IN EVERY generation, the Roman Catholic Church and her members are opposed, denounced and even persecuted. This is to be expected—not merely because of historical precedents but for a much more serious reason: If you are not suffering, you are no threat to evil. This is the radiant life-changing truth that pours itself out from the cross of Christ.
GOD'S HOLY ones will always be tested in suffering. It is the test of sainthood. Make no mistake—the principalities and powers of this world will stop at nothing. They will try to convince you that your comfort and convenience are always to be valued over uniting your sufferings to Christ on the cross. They want to deprive you of discovering meaning and purpose in the struggles of human life. They want to steal God’s grace from you.
RECALL HOW Our Lord confronted Saul on the road to Damascus: “‘Why do you persecute me?’ And Saul said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.’” [Acts 9:4-5] Saul, you may remember, received the Holy Spirit and later became the great missionary apostle known as Paul.
WE MUST acknowledge that, unlike the story of Saul, the greatest wounds the Church suffers come from within the communion of her members and not from outside forces. The “spirit of this age” possesses, at gut level, an insatiable appetite for easy sensationalism and smarmy platitudes. It is no small irony that dissenters who demand the deconstruction of the temporal Church—its governing authority, teachings, sacraments—cannot themselves build. Yet God wills that dissenters afford the faithful a clear opportunity to prove the truth.
THE CHURCH is yours—ours—yes, but the Church is not entrusted to us to do with as we please. We are and remain members of the Church by an ever-renewing act of our free will and not by compulsion. Yet that which constitutes the heart of the Church originates in eternity and is not subject to negotiation and experimentation.
THE CHURCH is authoritative—governing in the “mind of Christ” [1Cor 2:16] and in fidelity to the will of the Father who sent him. The Church is voluntary—she seeks the free will assent of her members (and all who hear her proclamation) in the knowledge that every member has joined in freedom and hence can depart in freedom. The Church is sacramental—she is representational of her founder Jesus Christ and what he said and did. The Church is disciplinary—her precepts and laws are to be obeyed by the faithful and, as well, by the hierarchy which exercises authority in the name of Jesus.
FINALLY, THE Church is in continuity. Her enduring legitimacy depends on her members’ unswerving faithfulness to the founding event of the new covenant Christ established in his name. St. Paul wisely counseled members of the universal Church to follow his example of obedience: "For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him." [Rom 12:3]
