III. The Church, A Living Body
62.
The community of the faithful is brought into existence by the Holy
Spirit. The Spirit relates the faithful to one another, distributing
gifts among them. Thus the community receives a living structure.
Some of the New Testament images - a body, a household, a people,
a vineyard - point to dynamics of growth and to a reality with many
aspects and dimensions. Others - the bride, the flock - imply also
that it has its own definite identity and is the center of God's
attention, called to share the divine love, and opened to the Holy
Spirit in whom the faithful experience God's love. As it spreads
abroad the good news, the community calls all people to conversion
and new life. Led by the Spirit, it extends throughout the many
and varied cultures of the world, and is sustained through time
from year to year, generation after generation. Through the centuries
it is rejuvenated as the Gospel strikes the imagination and the
Spirit stirs up the love of new and younger members. Like the sap
of the vine that brings greenness to all branches and twigs, the
Church is an overflowing source of life. From the human environment
it receives new riches that nurture it and which it in turn transforms,
opening up the many cultures of the world to intimations of the
kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit directs the course of the Christian
community by bringing to it the harvest of love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22-25).
The community is a living organism, not a collection of individuals;
it is a place of meeting where people exchange things old and new,
not a museum where things are looked at. What is handed on by its
Tradition in the form of memory acts as a leaven among those who
receive it, who then enrich it as they cherish it and pass it on
again to their successors. There are times, of course, when Christians
do not respond as they ought to the Spirit's guidance. They lack
fidelity to Christ, they are lukewarm in the worship of God, they
do not show love toward one another, they fail in missionary outreach.
So, like all living organisms, Christian communities go through
periods of dormancy and decline. But even then hope is held out
for vigorous and healthy life because the Church is sustained by
the Spirit of God who never leaves himself without witnesses.
1.
The Community of Faith and Baptism
63.
The Spirit calls people to this new life, as those who have heard
the Word come to Christ, the
only Savior and Mediator. Baptism is given in the midst of the community
to new Christians who, at their baptism, confess the faith they
have received. Symbolically they are plunged in the cleansing waters
where they receive the Holy Spirit and are given the garment of
faith "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit".
United to Christ in his dying and his rising, they bear witness
that they are reborn in him. In the administration of baptism, the
community testifies to its faith with the words of the traditional
creed. For example, the Apostles' Creed had its origin in the candidates'
confession of faith. Methodists and Catholics agree that Christians
are baptized into the faith that has been received from the apostles
and obediently preached by the community and its members. In both
our traditions it has been the normal practice for the pastors of
the community to preside over the entire process of Christian initiation.
Both the Methodist and the Catholic Churches consider it right to
baptize the infants born to believers. They encourage their members
to take the opportunities presented to them to renew the vows that
they made, or that were made for them, in baptism.
64.
Those who confess their faith, endorsed by the community, are brought
through the baptismal waters into the life of God that is communicated
through Christ in the Holy Spirit. This life, being the very life
of the divine Persons, is itself a life of communion and involves
participating in the bond of love established by the Spirit between
God and creation. The baptized become sisters and brothers in Christ.
They are constituted as the family of God, sharing in its privileges
and responsibilities.
65.
By baptism, the community of the believers shares in the holiness
of God, a holiness that is manifested in the Christian life of the
faithful. The community feeds on the memory of the Lord, celebrates
his abiding presence, and looks forward in hope to the continuing
service of God and of neighbor until the end of time, thus affirming
its trust in the ultimate victory of Christ over the power of evil.
It is itself a sign and instrument of God's kingdom.
66.
Thus the baptized and believing community is a communion. Holding
in common the faith in which they are baptized and all the things
that are God's gifts, they grow into a communion of the people who
are made holy by God's grace and power. While all the baptized thus
make up "the communion of saints", they also recognize
the conspicuous presence of divine grace in specific persons -the
Saints - whose lives and example testify, even to the shedding of
their blood for Jesus, to the transforming action of the Spirit
of God in every generation. The "cloud of witnesses" transcends
denominational barriers.
2.
The Community of Worship
67.
