What is Church? Who is Church?

What is

Church?

Who is

Church?

The church is a sign of the mystery of God’s love.

In the church, we share a journey of faith.

God has made known to us

the mystery of his will…

to gather up all things in him, things in

heaven and things on earth.

Ephesians 1:9a, 10b

The church is our home, where we are the family of God.

How does the church offer you a home-

like place?

When we care for a

lamb, we are tender

and careful.

How do you experience

God caring for you

in the same way?

A look at Church History

• From Jesus to Benedict XVI

What is CHURCH?

• The mystical Body of Christ—St. Paul

• The Vine and the Branches—Jesus as told by John

• God’s Family—Ephesians

• God’s building—Psalms, Matthew and Corinthians

• Jesus’ Little Flock—The good shepherd parable

• The people of God—Vatican II

What is CHURCH?

• Our church is one just like our God is one.

• It is holy, as Divine Love is holy.

• It is catholic, meaning universal

• It is built on the foundation of the twelve apostles.

Pentecost: Birth of the Church

• On the fiftieth day after Jesus’ death, Jesus kept his promise and sent the advocate, The Holy Spirit.

Three

thousand were

added to the

fold that day.

Early Church: 30-80 AD A Jewish sect

• Communal life

• A refuge for widows and children

• Missionary in nature

• The services were in the homes

Rapid spread• Strong infrastructure

• World was at peace

• Spiritual unrest

Conversion of Paul 40’s AD

• Among the Jewish leadership

• Watchdog of the faith

• A tent maker

• On the road to Damascus

The Council of Jerusalem (49AD)

• Development of the Creed– Apostles creed

• What do we do with Gentiles? – Jewish laws

• Circumcision

• Dietary

• Sexual ethics.

Early Leadership • Five Christian centers:

Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, Byzantium, and Rome

Early Missions• Paul

– Missionary journeys

– Many letters

– Imprison-ment

Persecutions

• Under the emperor Nero– Persecutions of Christians in Rome

60’s AD (CE)

– Martyrdom of Peter and Paul 63 AD (CE)

Destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple

• Destruction of Jerusalem 70 AD (CE)

Destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple

• The Western or Wailing Wall Today

The Gospels

Writing of the Gospels 65-100 AD (CE)

At least 30 years after Jesus

• Mark: 55-65 Gentile audience

• Matthew 60-75 Jewish audience

• Luke 60-75 Greek audience

• John 90+ General audience

Epistles (40-80 CE)

• Writing of the Epistles: 40-80’s

• Paul

• John

• Peter

A Persecuted Church 60-313 AD

• Second Century– Authority

– Scriptures,

– Creed, and

– Hierarchy

A Persecuted Church 60-313 AD

• Apostolic Fathers and apologists (defenders of the faith)

• Martyrs

• Heresies

An Accepted Church

• Edict of Toleration, February 313– Constantine

– Allowed religious freedom

– Did not alienate the pagan practices at first

– Returned land and gave generous donations.

– Allowed clerics important privileges

– Changed laws to be more ―Christian‖

– Passed on title of Supreme Pontiff

An Accepted Church

• What about Church leadership. We use to have four seats of leadership, now we have a pope!

What’s next…

…..A council

An Accepted Church

• Council of Nicea 325– Called by Constantine to unify the

church

– 300 bishops gathered

– Defined the nature of God

– We got a creed

An Accepted Church

• Church Fathers– Athanasius (295-

373)• Drew parallels

between Adam and others from the OT and Christ.

An Accepted Church

• Church Fathers– Ephraem of Nisibis

(306-373)• God became man so

that we might share in his immortality.

An Accepted Church

• Church Fathers– Basil of Ceasarea

(330-379)• Organized charity

(famine)

• Organized community living (monastic life)

• Concerned for unity

and orthodoxy in the

church

An Accepted Church

• Church Fathers

– Gregory of Nyssa

(335-394)

• All will know that

you are a Christian

by the love you

show for your

neighbor

An Accepted Church

• Church Fathers

– John Chrysostom

(354-407)

• Every Christian

must be concerned

for the salvation of

his brothers

An Accepted Church

• Church Fathers

– Ambrose of Milan

(333-397)

• Advice on prayer, pray

often and pray alone

• Set up help for the

poor

• Introduced hymn

singing to the Western

church

An Accepted Church

• Church Fathers

– Jerome (347-420)

• All will know that you

are a Christian by the

love you show for your

neighbor.

