‘Church’ is not just a bricks-and-mortar affair. Just as importantly the word refers to Catholics and Christians generally. The whole body of people baptised in Christ is church. That ties in with the root of this word which comes from a Greek word meaning ‘the Lord’s’. It also underlines the truth in St Paul’s words when he said: ‘You are God’s…building.’
This interpretation of ‘church’ as people rather than buildings was a theme of the Second Vatican Council, which coined the term ‘People of God’. The Council in effect pointed at all of us and said: ‘you are the Church: you are people, united in Christ, called into existence by God himself’.
Let me conjure up another image of church for you: a group of people assembled round the table of the risen Lord (i.e. at Mass). That community is united through the working of the Holy Spirit and held in being by the word of Christ and the body of Christ (Holy Communion).
Let’s not overlook a simple fact here: we need the spiritual food provided by receiving Holy Communion in order to nourish us spiritually. Without food our physical bodies would die. In the same way, without spiritual food we would die spiritually. It is for this reason that we are called to celebrate the Eucharist regularly and frequently. Coming together to celebrate the Mass is the ultimate expression of the visible community of all the baptised throughout the world. It follows that ‘going to church’, a coming together of the baptised to worship God, is an essential part of the Christian faith.
Without church, there is no Christianity. Without fellow Christians, one’s faith would be stunted, fade away and die. One Christian on his own, in total isolation, is not a Christian at all. An example to illustrate that: imagine a fire made up of glowing coals. It burns. It gives out light. It gives out heat. Remove one coal from all the rest and, on its own, that single coal will soon lose its fire and heat and stop glowing and the fire within it will die.
Another powerful way of illustrating that truth is St Paul’s description of how the members of the Church together, forming one body, is like the various parts of the human body being essential to make a complete person.
Key to all this is ‘community’.
We are a community united in being followers of Christ, joined to Him through the grace we received at baptism, we are therefore joined to each other. So here we have one big community of Christians.
But you can also look at that global community as a series of small individual communities. They all fit neatly together, just like a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces together form a beautiful picture. The Church on earth is that beautiful picture, a masterpiece like no other.
Each diocese, such as our own diocese of Southwark, is one such piece of that jigsaw. Move on a stage further and each diocese is also in its own way a complete jigsaw forming a beautiful picture in its own right. Its component pieces are individual parishes such as St Columba’s.
Each of us is formed in faith by our local church community, by service to it; and, with it, by service to others in the name of Christ. Mass is the official public worship of that local church community. And Christ is always present in it because Mass is a sacred action surpassing all others. No other action of the Church can equal its spiritual power. That is another reason why ‘going to church’ is so important.
Let me quote you what the bishops said at Vatican II, ‘…it is the liturgy through which, especially in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, the work of our redemption is accomplished’ …
‘The liturgy daily builds up those who are in the Church, making of them a holy temple of the Lord, a dwelling-place for God in the Spirit…. (The Mass) is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; it is also the fount from which all her power flows…all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of his Church, to take part in the Sacrifice and to eat the Lord’s Supper.’
Pretty powerful stuff.
Whenever we gather together at Mass – at one and the same time, a sharing meal and a re-presentation of the sacrifice on Calvary – it announces the death and resurrection of the Lord, in the hope of his glorious return. Participating is also a response to Christ’s command, at the Last Supper, to ‘Do this in remembrance of me.’
It is while united in active celebration together at Mass on a Sunday that we will most powerfully experience the joy implicit in Jesus’ saying ‘For where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them’.
Being in such companionship – that word ‘companionship’ is made up from the Latin which means ‘sharing bread together’ – is to be at the heart of community. We have come together to share and in sharing we have deepened our understanding of one another. We are drawn closer to one another into a oneness.
Jesus’s teaching continually emphasised the importance of oneness. He places it as the climax of his prayer for us to the Father:
‘Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me.’
To sum up, there are a number of definitions of ‘church’, with the most important being ‘People of God’. Central to being one of the people of God, a Christian, is a vital need to ‘go to church’. That means joining together wholeheartedly, regularly and frequently with one’s fellow Christians in the liturgy, especially the Mass, worshipping God and celebrating the sacraments for the benefit of the whole Church.
Deacon Philip