“The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul…” One
of the striking descriptions of the early Church in the Acts of the Apostles
was its unity. Such was this unity that they even shared all their possessions.
Such was the effect of the Resurrection and descent of the Holy Spirit that
those early disciples looked to the things above and saw the things of the
earth in true perspective. We are told that none of the believers was in want,
each had what they needed.
Of course this would be too hard to continue to organise
within the Church as it began to expand so quickly through the gentile world. Nevertheless
this outward sign of the priority of the things above would continue to be
present through the ages in the communities of monks and nuns, and then later
in the mendicant orders (e.g. Franciscans).
This unity of the believing community remains a firm
characteristic of the Church. The unity of the Church is not something that
believers give to the Church. Unity is not a goal but is in fact something the
Church possesses as being intrinsic to her very nature. She is one because
Christ is one. Christ is one because He is one with the Father and the Holy
Spirit.
One of the problems with the Reformation is that in a way
Protestants legitimated to themselves disunity. They reduced the criteria of
unity to suite their situation. Unity became essentially an invisible thing,
and it didn’t really matter that there were lots of separate groups of
Protestants believing different things, because there was this invisible unity.
The Catholic Church refutes this understanding of unity.
Unity is a characteristic of the Church which is the Body of Christ. Just as
the Head and Body cannot be separated, so parts of the Body cannot be visibly
separated either.
St Bede, in his homilies on the gospels, says, “The Spirit
also comes of his own accord, because just as he is equal to the Father and the
Son, so he has the same will in common with the Father and the Son.” St Bede
was reflecting on the Spirit being likened to the wind which goes where it
wills. What St Bede is reminding us is that this does not mean the Spirit is
operating independently from the other two Persons of the Trinity. All three
divine Persons are united. It is just that we, from our perspective, cannot fathom
the mystery of the workings of the Holy Spirit.
So also in the Church there cannot be different versions of
Christianity teaching different things as being true. There can be different
cultural expressions of the truth but they must all be expressing the same
deposit of faith. In the Catholic Church there is diversity of expression but
one faith, because there is one teaching authority (the Magisterium). This
teaching authority is Christ Himself teaching through those whom He gave
authority to guide the Church in the truth (the Apostles with Peter as their
head).
Of course it is possible for people to dissent from this
teaching of the Church, but in doing so they are dissenting from the teaching
of Christ. So let us pray for the unity of the Church, that all disciples of
Christ may accept the authority of the Church to teach the truth which the Holy
Spirit imparts through the Bishops in communion with the Successor of St Peter.
United in faith the Church will then be able to be much more effective in its
mission, just as the early Church was so effective.
Fr Ian
