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A Lay Cistercian Looks at Spiritual Reality
That statement sounds rather harsh because Jesus died to save all humans. All humans don’t necessarily know that God is God, nor do they love in such a way as to move to the next level of human evolution (adoption by God as sons and daughters of the Father). Equally, human nature does not possess the energy solely based on its nature to “life up” that human nature to the movement and complexity of what nature intended it to be.
Succession planning is an important part of the Gospel approach to what happens to people after Christ ascends to the Father. No more Jesus. Are we left as orphans? Usual human progression is that a movement or cause just dries up with it is encumbered by a charismatic leader, and that leader no longer exists. So, how does Jesus plan for each of us who lives after His death to have a real presence in our lives, just as real as the Apostles?
One hint might be the continuity, contiguous knowledge, love linked to what came before, and service to others now. Truth is guaranteed not with human reasoning because of the fickleness of the human mind to toy with truth to benefit their current whims or social convenience, but with the cross. It reminds us where we came from and also where we are headed. This lapping at the shores of Faith is the Church in each age, and in each age, each individual, to learn from the martyrdom of blood of early believers and seek truth, not the truth that comes from human desires for power, fame, fortune, lust, envy, coveting neighbor’s goods or their wives, but doing what God has set forth as the path of righteousness, one marked by the cross and struggle, doubts, and failure, but the way, the truth, and the life, nonetheless.
I see the Church as that great melting pot of how each person has in them the mind of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). Not everybody gets the invitation, and even all those who get invited don’t wear the proper wedding garments.
I see Chuch as truth moving forward, collecting the new and old wine in skins that must always be made new through the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
I see the Church as encompassing all humans, even if they are unaware of Christ, the cornerstone rejected by almost all humans, ignored, or just plain unaware. All humans are redeemed so they can expand their humanity to the next step in their evolution, one where we are conscious of how much Christ is with us in the Real Presence and how the only rule is to love one another as He loved us.
I see the Church as moving from the Apostles through each age, having all its members (save two) being sinful, subject to the ravages of living in a world where individuals must choose what is good and evil.
I see the Church as the depository of what God wants us to do. We have the choice, as did Adam and Eve, to choose according to what we think will make us happy and fulfilled. Sin simply means I choose poorly and don’t realize the vast depository of examples (Old Testament and New Testament) where humanity failed and then rose above the seductive flattery of the world to embrace what was right rather than what is easy.
Our heritage is a roadmap of HOW to act and WHERE to step in the minefields of life.
Heritage only exists in the Church from its inception to the present. If I make up my own interpretation of the Gospels and use me as the authority of what Jesus said or believe when the Holy Spirit speaks, then it is me speaking. I am my pope, magisterium, the source of what is true for the rest of humanity. Although we are free to think that, the test of the Church compels me to go back to the beginning and see the continuity from Apostles to me rather than me to the Apostles.
There is salvation only through the Church because that is all there is after death. The Church is the mystery of the Church Militant (still struggling on earth), the Church Triumphant (those judged by Christ to be friends), and the Church Purgative (those who have been saved but with flaws or who do not know Christ as their Savior). I didn’t forget Hell. These people go there because they choose evil as good and won’t change, even when they know better. Who is in Hell? I just hope I am not and use this chance while I still am alive to become more alive through, with, and in Christ Jesus.
Outside the Church, no salvation does not mean only Catholics go to Heaven. Luther and John Westley believed this to be true, giving the proper understanding they had of the Church.
https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/flipbooks/catechism/226/#zoom=z
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/what-no-salvation-outside-the-church-means
https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/apologetics/without-the-church-there-is-no-salvation.html This article argues that the translation should be “Without the Church, there is no salvation.”
