The Church and Unity

I apologise for the lack of postings recently but there have been good reasons due to a very busy schedule of late. On Tuesday I was at the SSC Synod at Selby Abbey. It was my first visit to the Abbey and there has been quite a bit of restorative work done there. It was a fairly good meeting though the hymns were not favourites of mine at all. Yesterday I had some time off and took care of some personal matters that needed tending to and this was undoubtedly a big relief for me. The brightness of the early morning hours woke me up today at about 4.45 am and I had trouble going back to sleep so I got up to read. I picked up B.C. Butler's book off the shelf titled Church and Unity as this is a constant question in my mind with regards to my own work in Eucharistic theology and the sacrifice of the Mass.

One of the interesting things about the Butler book that is a helpful reminder is that the Church in its existential reality is an imperfect representation of what it is to be in the perfect expression of its own ideal. Nonetheless, we are called to unity within the body and realise that this unity takes time to have it actualised but we are called to labour for it. Reading the news about scandals and all sorts of other problems reminds us of the liability of sin that is evident due to human fallibility despite baptism. But the Church is still that Bride to whom sinners are called to grow in maturity within her walls and though unity takes time there is an urgency to pursue unity. Butler concludes his book by a call to unity that is also a challenge. He writes,

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 him who sent him entails, not as a distant aspiration but as a here-and-now urgency, seeking membership of that koinonia.

The state of things at the moment within churches and ecclesial communities is the apparent chaos in the culture that impacts the maturation process and growth towards unity. We live in interesting days and exciting times and look to Mary our Mother to pray for her Son's Bride as she grows up and matures as the ready Bride at the great Marriage Supper of the Lamb.