Sermons from the Latins/Sermon 38
Sixth Sunday After Pentecost.
The Indestructibility of the Church.
" Christ, rising again from the dead, dieth now no more, and death shall no more have dominion over Him" — Rom. vi. 9.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex. : Indestructibility of Christ's material and mystical body.
I. Possibility: 1. Founded Church. 2. Free will. 3. License and liberty.
II. Fact proved from : 1. Figures, Isaias and Daniel. 2. Synagogue. 3. New Testament and end.
III. Inquiry a duty: 1. Invisibility. 2. Scandals. 3. Evidences.
Per. : 1. Faith at last day. 2. The remnant. 3. Exhortation to fidelity.
SERMON.
Brethren, St. Paul's denial of the possibility of death ever again obtaining dominion over Christ's material body is equally true of Christ's mystical body, the Church. " You," says the Apostle, " are the body of Christ and members of member; and as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body, so also is Christ.,, This bond of union, this identity of Christ with His Church, entails a corresponding indestructibility on her part, and justifies us in saying of her that having risen with Christ from the dead she dieth now no more and death shall no more have dominion over her.
Brethren, Christ's Church is indestructible. That Christ founded a Church every Christian must necessarily admit, and no fair-minded infidel can possibly deny. Many, however, contend that the Church's existence depending on our free will, not even Christ Himself could have foretold whether we should ever change, abandon, or destroy her. The Church dependent on our free will! God forbid. Or what is free will? Does it mean entire independence of God? It would be a curse rather than a blessing. Free will was not given to us that we might be able to choose between good and evil, or defeat the designs of an all-powerful God. The blessed in heaven, the angels, God even, cannot will evil for evil's sake, and yet they represent the highest, sublimest types of moral freedom. The essence of free will consists in the power to choose, not between good and evil, but between one good and another. Hence, if God in an excess of that mercy which surpasseth all understanding, restrains us from such deeds as the destruction of His Church, He thwarts us not in the use but in the abuse of our liberty. Nor must we make our limited understanding the measure of God's omnipotence. " The power of God," says St. Augustine, " to move our free wills whither it pleaseth Him is greater than our own." God said of David: "Thou shalt be king," but were not the Israelites afterwards free in electing him? Christ came on earth to die for mankind, but did not the Jews crucify Him of their own accord? And if the Lord decreed that His Church should never change, never die, are we less free in sustaining her? No surely, for having all things present to Him in His eternity, and foreseeing and foreordaining that in every age a certain portion of humanity aided by His grace should preserve intact the visible body of His Church, the Saviour could well say of her in the words of the Psalmist: "Thou art ever the selfsame and thy years shall not fail."
But did Christ found an indestructible Church? Brethren, as well might one ask: Did He found a Church at all? For wherever in Holy Writ, be it in figure or prophecy or Gospel history, we read of the establishment of Christ's Church, we never fail to read also of her continuous and unchangeable existence. She is the tree of life of the New Law, whose leaves and blossoms shall never decay, and whose perennial fruit must nourish men's souls in the vigor and freshness of an eternal youth. The Royal Psalmist sings of her as the sworn covenant of God with His people, of which He shall never repent; as His throne on earth that shall never fall, as His kingdom that shall never end. The prophet Isaias foretells the coming of the Prince of peace and immediately adds: " His empire shall be multiplied, and there shall be no end of peace. He shall sit upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom, to establish it and strengthen it with judgment and justice from henceforth and forever." Now who is this Prince of peace, and what is His kingdom? Who but Christ? " For„" says St. Jerome, "so accurately has Isaias written of the Redeemer that he deserves the name of Evangelist rather than Prophet." Every Christmas Day, moreover, the universal Church proclaims the newborn Redeemer in these same words, and St. Matthew in the fourth chapter of his gospel quotes them as a prophecy fulfilled in the person of Christ. The Angel Gabriel's words in announcing Christ's coming were practically identical: " And the Lord God shall give Him the throne of David, His Father, and of His kingdom there shall be no end." At His birth an angel proclaimed: " Peace on earth to men of good will." Christ's first words to His disciples ever were: " Peace be to you," and His last, " My peace I leave you." Can we doubt, then, to whom these words apply, taught as we are by the Church, the inspired writers, the angels, and by Christ Himself, that He and He alone is the Prince of peace? And being the Prince of peace, His promised kingdom must be the Church, for that and that alone did Christ come to establish. She alone is on the earth, while not of the earth. But such precisely is the nature of Christ's kingdom, for the prophet foretells: " He shall sit upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom," and Christ before Pilate declared: "A King indeed am I, but My kingdom is not from hence." Now the kingdom of peace "can never end," and " there shall be no end of peace." For the same reason, therefore, that every kingdom divided against itself, shall be brought to destruction, the kingdom of peace, the Church of Christ, shall endure forever.
The prophet Daniel goes farther, and teaches that the true Church not only can never be overcome but must eventually conquer all her adversaries. "In those days," he writes, " the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and His kingdom shall not be delivered up to another people, and it shall break in pieces and consume all other kingdoms, and itself shall stand forever." Many admit indeed the perpetuity of the Christian faith, but of the original institution of Christ they find only the relics in the hundred and one sects of to-day. Let them remember that there can be only one true, and that wholly true, Church; that she can never be delivered up to her enemies; that she must break in pieces and consume all other churches; and that she herself shall stand forever.
