Reflecting on the Imperfect

Not too long ago, a very good friend sent me B.C. Butler's book The Church and Unity. I have been looking over it during the week of prayer for Church unity and the conclusion of the book leaves interesting issues in which I am personally pondering as are many in our day. To think that anywhere in the present state of things there is perfection in the Church is to be confused about the human imperfection that is chronic in the Church around the world. Simply, it will always exist not being mature enough and not being perfect enough until Christ's glorious return. But, what sorts of questions does a realist understanding of the imperfections bring about? I think about this in light of the SSPX's excommunications being lifted as we await their response. I think about this in light of the deep divisions facing many in the C of E over holy orders and the crux of the issue concerning authority and truth in an ecclesial framework. Therefore, I place the final reflection by Butler for all the readers to ponder.

The upshot of these reflections is that the Catholic Church in its existential actuality is an imperfect representation of what it is called and chosen by God to be. This imperfection is chronic. It is not something that began to be only after some heroic age of a hardly discernible past. It is an ineluctable consequence of the fact that the Church is a communion of human beings in various stages of development from lesser to greater maturity, and of human beings who are fallible and, despite their baptism, liable to sin. The Church's imperfection may take different shapes at different epochs and in reaction to different circumstances. But we have no grounds for supposing that the Church on earth will ever be a perfect expression of its own ideal.

The Second Vatican Council's words can be applied here: While Christ, 'the holy, innocent, undefiled' knew nothing of sin, but came to expiate only the sins of the people, the Church, embracing sinners in her bosom, is at the same time holy and always in need of being purified, and incessantly pursues the path of penance and renewal.

To admit as much is, it might be thought, dangerous. Is it not to invite those who are not yet within the koinonia, whether as individuals or as Christian churches and groups, to postpone their reconciliation with the Church?

The contrary is the case. Had we any reason to hope that the Church might at length, or even quickly, so put her house in order that there would be nothing scandalous about her, then a case, insufficient but plausible, might be constructed for remaining outside until the interior reformation should be accomplished. But if the Church never will be what she ought to be, then an inescapable question arises: Is it not our duty to join her without more ado and to lend our aid to her continual 'purification' from within her ranks? For, imperfect though she is and will always be, she is the divinely given and guaranteed, new and supernatural, historical reality within which and by means of which God's eternal purpose for the salvation of all men and the supernatural elevation of his creation is being accomplished.

The Church, in fact, is the 'sacramental' re-presentation of the appeal of God in Christ, an appeal directed to every man everywhere and at all times. It is an appeal of love and calls for an answer of not theoretical but actual, existential, love which gives itself as fully and immediately as God has given himself in Christ. On the one hand, the appeal is: 'Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest...My yoke is easy, and my burden is light'. On the other hand, it is inexorable with all the inexorability of perfect love. And because it is inexorable it is 'judgmental'. 'The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son...He who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life'. the message of Christian history is that the way to come to Christ is to belong to the koinonia; and that hearing Christ and believing in him who sent him entails, not as a distant aspiration but as a here-and-now urgency, seeking membership of that koinonia.