VOICES FROM THE EARLY CHURCH
Here are some actual texts from early Chuch authors. http://www.churchfathers.org
Salvation Outside the Church
“Be not deceived, my brethren: If anyone follows a maker of schism [i.e., is a schismatic], he does not inherit the kingdom of God; if anyone walks in strange doctrine [i.e., is a heretic], he has no part in the passion [of Christ]. Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of his blood; one altar, as there is one bishop, with the presbytery and my fellow servants, the deacons” (Letter to the Philadelphians 3:3–4:1 [A.D. 110]).
“We have been taught that Christ is the first-begotten of God, and we have declared him to be the Logos of which all mankind partakes [John 1:9]. Those, therefore, who lived according to reason [Greek, logos] were really Christians, even though they were thought to be atheists, such as, among the Greeks, Socrates, Heraclitus, and others like them. . . . Those who lived before Christ but did not live according to reason [logos] were wicked men, and enemies of Christ, and murderers of those who did live according to reason [logos], whereas those who lived then or who live now according to reason [logos] are Christians. Such as these can be confident and unafraid” (First Apology 46 [A.D. 151]).
“In the Church God has placed apostles, prophets, teachers, and every other working of the Spirit, of whom none of those are sharers who do not conform to the Church, but who defraud themselves of life by an evil mind and even worse way of acting. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace” (Against Heresies3:24:1 [A.D. 189]).
“[The spiritual man] shall also judge those who give rise to schisms, who are destitute of the love of God, and who look to their own special advantage rather than to the unity of the Church; and who for trifling reasons, or any kind of reason which occurs to them, cut in pieces and divide the great and glorious body of Christ, and so far as in them lies, destroy it—men who prate of peace while they give rise to war, and do in truth strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel. For they can bring about no ‘reformation’ of enough importance to compensate for the evil arising from their schism. . . . True knowledge is that which consists in the doctrine of the apostles, and the ancient constitution of the Church throughout all the world, and the distinctive manifestation of the body of Christ according to the successions of the bishops, by which they have handed down that Church which exists in every place [i.e., the Catholic Church]” (ibid., 4:33:7–8).
“Before the coming of the Lord, philosophy was necessary for justification to the Greeks; now it is useful for piety . . . for it brought the Greeks to Christ as the law did the Hebrews” (Miscellanies1:5 [A.D. 208]).
“[T]here was never a time when God did not want men to be just; he was always concerned about that. Indeed, he always provided beings endowed with reason with occasions for practicing virtue and doing what is right. In every generation the wisdom of God descended into those souls which he found holy and made them to be prophets and friends of God” (Against Celsus 4:7 [A.D. 248]).
“If someone from this people wants to be saved, let him come into this house so that he may be able to attain his salvation. . . . Let no one, then, be persuaded otherwise, nor let anyone deceive himself: Outside of this house, that is, outside of the Church, no one is saved; for, if anyone should go out of it, he is guilty of his own death” (Homilies on Joshua 3:5 [A.D. 250]).
“Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress [a schismatic church] is separated from the promises of the Church, nor will he that forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is an alien, a worldling, and an enemy. He cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother” (The Unity of the Catholic Church 6, 1st ed. [A.D. 251]).
“Let them not think that the way of life or salvation exists for them, if they have refused to obey the bishops and priests, since the Lord says in the book of Deuteronomy: ‘And any man who has the insolence to refuse to listen to the priest or judge, whoever he may be in those days, that man shall die’ [Deut. 17:12]. And then, indeed, they were killed with the sword . . . but now the proud and insolent are killed with the sword of the Spirit, when they are cast out from the Church. For they cannot live outside, since there is only one house of God, and there can be no salvation for anyone except in the Church” (Letters 61[4]:4 [A.D. 253]).
“When we say, ‘Do you believe in eternal life and the remission of sins through the holy Church?’ we mean that remission of sins is not granted except in the Church” (ibid., 69[70]:2 [A.D. 253]).
