the Religion courses you’ve taken in the past have been intended
primarily for students who are Christians in the Roman Catholic Church. This course is no exception.
We hope that this course helps you to understand a religion you already believe in.
On the other hand, we know it isn’t the olden days anymore. We used to be able to assume that if you
were a student in a Catholic high school, you were probably a Catholic yourself. You were probably
baptized in the Catholic Church. You probably made your First Communion in Grade Two. Confession
too. Confirmation in Grade Six or Grade Eight. You probably went to a Catholic Elementary School.
Probably go to Mass on Sundays. These were the things that we used to be able to presuppose about you.
Some of these things might still be true about you. But clearly, some of them might not be.
As Dorothy said to Toto (back in the olden days), “we aren’t in Kansas anymore.”
Nowadays, there simply isn’t one category of Catholic high school student. The vast majority of
people in our society believe in God (over 80%), but you might be one of the ones who doesn’t. The
majority of students in Catholic schools consider themselves Catholic, but you might be one of the ones
who doesn’t. Many Catholic high school students go to Mass with some kind of regularity, but you might
be one of the ones who doesn’t.
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You might belong to another Christian community (Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant, Pentecostal); you
might belong to another religion (Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism). You might come from
a family who doesn’t really have any interest in religion. Or you might have parents totally into religion,
but you’re sick and tired of it. Or you might hardly be a “student” at all – you might be one of those
people who hates all of your courses with an equal passion.
What should the Religion teachers in Catholic schools do in such a complicated situation, with so
many different kinds of students?
You might have your own opinion about this, but then again maybe you don’t. You might give a zip,
or you might not care at all. Maybe you strongly believe that we should forget about Catholic schools
and Religion courses. Obviously those of us who work in Catholic schools and most of the parents who
send their kids to them would disagree with you.
Or maybe, to be honest, you actually do want to go to a Catholic school; you don’t consider yourself a
fanatic, but you believe in God, and in Jesus, and when you go to Communion (even if it’s not every
Sunday), you do it sincerely. When you say “Amen” to the Body of Christ, you’re not being a hypocrite.
Here’s our difficulty: we feel that we must share the Christian message with you, that we must be
willing to explain what it is that Catholics believe.
Moreover, we know that we only have a few years left. In two years, you’re “outta here” and we can
no longer offer you an explanation of what Christianity is. That thought might make you happy, but it
worries us.
We don’t expect that everyone who goes to a Catholic school is going to become a practising Catholic.
We don’t even expect that all of you who are practising Catholics are going to remain so. We live in a
society where most people would say they believe in God, but at the same time it is a society where many
people don’t practise a religion. Some of you will be like this. We don’t intend to force you to change
your mind. The only thing we ask of you is that you be willing to find out what it is that Christianity is.
If a person knows what their religion teaches and then rejects its message, that can be an honest
decision. If a person rejects a religion they never really understood very well or about which they are
really kind of ignorant, that is a less honest decision. As Christians, we believe the most important aspect
of an adult religious commitment is that it be an honest decision. We don’t want to brainwash you – not
only because true Christianity forbids us from trying to trick you into believing, but also because being
tricked into believing isn’t really believing at all.
This is a good year for a summary explanation of the Christian message. Two years ago, you were just
starting high school. You studied Christ’s call to be a disciple in the New Testament and, hopefully, you
learned a somewhat more “critical” way of reading the Bible. Last year, you studied the history of the
Christian Church and learned not only about the events and people who shaped our Tradition, but you
also learned to interpret this history in a more “critical” manner. By saying this, we don’t mean that you
learned to be negative about the Bible or about the Christian Tradition. The real meaning of “critical”
comes from the word “crisis” and a crisis is a moment when a decision has to be made. Hopefully,
through Grade Nine and Grade Ten, you learned that Christianity is more than the stories of holy people,
but is a message about God which requires us to make a decision. And that is very much the point. One
way or another, you will make a decision about Christianity. Some people just avoid making a decision
one way or another. That too is making a decision.
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There is another reason why this is a good year to begin with a summary of the Christian message.
The goal of the World Religions course is to teach you to respect and understand the religious differences
of different cultures, but also – if you are a Christian – to try and grow in your own faith commitment by
understanding the faith commitments of others. Some people are surprised that we require the students in
a Catholic school to learn to appreciate other religions – these people usually have a stereotype of
Catholics as being very narrow-minded. There are also some Catholics who are worried that students
should not go off studying other religions until they really understand their own. This is a good point, but
by the end of ten years in Catholic schools (for most of you), we had hoped you would understand your
own religion. This summary or “Primer” (an introduction) is offered to you just in case you don’t.
You might be one of the few who feels that you have already decided to reject any place for religion in
your life. You might wonder, who are we to force you to learn about a religion you’ve already made a
decision on? And who cares if it was an honest, informed decision or not – is that any of our business? If
you genuinely feel this way (and we hope you don’t), your best bet is to try and learn about Christianity
this year as if you were learning about some other religion. This year all of you will have to learn about
religions you don’t believe in. There’s nothing wrong with trying to learn a little about Christianity for
anyone who wants to be an educated person. Christianity includes almost one-third of the world’s
population; it has had an unbelievable influence on most of the world’s cultures (especially on the socalled “West”, of which Canada is part).
For those of you who have no interest in learning about religion and culture, but who just want your
credit – this course will be a pain in the neck (at least!). The only encouragement we can offer you is to
consider all of your other pain-in-the-neck courses. In English, you have to read books you don’t always
like; in Math, you have to learn problem-solving you aren’t always interested in; in History, you have to
learn about wars you don’t agree with. The same thing goes with Religion. You have to pass if you want
to get out of (this) school.
If you are one of those deeply annoyed people who has no real interest in passing anything and who is
just waiting for your sixteenth birthday so you can get out of here, well…
We’ll pray for you.
In fact, we’ll pray for all of you because what we most hope for is that you will come to see the truth
of the Christian message. That the world, for all of its horror, is not a horror-show. That God has found
this world to be worth dying for. That you have been found to be worth dying for. That Christ died for
you and for all this world. That his death is not the last act of a touching tragedy, but that God the Father
raised him up by the power of the Holy Spirit and that he ascended to the right hand of the Father. And
that same Spirit lives in you who are baptized and in you who are believers and that he also offers you
who are neither the free gift of God’s absolutely trustworthy everlasting saving love. And that this gift,
he will never take back because you were made for God, for sharing life with God and with one another.
We hope you will come to see this and to believe in it. We won’t force you to believe it. It’s your
decision.