• Revised the Latin text

of the Bible (Vulgate)

An Accepted Church

• Church Fathers

– Augustine (354-430)• St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo remains

one of the most influential authors of church doctrine, and the continued transmission and relevance of his texts for almost 1600 years serve as witness to his broad influence. While the author of many works, he is most well known for his biographical Confessions and his master work The City of God

• Church Father: Benedict

– Founder of western monasticism, born at

Nursia, c. 480; died at Monte Cassino in 543

Benedict was the son of a Roman noble of

Nursia, a small town near Spoleto, and a

tradition, which St. Bede accepts, makes him a

twin with his sister Scholastica. His boyhood

was spent in Rome, where he lived with his

parents and attended the schools until he had

reached his higher studies.

An Accepted Church

An Accepted Church

Council of Chalcedon 451

• two natures of Christ, Christ is

one person in two natures.

• Primacy of the Bishop of Rome

When we put on Christ like a garment, we become “other Christs” to each other.

How do you experience this?

As you…have received Christ…continue

to live your lives in him, rooted and

built up in him…abounding in

thanksgiving.

Colossians 2:6

The Rise and Fall of

Christendom 500-1500 • The Middle ages

– For the first three centuries Rome

persecuted Christians

– Then for the next two, Rome and the

Christian church blended.

– But the empire was very sick in the

500s


Christendom 500-1500 • Barbarian Invasions

• Monasticism and Missionary work

• Islam

• Papal States

• Holy Roman Empire


Christendom 500-1500 • East West conflict

– War over icons

– Emperor Leo III (726) destroyed an icon.

– Language misunderstandings

– Close to Islam

– Purification of popular religion


Christendom 500-1500 • Church Fathers

– Cyril and Methodius The

princes of the Slavs ask for

master educators to teach

them Christian ways . They

did good work. Developed an

alphabet for the Slavonic

language that eventually

became what is known as

the Cyrillic today.


Christendom 500-1500 • East West conflict

The West or Roman

•Doctrine and faith were

separated

•Changes in liturgy and

standards were being

developed and mandated.

•Celibacy was the norm (or

at least married men

renounced sexual relations

with their wives.

The East or Greek

•The ritual was faith in action.

•To change the liturgy meant

changing faith

•Bishops and Monks were

celibate –but not the priests


Christendom 500-1500 • Christendom 1100-1300

– Society and church intertwined

– Importance of the Papacy


Christendom 500-1500 • The Papacy

• The Crusades

• Monasticism


Christendom 500-1500 • Sacraments for the average person

– Baptism• Usually a few days after birth

• Everyone in western civilization was baptized

– Confession • Required to confess at least once a year

– Eucharist• Even the very pious received Eucharist only a few times in

their life.

• Seeing the host elevated was believed to grant special virtues.

– Matrimony• As of the 13th century it becomes part of the seven sacraments

• Most did not understand the Latin ritual


Christendom 500-1500 • Religious education for the average person

– Most learned by osmosis

– Parents were to teach• The Our Father

• The Ten Commandment

• Seven deadly sins

• Seven cardinal virtues

• Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit

• Seven sacrament

– Pilgrimages became important


Christendom 500-1500 • Religious Art

– Honor and devotion to God

– Education for the masses


Christendom 500-1500 • Challenge and defense (1100-1300)

– Defending the Holy Places

– Challenges • Jews and discrimination (no, Hitler learned from

us)

– Missions to China

– Anyone disagreeing with the church is a heretic.

– Some grass roots groups were seeking to find and live the truth, however with them being lay groups they didn’t have proper supervision.



– Dominic 1170-1221 • All the evidence goes to show

that St. Dominic was a man of remarkable attractiveness of character and broadness of vision; he had the deepest compassion for every sort of human suffering. The order that he founded was a formative factor in the religious and intellectual life of later medieval Europe; its diffusion is now world-wide.



– Francis of Assisi 1181-1226

• Born of a wealthy textile

merchant. He heard the call

and took on poverty bring

Christ to the poor. He rebuilt

the church at St. Damian.