The Christian community continues to flourish by virtue of the common
baptism and faith of its members. But is also sustained and nurtured
by the celebration of the memorial of the Lord, the service of thanksgiving
in which it experiences, as the Spirit is invoked, the presence
of the risen Christ. There the Word of God is heard in the Scriptures
and the proclamation of the Gospel. Through the holy meal of the
community, the faithful share "a foretaste of the heavenly
banquet prepared for all mankind" (British Methodist Service
Book 1975). As they receive the sacrament of his body and blood
offered for them, they become the body through which the risen Lord
is present on earth in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 10:16-17). As they
share his body and blood that have brought to the sinful world salvation
and reconciliation, they proclaim today the past events of the Lord's
death and resurrection, and as they do so they present to the world
their confidence and hope that Christ who "has died and is
risen" will also "come again".
68. This experience of the presence of the Lord in the setting of
worship attunes the hearts and minds of the faithful to all other
aspects of his presence. They return to him the love they have received
from him, when they serve the poor and when they struggle for social
justice. In the sick and suffering they see the sufferings of Christ.
In their own pains and sorrows endured for the sake of the gospel
they share in the passion of Christ. In all this the faithful experience
the wonderful exchange by which, in Christ and the Holy Spirit,
all is common to all. And they present to God all that they have
and all that they are as their own sacrifice of praise.
69.
In the worshiping fellowship the community confesses Jesus Christ
as Lord, shares the peace which Christ gives, and so anticipates
the heavenly kingdom where the risen Christ fills all things to
the glory of God the Father. The community of the faithful is thus
the proclaiming, celebrating and serving community which gives glory
to God in the name of all creatures. By its gatherings on the Lord's
Day the community shapes the life of its members, helping them to
make their weekly and daily tasks expressions of the royal priesthood
of the believers gathered together under the high priesthood of
the risen Lord. Thus the community provides for its members a pattern
of life consecrated to God and directed towards fulfilment in the
final manifestation of Christ.
3.
The Ordained Minister in the Community
70.
Ever since the time of the apostles, ministers have led the community
in the worship of God, in proclaiming Christ and receiving him,
in organizing the community's life of service in the Spirit. Worship,
witness and service join hands in word and sacrament: this has served
as the central model for what Christian ministers must both be and
do.
71
. Chosen from among the people, the ordained ministers represent
the people before God as they bring together the prayers of the
community. Entrusted with the pastoral care of the community, they
act in Christ's name and person as they lead the people in prayer,
proclaim and explain the Word, and administer the sacraments of
faith.
72.
In each place the pastor gathers the faithful into one, and as all
the ministers relate to one another and transmit the same Gospel,
they ensure a universality of conviction and communion among all
the faithful. They transmit what they have received: the good news
as taught from apostolic times, the sacraments as signs and instruments
of the Lord's saving presence and action, the call to holiness that
the Holy Spirit addresses to all.
73.
United around their minister in worship and in witness, and in the
carrying out of their vocational tasks, the faithful know themselves
to be gathered in Christ by the Holy Spirit. In the pastoral care
that is extended to them the faithful perceive themselves to be
led by the Good Shepherd who gave his life for the sheep.
74.
As the community is renewed from one Lord's Day to the next, it
is nourished by the Tradition it has received, and responsibility
for this is especially entrusted to those ministers who inherit
the apostolic function of oversight in the community. The function
of oversight entails on the part of the ministers solicitude for
all the churches: they are charged to ensure that the community
remain one, that it grow in holiness, that it preserve its catholicity,
and that it be faithful to apostolic teaching and to the commission
of evangelization given by Christ himself.
75.
These four "marks" of the Christian community should be
exemplified at each moment of its existence. They should also be
effectively transmitted from one generation to the next. The saints
who have passed into the fulness of the mystery of God's grace are
forever part of the community: the witness and examples of the past
continue to be cherished; the saints in heaven are held as instances
of Christ's "closest love" and as present tokens of the
ultimate fulfilment of all God's promises.
76.
The transmission of the Gospel is the work of the whole assembly
of the faithful under the guidance and with the encouragement of
their pastors. The living presence of the Lord among his people
is the source of the Christian life. The pastors of the community
are his servants as he provides grace and spiritual strength to
his people and leads them to the goal of their earthly pilgrimage.
77.
The transmission of the Gospel in word and sacraments is itself
the work of the Spirit. As they urge the faithful to Christian perfection,
the ordained ministers obey the call of Christ, and they help the
community in its search for the forms of Christian holiness that
are appropriate to different periods, ages and conditions of life.
Catholics and Methodists are at one in seeing in a divinely empowered
ministry the guidance of the Holy Spirit and are moving in the direction
of greater shared understanding of the nature of ordination and
of the structure of the ministry in regard to the responsibility
to teach and to formulate the faith.
|