We will look, then, at some of the most basic elements of the Christian message. There are often
aspects of Christianity generally, or of Catholicism particularly, with which some person might disagree
or to which one might object. Some might disagree with the Pope and, instead, support the use of capital
punishment in modern society. Some might disagree with the Bible and think that sex before marriage is
morally permissible. These disagreements with Christian teaching are important, but they are not the
fundamental issues you must make a decision on. First you must decide if you want to accept the call to
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be a disciple of Christ. If one has yet to make that decision, the decisions about the Church’s teaching on
this or that issue are unlikely to matter that much to you. Very few non-Christians bother to listen to the
Church about any particular issue or question. The people who struggle to listen to the Church’s teaching
are people who have already decided to follow Christ.
In every period of history, there are wonderful examples of people who have decided for Christ and who
have lived their faith heroically. We think of that first martyr St. Stephen, a Jewish Christian willing to
die for his new faith. We think of St. Monica, an African noblewoman of the fourth century who
patiently encouraged her son Augustine to the greatness of his Christian life. We think of the Italian St.
Francis who defied his father’s wishes that he go into the family business and instead dedicated his life to
poverty. We think, more recently, of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her ministry to the poor, the sick and
the dying in India.
On the other hand, it can be discouraging for us when we see that in every period of history there are also
examples of people who have failed to live the Christian life. Maybe they are like some of the knights in
the medieval Crusades who mistakenly used violence to force Christianity on others. Maybe they are like
some of the popes in the fifteenth century who used their power to make themselves rich. Maybe they are
like the priests we have recently heard about who sexually abused children and young adults.
We don’t even have to think about such extreme examples of Christian failure. We can even look at
the life of the ordinary Christians around us. All too often, they seem so, frankly, ordinary - as if their
life still needed to be changed by the grace of Christ. Maybe this is our parish priest or our Religion
teacher or our parents. Maybe they like money and material things more than someone should if they
believe in the New Testament. Maybe they fail to practice the humility and childlikeness of the Kingdom
of God. Maybe their sexual life falls short of the demands of Christian discipleship.
With so many mediocre Christians around, it is easy to ask oneself “what’s the point?” If our priests
and teachers and parents fall short of the ideals of the Gospel, maybe we shouldn’t bother with the
Gospel. Certainly the easiest argument against Christianity is the sinfulness of Christians. A religion
based on believing in Christians could never be worth the effort. But Christianity is not a religion based
on believing in Christians; it is a religion based on believing in Christ. The only argument for
Christianity is Christ.
Christians believe that the man, Jesus of Nazareth, was truly a human being. But unlike so many
human beings (and, if we are honest, even ourselves), Jesus did not fail us. He was so faithful to God’s
love for sinful humanity that he even accepted his death with love and forgiveness. This is not something
he did because he was a wimp, but rather it was a tremendous act of loving self-sacrifice.
Sometimes parents remind their children of the sacrifices they have made for them. Maybe your
parents left their homeland so they could build a better future for you. Maybe they work long hours to
provide you with a comfortable home. Maybe they missed career opportunities in order to take better
care of you. These little “guilt trips” do have a way of reminding us that we too have obligations to our
parents (such as passing HRT 3M1). However, Jesus did not die for us so that he might ‘guilt us’ into
doing him favours. Rather, Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins is given to us as a “free gift”. All that is required
of us is that we accept it. If we do so gratefully, we are beginning to live as Christians.
Christianity, then, is not a religion based on the authority and virtues of Christians, but it is the Good
News (Evaggelion; Gospel) of the authority and virtues of Christ. For Christians these are worth basing a
religion on because we believe that Christ’s authority and virtue has its origin in the authority and
goodness of God.
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The core of Christianity, then, and its most fundamental belief is belief in God. Without this, the rest
of Christianity cannot make sense.
So let us begin with the question of God.
II. God
i. Knowing the Mystery
How do we know that there is a God? Certainly knowledge of God is different from knowledge of
ordinary things. Catholics have traditionally believed that the way we know God and the way we know
ordinary things are distinct, that there are two ways of knowing.
The first way of knowing - the way of knowing ordinary things - includes most of what we think we
know. In pretty much the same way we can know the things we perceive with our senses or the
arithmetic we figure out with our minds or the stories that we keep in our memories. What all of these
things have in common is that we can know them – they are knowable, more or less completely. For
example, if I ask you to measure the depth of a swimming pool and to tell me how deep it is, you can do
it. The answer you come up with (if you know how to use a ruler or a measuring tape) is a reliable
answer. If you’ve done it properly, and I go and measure the same pool, I will come up with the same
answer. Certainly after doing so nothing remains to be known about the depth of the swimming pool.
There’s no point in measuring it again.
This first way of knowing is knowledge of finite things. Something is finite if it has limits or
boundaries. Canada, for example, doesn’t go on forever and so we can figure out how big it is. We can
even look at things under powerful microscopes and see the basic building blocks of how they are
constructed – their molecular structure. In fact, science and its methods are often the most reliable way to
know the finite things of which this world consists.
On the other hand, most people believe there is more to life than what we can see and touch or even
than what we can figure out with our minds. We believe that our life often involves an experience of
things which are not finite, things which do not have easily recognizable boundaries. These experiences
involve another way of knowing.
Some of the most important experiences we have as human beings are our relationships with one
another. Even though a human body is a finite thing which has limits and consists of matter, there
certainly are aspects of a human person which seem to defy our powers of measurement, our powers of
science. Consider two people who are in love. We often say that if their love is “true” (that is, if it is real
love), it will last. If their love does not last, we realize they didn’t “really” love one another. Even
though the world is filled with relationships between people who don’t really love one another, there are
also examples of people who really do seem to love one another with a lasting love.
Why does real or true love last? Why is it that there isn’t a point in real love where we are simply
“finished” knowing someone and can move on? Don’t real lovers get tired of each other? Isn’t every day
they spend together pretty much a re-run of some other day they have already spent together?
How can two people, whether they are friends or spouses or family members, spend a whole lifetime
together continually deepening their understanding – their knowledge – of each other?
Here we have another kind of knowing, another kind of knowledge. This is not knowledge of a finite
thing, but of an infinite thing. Something is infinite when it “goes beyond” or transcends our powers of
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scientific knowing. We may find human bodies knowable in a scientific way, but our best relationships
with other human beings have taught us that there is more to a human being than what we can measure or
dissect or figure out. There are things which are real even if we cannot see them or touch them or
perceive them with our senses.