Many others joined him as fries

dedicated to helping the needy

and building the church.



– Thomas Aquinas

– Born to an aristocratic family living in Roccasecca, Italy, Thomas Aquinas joined the Dominican order while studying philosophy and theology at Naples. Later he pursued additional studies in Paris where he was exposed to Aristotelean thought by Albert the Great and William of Moerbeke.


Christendom 500-1500 • The real world

– War• One hundred year War

– Plague• Over a third of Europeans died in the

Black Death

– Death• As people tried to explain their grief, they

scapegoated the Jews

The Reformation and Western

Schism and it affect

• Much of Europe is becoming nation

states.

• Great militaries

• With the Great Schism and the

conciliar crisis the papacy has lost

some of it’s power



• Martin Luther

1483-

– Martin was a monk

– Saw injustice in the

church

– Talked with

leadership and was

ignored



• Luther’s 95 theses 1517– 1. Repent!

– 4. Penance remains while self hate remains

– 8. Penance can only be imposed on the living

– 27. Believed one can buy their way out of purgatory is wrong

– 50. The pope would not approve of the selling of indulgences.

– 62. The true measure of the church is the sacrosanct gospel of the glory and grace of God.



• Luther’s 95 theses 1517

– Faith and Works

– One can go to heaven with faith alone

– One can go to heaven with faith and

good works



• John Calvin

– Born to an upper

middle class family

in France, John

Calvin emerged as

one of the most

important figures

of the Reformation.



• John Calvin– Having studied for the priesthood at Paris in

his youth, Calvin turned his attentions to civil and canon law in Orleans when his father became disaffected with the clergy. Calvin showed an early predilection for theology and for the study of Greek and Hebrew. Exposed to the ideas of Luther while he was still in Paris, Calvin's writing indicate that he had definitely moved into the Protestant camp by 1533. On November 1 of that year, he delivered a speech in which he attacked the established church and called for reforms.



• The Church in England

– Although the other two looked at a

change in theology. King Henry VIII

wanted a divorce.

– Thomas More, July 6, 1535 was

executed.



• Council of Trent 1545-1563

– No council had ever achieve so much.

– It defined a large number of points of

dogma which had never been precisely

defined in the past and demanded

reforms in all the areas of pastoral

care.



• Decisions from the Council of Trent

– Holy Scripture is inspired

– Free will over justification

– There are seven sacraments and all instituted by Christ.

– The real presence in both the bread broken and in the cup shared.

– Mass must be celebrated in Latin and with an ordained clergy member



• Decisions from the Council of Trent

– There is a holy priesthood founded by

Jesus.

– We must educate seminaries.

– One must marry in the presence of a

parish priest


Schism and it affect• Church Fathers

– St. Ignatius of Loyola

was born in 1491 in

Azpeitia in the Basque

province of Guipuzcoa

in northern Spain. He

was the youngest of

thirteen children.


Schism and it affect• Church Mother

– St. Teresa of Avila

(1515-1582)

• A doctor of the church

• a mystic

• Founded the many

Carmelite convents



• Religious Revolution

– Church leadership

– More education

– Less power for the Pope

– exegesis

– Jansenism (heresy)



• Philosophical Revolution “ I think

therefore I am” Descartes

– Atheism

– A moral

– liberalism



• Scientific Revolution

– The sun and earth? Revolution

– Darwin

– Travel, missions

– Medical knowledge



• Political Revolution: American and

French 18th century

– Separation of faith and power



• 1860’s Italy unites the whole

peninsula Pope loses the Papal

States: political power

First Vatican Council

• 1869-70 First Vatican Council

– God is not of the same substance as

anything else

– The one true God can be seen in good

works

– Science cannot answer everything

– Papal infallibility

Social Encyclicals

• Social Encyclicals Rerum Novarum,

Pope Leo XIII May 15, 1891)

– For the workers

Ecumenical Movement

begins 1900’s • We were converted by our

missionaries.

• We were forever changed by our

wars

• We learned of other cultures.

Pope John XXIII 1959-63

• was born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli at Sotto

il Monte, Italy, in the Diocese of Bergamo on

25 November 1881. He was the fourth in a

family of 14. The family worked as sharecroppers. He entered the Bergamo

seminary in 1892.

