For Church communion - Part 1

For Church communion
- Part 1

This issue we begin a series on the spirituality of communion,
a particular gift God gave to Chiara Lubich
to benefit the Church and humanity.

From October 1962 to December 1965, the Catholic Church held the Second Vatican Council. More than 2,500 bishops from all over the world met in Rome. With them there were 100 non-Catholic observers. It was Pope John XXIII who had called them, driven by the desire to open wide the windows of the Church onto the world and to bring about a new impetus, as in a new Pentecost. The initiative was courageous and risky, yet it achieved its purposes.

Vatican II has changed the face of the Church and with it that of each of its communities. Those who have lived in the 1950s can attest to it. I was still a young boy when Paul VI closed the Council, but I remember, as if it were yesterday, that air of springtime that for years emanated from it.

Very quickly that wave of freshness reached our parish in the outskirts of Brussels, and with it the renewal: the change was made from Latin to French, during Mass the priest would now face the people, and the seats were placed in a circle while the altar was moved to the center of our church to better welcome us all.

The changes were not only external. They also expressed a new vision of the Church as a family, as a community. God somehow appeared closer.

This new face of the church, promoted around the world by means of the liturgical reform, was emerging clearly from the documents of the Council, especially Lumen Gentium. In its second chapter it presents the Church as a people, the people of God, leaving to its third chapter the discussion of its hierarchical constitution. The choice of this order is the sign of a profound change of perspective.

The pyramidal concept of the Church (Pope, bishops, priests, laity), which for centuries has dominated Catholic thought, gave place to the renewed awareness of the equal dignity of all the members. It is a return to the warning of Jesus: “Do not call me Rabbi because only one is your Master and you are all brothers” (Mt 23:8).

The diversity of the ministries and charisms which are finalized for the good of the whole ecclesial body is reinforced, but the priority is given to the unity among all. The priest himself appears again for who he is, a servant given to the community by way of a call from God. On this subject St. Augustine said it very well: “For you I am a bishop, but with you I am a Christian. That is the name of office, this of grace; that is the name of danger, this of salvation.”

Nevertheless, even if the image of the people of God has been predominant in the immediate Post-Council period, the main point of Lumen Gentium was the concept of the Church as a mystery of communion.

The soul of the Church is, in fact, the love of God, the immense love of the Father which Jesus manifests to us and which we receive in the Spirit. This is the very root of the Church, which is a people deriving its unity from the unity of the Trinity.

In the new vision brought about by the Council, the Church is before all else a mystery of communion, a mystery of love (see box). It is “in Christ, in some way … the sign and the instrument of the intimate union with God and of the unity of all humanity” (Lumen Gentium, 1). Meditating on these few words one becomes aware of the greatness of God’s plan for it and the responsibility that lies on each one of its members. Their way of being and of acting should be a pleasant surprise and attract all those who are not part of it. They should be led by it to find not only a relationship with God, but also the concrete hope of peace and universal brotherhood.

“May they all be one as we are one. I in them and you in me so that they are perfected in unity and the world knows that you have sent me and you have loved them as you have loved me” (Jn 17:22-23). This priestly prayer of Jesus to the Father reveals the longing of God to make all men and women participate in his intimate life, the life of the Trinity. The Father loves us as he has loved the Son, Jesus, and, if we love him, he gives us through unity a foretaste of the beatitude of Heaven.

According to the Council, each Christian community has a specific vocation of being like a little icon of the Trinity. It is called to mirror in its members’ reciprocal love the unfathomable mystery of the Trinitarian communion and to be a sign of hope for everyone (see box). The Church is a work of God and all its members are called as Christians to become its channels. God is love, ineffable unity and endless communion. It is only in the measure in which we remain in him, that is, in love, that we can experience this unity, by respecting differences among us and for the greater good of all.

In the next installment, we will discuss the lifestyle of Christians capable of carrying out the model of the Church promoted by the Council. It is the spirituality of communion that Pope John Paul II proposed to the whole Church at the dawn of the third millennium.

Michel Vandeleene is professor of theology at the Teresianum Pontifical Institute in Rome.

Communion, an essential idea
The ecclesiology of communion is the central and fundamental idea in the Council documents … What does the complex word “communion” signify? It is the communion with God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. It is present in God’s Word and in the sacraments. Baptism is the gate and the foundation of communion in the Church. The Eucharist is the source and apex of all Christian life (see LG, 11). The communion of the Eucharistic body of Christ signifies and produces the intimate communion of the faithful in the body of Christ which is the Church (see 1 Cor 10:16) … The whole ecclesiology of communion is also the foundation for the order in the Church and, above all, for a correct relationship between unity and plurality in the Church.
Synod of Bishops, 1986, final report

Communion, image of the Trinity

The Church, organically structured under the guidance of her legitimate pastors, has continued to live in the world down the ages as a mystery of communion in which, to a certain extent, the Trinitarian communion itself is mirrored … In John’s Gospel, the communion of love that binds the Son to the Father and to men and women is at the same time the model and source of the fraternal communion that must unite disciples with one another … This life of fellowship with God and with one another is the proper goal of Gospel proclamation. If we only think of the fragmentation and conflicts that afflict relations between individuals, groups and entire peoples, communion is the remedy given to us by the Lord to fight the loneliness that threatens everyone today. It is the precious gift that makes us feel welcomed and beloved by God, in the unity of his people gathered in the name of the Trinity. It is the light that makes the Church shine forth like a beacon raised among the peoples.
Benedict XVI, March 29, 2006

For Church communion - Part 1         The foundations of unity - Part 2>         A way to holiness - Part 3>>         Contemplation, action, communion - Part 4>>>