Take, for example, a friendship you may have. Is it “matter”, scientifically speaking? Your body and
your friend’s body may consist of matter, but is the friendship matter? Does a friendship have mass and
take up space? Can you locate where your friendship “is”? You can locate where you are and where your
friend is, but that isn’t quite the same thing as locating where the actual relationship is? If your friendship
doesn’t have mass or take up space, how do you know that it’s real? And yet, most of us would consider
our friendships more important and even “more real” than all sorts of things we can perceive with our
senses. Friendships might not be matter, but they certainly do matter. It’s strange how at times in our
life, especially in a crisis, the things which are not matter can often seem most real to us.
Catholics call something which we know, but which we can never finish knowing a Mystery.
Nowadays, the usual meaning of the word “mystery” is a kind of story where a detective tries to identify a
murderer or a puzzle to which we must discover a solution. In our conversations about God (called
“Theology”), Catholics use this term differently, in its more ancient sense. Mystery, in this religious
sense, is something you can know, but never really finish knowing. It can be known, but no matter how
much we deepen our knowledge of it, we never fully comprehend it. We can never exhaust its meaning
or its reality. Clearly, it is infinite. Mystery transcends our ordinary experience.
There are other experiences besides love and friendship where human beings encounter meaning
which transcends our ordinary experience, where we encounter Mystery. Even our experience of the
world can be like this. We can measure the earth, for example, and we can scientifically investigate ecosystems and species, but the totality of the world sometimes overwhelms us and makes us wonder “what
it all means”. All of existence has a quality of mystery. It seems to point beyond itself to some origin or
possibility which is outside the power of our scientific investigations.
Even when we hypothesize about the origins of the universe (the “Big Bang Theory”, for instance), we
are never fully answering the question of why it’s all here. Even when we read about a theory on the
origins of human beings and other species (“Evolution”, for instance), we are never fully answering the
question of why we’re here. Science is always more concerned with the “how” of things than the ultimate
“why” of things. The “why” of our existence and the “why” of existence itself are questions we “know”
and are aware of, but they are questions which human beings have always asked and will always continue
to ask.
Even when people accept a possible answer to the “why” of our existence (in a religion, for example),
they still find themselves continuing to ask, continuing to wonder, continuing to deepen not only their
“answer” but also their “question”. They may feel they “know” the Mystery of Existence better than they
did when they first began to ask about it, but they never fully, completely, comprehend the infinite reality
of the Mystery of Existence.
All religion is an attempt to answer the question at the heart of the Mystery of Existence. Archaic and
ancient peoples primarily used symbolic stories to express their answers. These are called myths. Myths
are not simply “untruths”, but are really quite the opposite. They are attempts to share certain “answers”
in order to deepen our sense of the Mystery of Existence. In that sense, they are attempts to share our
most important truths. Because these answers go beyond our power of ordinary knowing, beyond even
our power of scientific investigation, they cannot be expressed in ordinary language. They use symbols
and metaphors to make their point about “what it all means”.
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In later societies, philosophers wondering about the Mystery of Existence attempted answers using
logic and reason. These answers are called theories. Most of the great philosophers (like Plato and
Aristotle in ancient Greece) admitted that they could never fully discover the meaning of the Mystery of
Existence, but they strongly felt that continually struggling to do so was the highest form of wisdom.
On the other hand, scientific answers and ordinary knowing seem to have a greater degree of certainty
or certitude. When we’re standing outside in the rain, we don’t “still wonder” whether it’s raining or not.
But when we’re “standing” before the Mystery of Existence, we cannot cease to wonder what it means. It
is possible to stop thinking about it, to try and “go away” from the Mystery, to distract ourselves with so
much ordinary knowing, with so much shopping and video games and web-surfing and T.V. and french
fries (“hmmmm… french fries”) that we allow the awesomeness of existence to escape us. But even
avoiding the question at the heart of the Mystery of Existence is a kind of answer or decision about it (i.e.
“There’s no Mystery to wonder about, now let’s get drive-thru.”).
There are several possible answers to the question at the heart of the Mystery of Existence. Most
people affirm the sacredness of this Mystery and even call it God. This is called Theism, belief in the
existence of God or gods. A very small number of people - and only usually in rich countries - reject the
possibility of the existence of God (or gods); this rejection is called Atheism. There are others, again a
very small number, who acknowledge the validity of the question (and so, presumably, of the experience
of Mystery), but who say we cannot assert that the Mystery of Existence is God (or gods). This "belief",
that we cannot know whether God (or gods) exist is called Agnosticism.
There are theists, however, who do not consider the existence of God to have any real bearing on how
they live their lives. They see the question of believing as distinct from the question of deciding. Most
religious people see the answer that there is a God as more than an idea, but a decision about the
hopefulness of life and our responsibility to God.
Christianity claims to be more than only a belief and even more than a decision about the existence of
God. Christianity claims to be more than a myth and more than a philosophy. Christianity is more than a
human attempt to answer the question at the heart of the Mystery of Existence. Christianity is based on
the idea that the Mystery of Existence has itself given us an answer and that this answer is more
trustworthy than the insights of myths or philosophers. The thing we’ve been wondering about has
reached out to us. This is called Revelation, when the Mystery “reveals” or discloses something about
itself to us. Even still, the answer that Christianity is based on does not exhaust the meaning of the
Mystery. We do not claim to know everything about God. No one can, except God.
ii. Revelation
Christianity, then, claims to have some answers about the Mystery of Existence, about God, which it is
convinced really matter for human beings and the world. We do not claim to have the same knowledge of
God that God has (in fact, at the beginning of the Bible there is a symbolic story where two people get
into quite a bit of trouble for trying to claim such knowledge). We believe we have been given some
answers about the Mystery, but that these answers are absolutely essential for human beings to know
about. They are answers to the questions we've been asking. And these answers are good news.
Much of what Christianity teaches about the Mystery comes from another religious tradition called
Judaism. Most of what Jews believe about God is accepted by Christians. For Jews and Christians, the
Mystery of Existence is not some impersonal “Force” that is indifferent to us, like in Star Wars.
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What may have seemed at times to be something abstract, inanimate and far away has been
experienced as real, living and close to us. This Mystery revealed itself to the People of Israel in personal
terms, in terms of relationship or “Covenant”. And so the emphasis of Christianity and Judaism is that
God is a real, living, personal God rather than a philosopher's concept or a mythological symbol.
