“And now I will
no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.
Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may
be one just as we are…. As you sent me into the world, so
I sent them into the world.
And I consecrate myself for
them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth. I pray not only
for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father,
are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may
believe that you sent me. And I have given
them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought
to perfection as one.” (John 17:11, 18-23)
Disrupting this
unity and causing division among believers is contrary to the will of Christ.
Paul warned the Corinthians about such divisions:
"I urge you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, and that there be no
divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and in the same
purpose. For
it has been reported to me about you, my brothers, by Chloe’s people, that there
are rivalries among you. I mean that each of you is saying, 'I belong to Paul,' or 'I belong to Apollos,' or 'I belong to
Cephas,' or 'I belong to Christ.' Is Christ divided?" (1 Corinthians
1:10-13)
Because Christ
wants all believers to be one, he founded one Church to which he
wants all to belong.
In founding this
one Church, Jesus distinguished between those who hold conflicting human
interpretations of who he is, and those to whom
God reveals the truth, and who pass along divine revelation
rather than human interpretation. From Matthew 16:17-19:
He said to [the
Apostles—from the Greek apostolos, meaning one who is sent with the full
authority of the one who sent them], “But who do you say that I am?” Simon
Peter said in reply, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the
living God.” Jesus said to him
in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, [i.e., this is not human interpretation] but
my heavenly Father. [Rather, it is divine revelation.]
Because Simon Peter has proven
to be an instrument capable of receiving divine revelation and passing it on
instead of human interpretation, Jesus continues:
And
so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,
[singular, not plural—“that they be one”] and the gates of the netherworld
shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of
heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and
whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Peter
will bind and loose as a divine instrument—not of his own human whim, for
Jesus established earlier in this passage the limits of human reason and
interpretation. Rather, Jesus is establishing Peter as his instrument on
earth. He later commissions the rest of the Apostles as his instrument by
sending his very presence into them:
“As
the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this he breathed on
them and said to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you
forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
(John 20:21-23)
Since
only God can forgive sins, Jesus has established Peter and the Apostles as his
instruments on earth, the one body through whom he will teach,
govern and sanctify, through whom all his grace will flow to those on earth.
Early
in the life of the Church Peter demonstrates that he truly is the instrument of
divine instruction, during the circumcision controversy in Acts 15. Here this
uneducated fisherman overturns a 1500 year-old law given by God through Moses—and
everyone accepts the teaching, even if it clashes with their interpretation,
because they understand that Jesus speaks through his instrument, Peter:
After much debate had taken place, Peter
got up and said to them, “My brothers, you are well aware that from early days God
made his choice among you that through my mouth the Gentiles would hear
the word of the gospel and believe.”… The whole assembly fell silent. (Acts 15:7, 12)
Jesus
promised he would always work through Peter and the Apostles and their
successors until the end of time…
Behold,
I am with you always, until the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)
“You should know how to behave in the household of
God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation
of truth.” (1 Timothy 3:15)
The Decree on
Ecumenism from the Second Vatican Council said this:
“The restoration
of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second
Vatican Council. Christ the Lord founded one Church and one Church only.
However, many Christian communities present themselves to men as the true
inheritors of Jesus Christ; all indeed profess to be followers of the Lord but
they differ in mind and go their different ways, as if Christ himself were
divided. Certainly, such division openly contradicts the will of Christ,
scandalizes the world, and damages that most holy cause, the preaching of the
Gospel to every creature.”
Joan of Arc
put it this way:
“About Jesus
Christ and the Church, I simply know they are just one thing, and we shouldn’t
complicate the matter.”
From this we
can draw the following conclusions:
Jesus Christ
is the only Savior, the only one who can reconcile all humanity to God the
Father. (If he is not, he went through Good Friday for nothing. To accept that
there are other ways to the Father would be to call Jesus a fool for submitting
to death on the cross.)
He
established one Church to be his presence on earth—through which he himself
governs, teaches, sends his grace and saves.
This one
Church—Jesus’ instrument on earth—subsists in the one Church he established
upon Peter and the Apostles, what is called today the Catholic Church. It is in
this Church which Jesus wills that all shall be one.
We are not
one. Believers are divided among many denominations. This is opposed to the
will of Christ as expressed in John 17 and the teaching of Paul in 1
Corinthians 1. We are called to continually work towards the unity Christ wills
by inviting all people into the fullness of communion in his Church.
In the meantime,
while the fullness of what Jesus wills for all people is found only in full
communion with his one Church, elements of his truth and grace can be found
elsewhere—in other Christian denominations, in other religions which seek true
goodness, and in the hearts of non-believers who seek true goodness. Anyone
seeking true goodness is actually seeking Christ—however they may name it—and
Christ can ensure they eventually find him and enjoy full communion with him.
But the
fullness of that communion, and the fullest way to live on this earth, subsists
in communion with the Catholic Church.
Why enjoy
partial life in Jesus during our earthly life when we can have his fullness?!