Brethren, for a clearer insight into this truth, compare for a moment the Synagogue of the Old Law with the Church of the New. Some maintain that just as the Synagogue of God the Father was superseded by the Church of God the Son, so that of the Son must in time give way to the religion of God the Holy Ghost. The Synagogue having been, as St. Paul says, " but the shadow and the figure of future things," it was bound to disappear on the coming of the reality. Its end was foretold by Jeremias saying: "Behold, the days shall come, saith the Lord, when I shall make a new covenant with the house of Israel." But if this new covenant, this Church of Christ, must in turn cease, she, too, must be a figure of some future dispensation. Not so, however, for the prophet adds: " And this shall be the covenant I shall make with the house of Israel, I will give My law in their bowels, and write it in their hearts." The last heart-beat, then, of the last human being, shall be the signal for the Church's dissolution and resurrection. When the Church falls, then falls the human race and with it the world, for, concludes the prophet: " If these ordinances fail before Me, then also the seed of Israel shall fail, so as not to be a nation before Me forever." The Church is no figure, but a perfect reality. Says St. Paul: " The old priesthood indeed was set aside, because it brought nothing to perfection, but the new, being according to the order of Melchisedech, must last forever." Justly, therefore, does the Apostle conclude that: " Christ, for that He is eternal, hath an everlasting priesthood whereby He is able to save forever them that come to God by Him."
Brethren, that which the prophetic spirit foreshadowed in the Old Law, the positive will of Christ confirmed in the New. He represents His Church as a field of cockle and good wheat, not to be separated till the great harvest-time — the end of the world; as a vineyard whose laborers are not to be paid off until the evening of time; as a net cast into the sea and not to be drawn forth until the morning of eternity. In the first and second Epistles to the Corinthians we find the Church spoken of now as the body and again as the spouse of Christ. But shall Christ's body perish? Or shall Truth itself prove faithless to His spouse? The Church is a real body. From Christ, the head, the vital force, the Holy Ghost, flows through all the members. As long, therefore, as the head is united to the body, and this quickening Spirit continues to flow, so long must the body continue to live. But Christ Himself in His last discourse, promised that the Spirit should dwell in His Church forever, saying: " When I go, I will ask the Father and He shall give you another Paraclete that He may abide with you forever." The Church is the spouse of Christ, and as such He gives her the very Spirit of love as a pledge of everlasting fidelity. Again, in the sixteenth chapter of St. Matthew Christ says to St. Peter: " I say to thee that thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her." From within and from without, therefore, the Church is indestructible. In the gospel of St. Luke Christ uses the same simile: "He that heareth the word of God and keepeth it is like to one who builds his house upon a rock. For the winds and the rains come and beat upon that house, but they shake it not, for it is founded on a rock." So, too, the storms of error and bigotry may break upon the Church, but far from wrecking her, they only serve to settle her more solidly on her foundation — the immovable rock of Peter. Were even Satan with all his demon hosts to assault her she would easily withstand their attack, for by her side stands Satan's master, Jesus Christ. " Behold," He says to her, " behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world."
Brethren, it would seem almost superfluous to multiply arguments in behalf of so self-evident a truth. For, after all, why did Christ institute His Church? His purpose appears from His commission to His Apostles. " Go ye forth," He says, " into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature, and he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be condemned." As long, therefore, as there remains a soul on earth, so long must the Church continue to be the way by leading men to salvation, the truth by preaching the Gospel, and the life by administering the sacraments.
Brethren, since, as is evident, the Church Christ founded cannot be destroyed, and since it is His expressed desire that she should be as one fold under one shepherd, it is the sacred duty of every Christian to inquire, Where is that Church now? To establish the apostolicity of Protestantism its adherents are forced to the gratuitous assertion that the true Church in her progress through the ages has at times so denuded herself of her material parts as to have become practically invisible. Such a theory is preposterous. Being a society of men instituted for man's salvation, the Church militant can never even for a moment cease to be a tangible, visible reality. " How narrow is the gate," says Christ, " and straight the path that leadeth to life, and few there are that find it." But not even a few — no, not one — could He expect to find an invisible portal or trace out an unseen path. Or are we to conclude that Christ has ever mocked man's blindness? Are we to suppose Christ was unheard of the Father when He prayed Him to keep us from evil, to sanctify us in truth, to give us eternal life? No, there is to-day, as there ever has been, a Church whose history proves her to have been and to be all that Christ intended. True, composed of mortals as she is, with men, not angels for her ministers, her seamy human side has been at times unduly evidenced, but still while never wholly forfeiting her claim to holiness, she has been in her dogma and her discipline always one, Catholic in her dimensions, and apostolic in duration. No need of a fictitious invisibility to trace her history back to the days of Christ. She alone is the kingdom that has never been delivered up to her enemies, but has broken in pieces and consumed all other kingdoms. She alone has proven herself to be the pillar and the ground of truth. Her numberless saints and martyrs attest the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Her miraculous preservation against the united attacks of earth and hell proves that Christ is still mindful of His spouse. She alone is founded, not on the shifting sand but on the firm rock — on Peter. She alone can say now, and she alone shall be left to say to her Lord with the Psalmist: "Often have they fought against me from my youth, but they could not prevail over me."
Brethren, speaking one day to His Apostles Christ said: " But the Son of man when He cometh, shall He find, think you, faith on earth? " Little indeed shall He find of that perfect faith that availeth to salvation, for there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets who shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Still, the Church is indestructible, and though the majority give up the faith, some few there will be who shall hold fast unto the coming of their Lord. Let this be our faith, our hope, to cling fast lovingly to the old true Church, that when her Lord shall say to her: "Arise, My beloved and come," we too may ascend with her to sing forever more: " Glory, honor and benediction to the Most High in the happy Church triumphant."