In the Hebrew Scriptures (what Christians sometimes call the “Old Testament”), God establishes
permanent relationships with certain key religious ancestors of the Jews. The Patriarchs – Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob – are important personalities from the Book of Genesis who show us that God sought out
a relationship with them and their descendents. Far from having to mythologize who God is or venture a
speculative theory about who God is, Judaism claims that through no merit or effort of their own, these
ancestors were approached by God. God revealed Godself. Abraham did not have to “discover” that the
Mystery of Existence is God, but rather the Mystery of Existence “disclosed” itself to Abraham as God.
What we learn from God’s self-revelation to the Patriarchs is that God is “personal” and “relational”.
God is interested in his creation and interested in human beings.
While the biblical account shows the Patriarchs to be the ancestors of the nation or People of Israel, it
is not until the Book of Exodus and the time of Moses that this promise is fulfilled and we see the
descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have become a nation, a people. It is here, in Exodus, chapter
three, that God reveals God’s name – “Yahweh”. “Yahweh” means “the one who is”. When Moses asks
who should he say it is that has sent him on his mission, God tells Moses that God is the God of all
existence, all being, that everything which exists has its existence because of the Mystery of God’s
Existence. God is the Creator who sustains all being.
The first Christians were Jews like Jesus and they had been the beneficiaries of this religious heritage of
the People of Israel. They knew the personal God, the God of relationships and covenants, the God “who
is”, the compassion and lovingkindness of the One who is at the core of all being. God had liberated their
ancestors from slavery in Egypt. They had been given the Law and the Prophets and the Temple for
worshipping this God as their Lord. Yahweh was the God of their salvation (He had saved them).
Still, by the time of Jesus, the People of Israel had been the victim of many empires throughout
history. Their greatest political glory had been a thousand years before, during the reigns of kings David
and Solomon. They had never really known long-term political independence and they were still waiting
for the glory of their God, Yahweh, to be victorious over the nations of the world. They did not doubt
that this glory of Yahweh would be revealed as it had been revealed in the Exodus, but they were waiting.
Because of the writings of the Jewish prophets, especially those coming after the first temple had been
destroyed in the 6th century B.C., many of the Jews of Jesus' time had come to expect that God would
send a deliverer or a liberator to help them. In their Scriptures, in the Book of Judges, God had
continually raised up military heroes to rescue and bring justice ("to judge") Israel. God had anointed his
king, David, to unite the tribes of Israel. In the writings of the prophets, we see the promise of a deliverer
or "anointed one" (Messiah) who would not only rescue the Jews, but teach righteousness and faith in
God to the Gentiles as well.
What Christianity inherited from God's revelation to the Jews (to the Patriarchs, to Moses, to the
Prophets) were the following key beliefs:
1. The Mystery of Existence is a personal, covenantal (relational) God who alone exists (i.e. the gods of
mythology do not exist; there is only one God - monotheism)
2. The name of this Mystery of Existence God is “Yahweh” (“the one who is”).
3. Yahweh is a God of salvation and compassion.
4. Yahweh is a God of power and authority; Yahweh’s commandments are to be obeyed.
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5. Yahweh had begun his covenant with a family (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) and had given his Law to a
nation (Israel) and would send his Messiah to the Jews for the sake of all the nations (Gentiles). His
salvation had been begun in the Jews and its fulfillment was expected.
Again, it cannot be stressed enough that Jews and Christians do not claim to base these beliefs on
human inquiry and investigation. There is an important distinction between deciding in your own mind
that there is a God (belief) and trusting the God who has revealed Godself (faith). Belief is a way of
knowing the Mystery, but faith is a relationship with the Mystery. Jews and Christians not only believe
that there is a God. They believe in God. According to these religions, the one true God has revealed
Godself in history in a way that has been entirely for our benefit. This God of the Bible intervenes and
acts in our history not only to teach us and correct us, but most importantly to rescue us and to save us.
Why do we need saving? What does "salvation" mean? Do we need to be saved "from" something (as
in being rescued from danger) or do we need to be saved "for" something (as in being kept safe or
preserved for some important future time)? Most importantly, how can we be saved? These are all
questions that run through the Jewish and Christian traditions. Christians believe that God has answered
these questions definitively for all time and all places and all persons. Christians believe that God's
answer to these questions is not to be identified primarily with a book or a message, but with a Person.
God's saving love for sinful human beings is a Person who became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth.
iii. God the Father
Christians believe that God is fully revealed in the person of Jesus, that Jesus was not only a human
being but that he is God. In the next chapter, we will spend more time discussing what it is that
Christians believe about Jesus, and why they believe in Jesus, but here we need to address what Jesus
taught about God.
Jesus was a Jew who believed in Yahweh - the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the "one who is",
who made his covenant with Moses and the People of Israel. Even though Christians believe Jesus was
more than a "message-bearer", he certainly did have a message and his message is embraced by
Christians as a definitive teaching about God. In many ways, Jesus taught a theology (a statement about
God) that was traditional to Judaism, but in some ways it was new. Two main ideas mark Jesus' teaching
about God, his theology.
The key idea and organizing principle of much of Jesus' message is the , the "kingdom" or
"reign" of God. Jesus taught that God is sovereign, that God's authority is the ultimate and lastingly real
authority. People in this world who think that they are in charge, who think they possess power, fail to
recognize that real power and authority belongs to God. Ultimately, and Jesus indicates that the time is
near, God's authority will fully reveal itself. Against this authority, against this Kingdom, the powers of
this world cannot prevail. All human beings will be judged by God. In the New Testament, this message
is called  (evaggelion: "glad tidings" or "Gospel"). Even though people with power and
wealth might be unsettled by this message, Jesus spent most of his ministry among the poor and the
dispossessed. For these people, the message of God's Kingdom was a promise of justice, of being
delivered and saved from the forces of exploitation and misery. In "the Beatitudes", (which you have
studied in previous years) in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus emphasizes that these people are
"blessed" or "happy", despite their difficulties, because God knows their struggle and will save them.
Thus, Jesus' message about God's authority is a message of salvation.
The themes in Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom of God were not new to Judaism, but Jesus spoke
of the Kingdom as something that was near, that a new time was beginning which would be followed by
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the Judgment. Jesus himself was the evidence that this new time had begun, that the Kingdom had been
inaugurated in history. Thus, Jesus' message about God's Kingdom is inseparable from his own messianic
identity.