“Peter himself, showing and vindicating the unity, has commanded and warned us that we cannot be saved except by the one only baptism of the one Church. He says, ‘In the ark of Noah, a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. Similarly, baptism will in like manner save you” [1 Peter 3:20-21]. In how short and spiritual a summary has he set forth the sacrament of unity! In that baptism of the world in which its ancient wickedness was washed away, he who was not in the ark of Noah could not be saved by water. Likewise, neither can he be saved by baptism who has not been baptized in the Church which is established in the unity of the Lord according to the sacrament of the one ark” (ibid., 73[71]:11).
“[O]utside the Church there is no Holy Spirit, sound faith moreover cannot exist, not alone among heretics, but even among those who are established in schism” (Treatise on Rebaptism 10 [A.D. 256]).
“It is, therefore, the Catholic Church alone which retains true worship. This is the fountain of truth; this, the domicile of faith; this, the temple of God. Whoever does not enter there or whoever does not go out from there, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation. . . . Because, however, all the various groups of heretics are confident that they are the Christians and think that theirs is the Catholic Church, let it be known that this is the true Church, in which there is confession and penance and which takes a health-promoting care of the sins and wounds to which the weak flesh is subject” (Divine Institutes 4:30:11–13 [A.D. 307]).
“Heretics bring sentence upon themselves since they by their own choice withdraw from the Church, a withdrawal which, since they are aware of it, constitutes damnation. Between heresy and schism there is this difference: that heresy involves perverse doctrine, while schism separates one from the Church on account of disagreement with the bishop. Nevertheless, there is no schism which does not trump up a heresy to justify its departure from the Church” (Commentary on Titus 3:10–11 [A.D. 386]).
“We believe also in the holy Church, that is, the Catholic Church. For heretics violate the faith itself by a false opinion about God; schismatics, however, withdraw from fraternal love by hostile separations, although they believe the same things we do. Consequently, neither heretics nor schismatics belong to the Catholic Church; not heretics, because the Church loves God; and not schismatics, because the Church loves neighbor” (Faith and the Creed 10:21 [A.D. 393]).
“[J]ust as baptism is of no profit to the man who renounces the world in words and not in deeds, so it is of no profit to him who is baptized in heresy or schism; but each of them, when he amends his ways, begins to receive profit from that which before was not profitable, but was yet already in him” (On Baptism, Against the Donatists 4:4[6] [A.D. 400]).
“I do not hesitate to put the Catholic catechumen, burning with divine love, before a baptized heretic. Even within the Catholic Church herself we put the good catechumen ahead of the wicked baptized person . . . For Cornelius, even before his baptism, was filled up with the Holy Spirit [Acts 10:44–48], while Simon [Magus], even after his baptism, was puffed up with an unclean spirit [Acts 8:13–19]” (ibid., 4:21[28]).
“The apostle Paul said, ‘As for a man that is a heretic, after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him’ [Titus 3:10]. But those who maintain their own opinion, however false and perverted, without obstinate ill will, especially those who have not originated the error of bold presumption, but have received it from parents who had been led astray and had lapsed . . . those who seek the truth with careful industry and are ready to be corrected when they have found it, are not to be rated among heretics” (Letters 43:1 [A.D. 412]).
“Whoever is separated from this Catholic Church, by this single sin of being separated from the unity of Christ, no matter how estimable a life he may imagine he is living, shall not have life, but the wrath of God rests upon him” (ibid., 141:5).
“Anyone who receives the sacrament of baptism, whether in the Catholic Church or in a heretical or schismatic one, receives the whole sacrament; but salvation, which is the strength of the sacrament, he will not have, if he has had the sacrament outside the Catholic Church [and remains in deliberate schism]. He must therefore return to the Church, not so that he might receive again the sacrament of baptism, which no one dare repeat in any baptized person, but so that he may receive eternal life in Catholic society, for the obtaining of which no one is suited who, even with the sacrament of baptism, remains estranged from the Catholic Church” (The Rule of Faith 43 [A.D. 524]).
ACTIO
What can I take away from this ancient teaching of our heritage, The Church Universal?
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