• From 1901 to 1905 he was a student at the

Pontifical Roman Seminary. On 10 August

1904 he was ordained a priest in the church of

Santa Maria in Monte Santo in Rome's Piazza

del Popolo. He was an elegant, profound, effective and sought-after preacher.

Pope John XXIII 1959-63

• When Italy went to war in 1915 he was drafted as a sergeant in the medical corps and became a chaplain to wounded soldiers. When the war ended, he opened a "Student House" for the spiritual needs of young people.

• On 19 March 1925 he was ordained Bishop and left for Bulgaria. and abandonment to Jesus crucified.

• In 1935 he was named Apostolic Delegate in Turkey and Greece

• . When the Second World War broke out he was in Greece. He tried to get news from the prisoners of war to their families and assisted many Jews to escape by issuing "transit visas" from the Apostolic Delegation. In December 1944 Pius XII appointed him Nuncio in France.

• At the death of Pius XII he was elected Pope on 28 October 1958, taking the name John XXIII. His pontificate, which lasted less than five years, presented him to the entire world as an authentic image of the Good Shepherd. Pope John XXIII died on the evening of 3 June 1963, in a spirit of profound trust in Jesus and of longing for his embrace.

Second Vatican Council

1962-65Dialogue with Catholic

• Dialogue with other Christians

• Dialogue with all people

Vatican II

Vatican II is a revolution that can only be compared to Copernicus’ proving that the earth goes around the sun, not vice versa—and its deepening of the Church’s consciousness of who we really are.

--Karl Rahner

Vatican II

Religious Liberty

All people are from one community

There is hope for all people to be chosen by God.

We must dialogue with the world

Pope Paul VI 1963-1978

Finished Vatican II

Humanae Vitae

www.vatican.va

Pope John Paul I 1978

The September Pope

Pope John Paul II 1978- 2005

Most traveled

Most Saints named

Most prolific writer

Loved for a

generation

Pope Benedict 2005-present

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and International Theological Commission, Dean of the College of Cardinals, was born on 16 April 1927 in Marktl am Inn, Germany. He was ordained a priest on 29 June 1951.

Pope Benedict 2005-present

From 1946 to 1951, the year in which he was ordained a priest and began to teach, he studied philosophy and theology at the University of Munich and at the higher school in Freising. In March 1977, Paul VI elected him Archbishop of Munich and Freising and on 28 May 1977 he was consecrated, the first diocesan priest after 80 years to take over the pastoral ministry of this large Bavarian diocese. On 25 November 1981 he was nominated by John Paul II Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; President of the Biblical Commission and of the Pontifical International Theological Commission.

Four Marks of the Church

One

Holy

Catholic and

Apolistic

ONE

• It is important for us Christians to remain in unity. – Charity

– Profession of faith

– Common worship

– Succession of bishops and leadership

HOLY

• The church is founded in love, and only in love. And because of this, it is holy– the holy people of God. – The Spirit fills us with divine love

calling us to be holy as God is holy.

– Love is the vocation which includes all others

CATHOLIC

• The church is Universal – Where Christ is, there is the church

– Rome holds our various communities together

– Christians, baptized and faithful who live in a certain,but not quite complete communion with the Catholic church

– Orthodox churches this communion is so strong that shared Eucharist is possible.

CATHOLIC

• The church is Universal – And those who have not received the Good

News are also treated to the People of God.

– We are closely linked to the Jewish people because they were first to hear the Word.

– We are also connected with the Muslins of the world who share belief in one God, and who share the faith of Abraham

APOSTOLIC

• The church is strives to announce the Good News – That God is Divine Love,

– That the Kingdom of God is near

– That God is revealed in Christ

– And that the Spirit of Love remains with us…

APOSTOLIC

• The church is strives to announce the Good News – That God is Divine Love,

– That the Kingdom of God is near

– That God is revealed in Christ

– And that the Spirit of Love remains with us…

APOSTOLIC

• The church is strives to announce the Good News – The church is connected to Jesus’ own

apostles who were the first witnesses and were sent on mission

– The church hands on a living tradition of faith

– Through the bishops in union with the pope, the church continues to teach, make holy ,and be guided by the Holy Spirit.

We Christians rejoice and celebrate our faith!

What brings you joy and makes you sing?

Share what you learned today with a

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What is Church? Who is Church?