The second central element in Jesus' teaching about God concerns how we should approach this God
of ultimate and absolute authority. Jesus did not teach us to be afraid of God's authority, but in an
important, almost contrasting metaphor, Jesus teaches us that we can trust God in absolute dependence
and confidence. We can turn to God the way that a small child can depend on a parent. The original
Aramaic word which Jesus uses (Aramaic was the common language among 1st century Jews) is
preserved in the Greek text of the New Testament; the evangelists and Paul considered it too important to
substitute a translation. From that perspective, it is unfortunate that the English word "Father" is
presumed to be equivalent to the Aramaic word "Abba". In English, small children never call their
fathers "Father" and the word has a formality which contrasts with Jesus' teaching. A truer equivalent
would be "papa" or "daddy". When we pray the prayer Jesus taught us, the "Our Father", it is important
to remember that the Father of whom Jesus speaks is not some formal Disciplinarian-in-the-Sky, but a
tenderly loving parent who takes care of us. This is another reason why God's Kingdom is "good news" the one who is in charge, the one who sends judgment, is our "Abba".
Jesus taught us to look upon God as our "Abba" because he so thoroughly did so himself. Jesus refers
to the Father as the one who has sent him into the world. He has received his mission from the Father. In
his prayer life, Jesus has a unique intimacy with his Father. Jesus, in turn, refers to himself as the Son. In
the fourth gospel, this results in several extended meditations on the relationship between Jesus and the
Father. The early Christians may have called Jesus "Lord" (a title for God), but they accepted Jesus'
teaching that there was a distinction between the Son and the Father. Christians believe that Jesus is not
only fully human, but fully God - and yet, we do not believe that Jesus is the Father.
He is the "Word" of the Father, the "True Image" of the Father. Most of all, he is the "Son" of the
Father. In other words, Christians believe that "God the Son" became a human being in Jesus of
Nazareth. We do not believe that "God the Father" became a human being. Such language may seem
strange in a religion which claims to be monotheistic, but Christians believe that in the one God there are
distinctions between the "persons" of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We shall return to this
later, but for now it is important to note that Christian faith in God the Father does not mean that we
believe the Father became human. Nor does it mean that we believe in three gods! Jesus' teaching about
the Father introduces the first note of the central Mystery of Christian faith, the Holy Trinity.
The distinctiveness of God the Father from God the Son was defended by the early Christians because
of their experience of Jesus' Resurrection. They proclaimed that God the Father had raised up his Son by
the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the early Christians did not believe that Jesus had performed
some kind of resuscitation of himself. Christians believe that in the Resurrection we see the fullness of
the Trinity revealed in the glory of the Risen Jesus.
When the Apostles and other early Christians began their task of proclaiming the "good news", they
did not begin with speaking about Jesus' teaching. Their central message was that Jesus is the "Risen
Lord". Who Jesus is was considered more important even than what he taught. Only because Jesus is the
Lord - is God the Son - does his teaching possess such a binding character. The authority of Jesus'
teaching rests not on its own attractiveness (which is considerable), but on who Jesus is. He is Lord. He
is the Son of the Father. That changes everything.
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III. Christ
i. The Promised Messiah
In the last chapter we stressed the difference between believing that there is a God and believing in
God. This point might be confusing, especially since in both cases we're talking about believing and
we're talking about God. This important difference makes more sense when we look at the question of
Christ. With the "God-question" it is possible to believe there is a God, without believing in God; with
the "Christ-question", this is not so. It is not possible to really believe that there is a Christ without
believing in Christ. To believe in Christ presupposes all of the things we have already spoken about. If
you believe in Christ, you must be a theist (one who believes there is a God). If you believe in Christ you
must also accept that the "God who is" is the God who revealed Godself to the People of Israel. To
believe in Christ is to trust in God and to gratefully accept the free gift of his saving love.
However, Christianity is based on more than the revelation of God that we see recounted in the
Hebrew Scriptures. Christians believe that there has been a "fuller" revelation of who God is than what
was revealed to Abraham or to Moses or to the prophets. Christians believe this full, perfect revelation of
God is not equivalent to a book or a thing. For Christians, this perfect revelation is not indirectly
communicated to us through a prophet or as a secret. For Christians, this perfect revelation is not
primarily a communication from God of a message about God. Rather, Christians believe this
communication or revelation from God is a full and perfect revelation of God. This perfect revelation is
God himself. This communication is a self-communication. This self-communication of God is Jesus of
Nazareth.
To speak of the revelation of God in Jesus as a communication (and indeed a self-communication) is to
say that more has happened than the hidden God "revealing" Godself. To reveal means "to show". To
communicate means "to share" or "to give". In Jesus of Nazareth, God has given Godself to us. This idea
of "gift of self" is crucial to understanding Jesus' mission, especially his death and resurrection.
No doubt you are familiar with some of the stories about Jesus of Nazareth that appear in the Bible. It
is important to remember that these stories were not written at the same time as the events they describe.
Even though most historians agree that most of the stories have a historical character, the books of the
gospels in the New Testament were not written by historians trying to put together an objective account of
Jesus' life. Rather, these books were written by people who already believed in Jesus; they are subjective
accounts based on faith. The evangelists (authors of the gospels) were not trying to simply tell the "news"
about Jesus so that readers might decide whether that news was any good or not. The evangelists
believed the news about Jesus is "good news" and of absolute importance to all human beings. Some
crucial events had taken place which allowed them to look back on Jesus' time on earth and better
understand who he was. Their primary concern was to show who Jesus is. Jesus is "the Christ".
Christians are people who believe that the fullness of God’s revelation to humanity is in Jesus of
Nazareth, that Jesus was truly the messiah, the “anointed one" of Yahweh. In the New Testament, the
Greek word for Messiah is , "christos". To call Jesus of Nazareth "Christ" is to affirm that he is
the deliverer or saviour who was sent by God for the salvation of the world.
For most of his life, Jesus lived privately, in his own community at Nazareth. His "Public Ministry"
began when he was around the age of thirty. Each of the gospels shows that Jesus participated in the
"baptism" which had been initiated by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. After that, he begins his
public work of proclaiming "good news" - the fulfillment of God's plan of salvation, the nearness of God's
authority or sovereignty (, "basileia": "kingdom" or "reign"). In the gospels, he is more than
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merely a prophet or messenger. He embodies this salvation. This can be seen in the stories of miracles
and healing as well as in the message he teaches.
Each gospel ends with events which show clearly that Jesus is more than the "bringer" or messenger of
salvation, that he is salvation in his own person. His suffering, his death and his Resurrection (which
together form a mysterious unity called the Paschal Mystery) are not simply "what happened" to Jesus,
but show his followers and the world that he was more than merely a prophet. In fact, after Jesus
ascended to his Father, his followers initial proclamation was that Jesus is the "Risen Lord". This
shocked some of the Jewish authorities because "Lord" is a name for God. Even for the first Christians
then, Jesus was more than the Messiah, even more than the Christ.
In Matthew's gospel (Mt. 16:13-20) Jesus and his disciples are gathered together at Caesarea Phillipi, a
town northeast of the Galilee region from which most of them came. He asks them who people are saying
he is. They tell him that some are saying he is John the Baptist, some say Elijah or Jeremiah or another of
the prophets. Jesus then asks them "But who do you say that I am?". This is a question which all
Christians ask themselves. It is also the foundational question of Christology, the theology of Christ.
When we come up with a response to this question, we are making a christological statement. St. Peter's
response to Jesus was "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God". Such a response is a profession
of faith in Jesus the Christ.
ii. The Mission of the Son
The title "Son of God" was a common title in the polytheistic (Polytheism: belief in more than one
God) cultures of the Middle East, but such a title was not common in Israel and raised some difficulties in
a radically monotheistic religion like Judaism. Jesus was a Jew who had a deep faith in Yahweh. So
were his first followers. When they spoke of Jesus as God's "Son" they did not mean to threaten the
integrity of Jewish monotheism.
The experience of Christ not only as teacher and healer, but also as Risen Lord empowered the first
Christians to go beyond even Peter's important profession of faith. An early Christian hymn to Christ is
quoted in chapter 2 (Phil. 2:7-11) of St. Paul's epistle (letter) to the early Christian community at a town
called Philippi (a different Philippi than in Mt. 16). This hymn reflects an understanding of who Jesus is
(a christology) from an extremely early period in the Church's history. It states that before being born,
Christ existed (though he was not Jesus of Nazareth yet). It says that though he was in the form of God,
he did not consider his equality with God as something to be taken advantage of or clung to for its own
sake. Instead, he "emptied himself" (: "Kenosis", "self-emptying"), taking upon himself the
form of the messianic "Servant of Yahweh" (as foretold by the prophet Isaiah) by taking human form. As
Yahweh's Servant, he was obedient - not only in one important moment, but with the totality of his human
life. He was obedient to his loving "Abba", accepting the mission of revealing, communicating, showing,
giving and being the Father's love for sinful humanity. He was obedient to this mission even when the
sinfulness of humanity threatened him personally.
Thus, the Incarnation (in carne: "in the flesh"), the Son of God "becoming flesh", becoming human in
Jesus of Nazareth was a mission. The Son was sent by the Father into the world so that God might "be
with us". This reveals to us, this shows us, that God wants to be with us. God wants a relationship with
us. And rather than waiting for us to find God, God has found us. God has come to us. In the 90s, Joan
Osborne had a song called "What If God Was One Of Us". For Christians, there is no "what if…". God
became "one of us". For God to humble himself and become human is the "self-emptying" or Kenosis
which St. Paul spoke about. This "self-emptying" is a sign of the great love of the Father made flesh in
the great love Jesus has for us.
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In Christ, the nature of real love has been revealed. Real love is not selfish. We cannot say we love
somebody and proceed to use and exploit them. We cannot say we love somebody and force our will on
them and overpower them so we can have our way. Yahweh had revealed Godself to the People of Israel
as a God of real authority and power. Jesus affirms this important aspect of God in his proclamation of
the Kingdom of God. And yet, power is not the definitive reality of who God is for us. Who God is for
us is not most perfectly revealed in a raw display of power or even in the giving of commandments. Who
God is for us is most perfectly revealed in the Father's love for us. As the evangelist of the fourth gospel
teaches us, God loved the world so much that he gave us his only Son. To believe in Jesus is to believe in
the Father who sent him into the world to reveal this great love.
What was the reaction of the world to this love? The world's failure to believe - our failure to believe is called sin. Sin is an intentional disobedience of God's commandments. This disobedience hurts our
relationship with God. When God's attitude to us is love and our attitude to God is a rejection of love, we
are guilty of sin. Even when God's love became flesh and dwelt among us, human beings rejected him.
In Jesus' crucifixion, we see not only the intrigues of the Sanhedrin and the Roman authorities, but the
sins of all human beings. For at its root, all sin is a rejection of God's saving love. He died for our sins.
The scribes and priests jeered at him on the cross, "He saved others, let him save himself". But he did
not come to save himself; in him, God's love is offered to all. What if he had asked the Father to save
him? What if he had decided to take away from us the freedom we have been given, the freedom even to
reject God's love, the freedom to sin? What he understood was that the freedom to sin is not freedom, but
bondage. Sin alienates us from God. His answer to the problem of sin is not to remove free will, but to
love us even when our free will is misused in a rejection of him. What Jesus' suffering and death show us
is a God who persists in loving us even when we sin. You cannot love someone and take their free will
away. You cannot force people to love you in return. On the cross we see a God who is more Love than
Power; we learn from God that Love is more than Power. Even in his death, his prayer is for the
forgiveness of our sins. Christ's death shows us - indeed, it gives us - a God who loves us while we are
still sinners, a God whose response to human sinfulness is faithfulness to the self-emptying love of the
Incarnation.
On the cross, in his self-emptying faithfulness to the mission of love he had been given by the Father,
Jesus shows his love not only for us, but for the Father. On the night before he died, in the Garden of
Gethsemane, he prayerfully reaffirms his commitment to this mission: "Not my will, but Yours". This
does not mean that somehow God the Father willed or even caused the death of Jesus. Jesus did not die
because the Father insisted that someone be punished for the sins of human beings. In fact, Jesus is the
revelation that the Father's response to the sins of human beings is love and forgiveness. What the Father
is asking of Jesus is faithfulness to the mission of self-emptying 'kenotic' love. The self-emptying
direction of the Incarnation finds its fulfillment in the Christ who died for us, who sacrificed himself for
love of us.
iii. The Risen Lord
Even though God the Father did not directly cause the death of Jesus, he does allow sinful humanity to
reject his Son. One might think that the Father's response to our rejection of Christ would be some kind
of punishment for human beings. But the Father is the one who sent his Son on his mission in the first
place. The love which the Son reveals comes from the Father. Even after we crucified his Son, the
Father loves us. He shows us this love even more powerfully by showing us his glory, by raising his Son
from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. Glory is our recognition of the holiness of God. This
holiness is certainly the power of God, but more importantly it is the victorious, saving love of God. The
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glory of the Risen Christ is the fulfillment to which the Father calls each of us. In the Risen Jesus, we
recognize God's love revealed, but we also recognize the promise of God's love for all of us.
To follow Christ is to do what Christ did. It is to love the Father, to reach out to the poor and the
marginalized. Discipleship requires that we "carry our cross", that we recognize that even in our suffering
God is with us. To endure suffering for the Gospel is to witness to the truth of the Gospel. And yet, as
we follow Christ, as we die with him in baptism, we also receive a share in the promise of his
Resurrection. God's plan for us is fulfilled by a participation in God's very own life. In Christ, we shall
be glorified. Even though this ultimate glory is "still to come", glimpses of it are available to us when we
see with the eyes of faith. In this way, Christianity is not just "pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die" following a
lifetime of misery. Christianity is "Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" and "the Kingdom of Heaven is
within you" and the Father's will "be done on earth as it is in heaven". When we pray the Lord's Prayer the prayer of the Kingdom of God - we are not praying for patience until the end of the world. We are
praying for the coming of the Kingdom now, here in our own lives and in the world.
The night before his death, Jesus had offered the Passover meal as an anticipation of how he would
"give himself" for us on Good Friday. Only after the Resurrection did his followers understand why they
should continue this meal "in memory of" Jesus. They understood that by receiving the Body and Blood
of Christ, they were accepting the "free gift" (: "charis", "grace") of God's saving love and
forgiveness. They had not earned it; Christ had given it through his death on the cross. This grace makes
possible a participation in the life of God through our faith in the Risen Lord. Our response to this "free
gift" is "thanksgiving" (: "eucharistein", "thanksgiving"). For Christians, the Eucharist is
both a grateful acceptance of the free gift of salvation and a profession of faith in the Risen Lord.
The glory of the Risen Lord is the promise which forms the basis of our hope and faith. Through the
Holy Spirit, it empowers us to love. If Jesus had been crucified and not been raised by the Father, then
Christianity would not be true. Christians would not be able to confidently proclaim that God will fulfill
his promise. But in the Resurrection of Jesus, we see the beginning of that fulfillment. We see that the
God who did not abandon his crucified Son will not abandon us.
Ironically, even after having seen the Risen Lord, some of the followers of Jesus still felt unsure of
their mission. They had followed Jesus and seen his works and heard his teachings, but the gospels tell us
that most of his followers were frightened away by his crucifixion. They failed to understand - at first how Jesus' death was a redemptive sacrifice for sinful humanity and how the Risen Lord is the sure
promise of salvation. When the Risen Lord ascended to the "right hand of the Father", they could not
help but to feel that they were losing something. Still, Jesus promised them that he would send them an
Advocate and that, through this Advocate, Jesus would be with them (and us) always - even until the end
of time.
IV. The Spirit and the Church
i. The Mission of the Holy Spirit
All too often, when Christians think of God's self-communication they think only of God the Son
become flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. True, the Incarnation is a central claim of Christianity, but it is not the
only "gift of self" which God has given to the world. Before ascending to his Father, the Risen Jesus
promised that he would be with his followers by sending them an Advocate. It may seem strange to say
that he could be with them by sending them Somebody else, but if we remember that in sending the Son,
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God the Father was revealing his great love to the world it might make more sense. In the same way in
which the Son, who is not the Father, is the gift of the Father's love, the Holy Spirit, who is neither the
Father nor the Son, is the presence of the Father's love revealed in Christ.
The Acts of the Apostles tells us that after the Ascension of Jesus, his followers were gathered together
and that the Holy Spirit came upon them. In this account of the Pentecost, we remember that the Spirit
rested on them as tongues of fire and that they no longer felt afraid or abandoned. They were empowered
to go out and proclaim not only what Jesus had taught, but most especially what he had done and who he
is. He had died for our sins and God had raised him from the dead. He is Lord. Acts says that people
speaking many languages were able to understand this message. This is a message not only for the
Jewish people, but for all the nations.
Through this outpouring of the Holy Spirit, these followers of Jesus became constituted as an
"assembly" (: "ekklesia") of those "belonging to the Lord" (: "kyriake" - from which
we get the English word "church"). This experience of Pentecost was not something which they
experienced individually and separately, but together. From the perspective of the New Testament, the
Father's plan of salvation which has been accomplished in Jesus is extended throughout the world by a
community "filled" with the very Spirit of God.
It is important to realize that this Pentecost, this sending of the Holy Spirit and the beginning of the
Church, came before any of the New Testament books were written. Indeed, if this community had not
been established by the Spirit of God, these books could never have been written. In Christianity, we do
not recognize that Jesus is Lord nor can we sincerely call upon God as Father unless the Holy Spirit
dwells in us. Thus, while the Spirit was first sent into the world to establish a community, the Spirit lives
in the hearts of believers and reaches out to all human beings. This is why Christians can accept the
teaching of St. Paul that our bodies are "temples of the Holy Spirit" and that we are members of the "one
Body of Christ" because we share life in the same Spirit.
ii. The Holy Trinity
When the Spirit who dwells in us empowers us to faith in Christ the Lord and, through Christ, leads us
to the Father, we can see a pattern in the Christian experience of God. Even though the Son was sent by
the Father into the world, he returned to the Father and sits at his "right hand". In the Ascension of Jesus,
we see that everything which has its origin in the Father is called back to the Father. This is true for us
too. We have been created so that we might live in God.
Like the Son, the Holy Spirit has been sent into the world as part of the Father's plan of salvation. The
Spirit, however, has not "become flesh" (that's why we can call him "Spirit"), but dwells in us who are
flesh and empowers us to be transformed by the intimate presence of the Father's saving love - of the
Spirit of Christ in our hearts. Like the Son, however, the Spirit has his eternal "origin" (if we can even
use such a word for one who is eternal) in the Father. Like the ascended Son, the Spirit is returning to the
Father - but does so through Christ. However, in the meantime, the Spirit dwells in the hearts of believers
and is reaching out to all people with the offer of the free gift of God's saving love. As the Spirit fulfills
his mission of gathering us into this shared life in Christ, the Spirit empowers us to love Christ and,
through Christ, to love the Father. In returning to the Father, the Spirit returns us to the Father.
To believe in Jesus Christ, then, is not merely to accept that he loves us, but is to accept the Father
who sent him. And to believe in Jesus Christ is already to be filled with the Holy Spirit who is returning
us, through Christ, to the Father. This "returning" does not merely mean "when we die" or "when we go
to Heaven". We return to the Father, in the Spirit, through the Son, right now, by a new life ("a life in the
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Spirit") which shows the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control. The Holy Spirit is the secret power of transformation within us that presses
forward to the glory of the Resurrection and the transfiguration of the world.
For Christians to be faithful to the God of salvation, they must be willing to share their faith. This
faith is trinitarian. It cannot be expressed without speaking about the Father and the Son and the Holy
Spirit. Our experience of God - the revelation on which Christianity is based - is an experience of God
the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
We could not call upon God as our "Abba" if it weren't for Christ who taught us how to do so, whose
death and Resurrection reconciled us to him and whose Spirit rises up in us to believe in him. We could
not proclaim Jesus as Risen Lord if the Father had not sent him and had not raised him and if the Spirit
did not empower us to believe in him. We could not live a "new life", a participation in God's life, if the
Holy Spirit had not been sent by the Father, or had not been promised by Christ or did not dwell in us
making us into a "new creation".
And yet, Christians insist that the God of Jesus Christ is Yahweh, the "one who is". We do not claim
to believe in three gods. That wouldn't make any sense to us and to the unity between the Father, the Son
and the Spirit. For Christians, the New Testament is not a rejection of the monotheism of Judaism. We
believe in one God. And yet we acknowledge distinctions in God. The Father is God. The Son is God.
The Holy Spirit is God. They are not three gods. They are one God. And yet the Father is not the Son
who is not the Spirit who is not the Father.
For Christians, God is the Mystery of the Holy Trinity.
The Trinity is a Unity. The "Three" are more "One" than human beings can comprehend. And yet, the
"One" is the Father and the Son and the Spirit in a way that also transcends human reason. In the early
Church, Christians struggled to find ways to speak about the Trinity which would not do damage to
monotheism, but that would also not do damage to the proclamation of our experience of salvation.
People would attempt to describe this Indescribability, this Mystery. In some cases, certain early
Christian thinkers (called "the Church Fathers") were able to come up with ways of explaining this
Christian understanding of God which was true to the faith of Christians throughout the ancient world. In
other cases, an attempt to explain God failed to respect the truth of faith and was rejected by the larger
Christian Church.
iii. The Church Teaches
The Church began to understand that the Holy Spirit was protecting the faith of its members. The
Holy Spirit was guiding the churches spread from east to west in their search for better ways of explaining
the Faith. In the first century, the Holy Spirit had guided or "inspired" St. Paul and other authors of the
New Testament in their writings. Because Christianity is a religion which is based on faith in God, it
needs to explain itself. And it needs to be able to explain itself in a variety of cultures and places and
throughout many periods of history. And yet, churches in a variety of places shared the same faith which
had been first proclaimed by the apostles.
After Christianity ceased to be persecuted in the Roman Empire and became legalized, Christian
churches were better able to communicate with eachother their "shared understanding" of the Faith.
When new attempts to explain Christian beliefs seemed to fail, the bishops of the churches throughout the
world would gather in a special council (Ecumenical Council) to correct such failed explanations and to
attempt true explanations of Christian beliefs. The first such council was held in Asia Minor (modern-day
Turkey), in the town of Nicaea in 325 A.D.
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The Council of Nicaea was primarily concerned with the teaching of an Alexandrian priest named
Arius who taught that the Son is less than the Father and was not eternal with the Father - that there was a
"time" when the Son was not. The bishops who gathered at Nicaea condemned Arius' teaching and
instead, formulated the first part of what we call the "Nicene Creed". Against Arius, the Creed states:
…we believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God,
begotten, not made,
consubstantial (sharing the same being) with the Father,
through him all things were made…
Thus the Son is not less than the Father, nor is he a creature of the Father. Indeed, the Father created all
things "through him". He is God. But he is the Son of the Father - not only begotten, but eternally
begotten. This is one example of our language about God (Theology) becoming clarified through the
tradition of the Church (in this case, through a Church council). Catholics believe that what we teach
about faith and morals is true. This is what we mean when we say that the Church is infallible.
Infallibility doesn't mean that we are always good or that we do not sin. It simply means that what the
Church teaches about faith and morals is "without error". Most people believe that what their religion
teaches is true; that is why they choose to be members of that religion. The world infallibility simply
means this. When we say that the pope is infallible, we do not mean that the pope can teach something
different than the Church's faith. We mean the pope - the bishop of Rome - has the special task of leading
the rest of the Church in teaching the Church's faith. This task or function of teaching the Gospel is called
the magisterium of the Church. The pope and the bishops have the unique responsibility of safeguarding
the magisterium, but all Christians are called to serve in the Church's mission to proclaim the Gospel.
iv. The Mission of the Church
The Church is not merely its leaders, but the whole People of God. We do not need to hold some special
office in the Church (such as priest or bishop) or have some official responsibility (such as teaching in a
Catholic school) to share in the Church's mission. This course will focus on the way in which the Church
is called to fulfill its mission - even in the culture of the modern world. We do not see the Gospel as
some ancient story that is no longer relevant today. For Christians, Christ is still the Risen Lord, whose
Spirit lives in our hearts and leads us to the Father.
The fundamental task or mission of the Christian Church is to lead all human beings to Christ and,
through Christ, to the Father who sent him. In order to do this, we must be prayerfully attentive to the
prompting of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
The Church's mission - and our vocation or calling in that mission - reveals itself in our prayer. To fail to
pray is to ignore the Spirit who lives in us. To fail to pray is to be ungrateful for the free gift of salvation
in Christ. To fail to pray is to forget that God is our "Abba". Prayer is at the heart of the Christian life.
On the other hand, we cannot be Christians all by ourselves. The Holy Spirit not only helps us to be
better persons individually, but also draws us into communion with one another. This is why the Church's
highest prayer is Eucharist. At Mass, we accept with gratitude (Eucharist: "thanksgiving") the free gift of
the Father's saving love revealed in Christ. We receive Christ. We celebrate our communion not only
with God, but with one another. We celebrate being "Church", the assembly of believers who belong to
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the Lord. The Eucharist is our central sacrament, a living and real sign of the presence of God's saving
love and grace.
While prayer and the sacraments nourish and nurture our Christian life, they prepare us for our role in the
Church's larger mission. Our task is not merely "to belong" to the Church. Belonging to the Church
prepares us to serve its mission. In this course, you will explore the variety of ways in which this mission
is lived out. If you believe in Christ, be attentive to the ways in which you are being called to serve in
this mission. Are you being called to work for justice? Are you being called to teach? Are you being
called to serve the poor or the sick? Are you being called to family life? You are being called. Your task
is to listen.
If you do not believe in Christ, we believe he is still calling you. He is always calling you. Maybe you
will respond to this call at some time in your future. It is never too late to embrace the Gospel. What we
ask of you is that you keep an open mind, but more importantly, keep an open heart. The Spirit of God is
always present in the authentic experience of real love.