Homily for Feast of SS. Philip and James, May 3, 2006

(The following is an outline of the homily I preached at the Priests' Overnight for Morning Prayer on the Feast of SS. Philip and James, May 3, 2006.)

"So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit" (Eph. 2: 19-22).

INTRODUCTION:

One of the strongest statements of Jesus in the Gospels is found in Luke 18:18: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" I am always struck - I can say frightened - by that statement.

We priests are ministers of Faith to our people. We must proclaim it. We must strengthen our people in their Faith. So the question is important to us and our ministry.

CRISIS OF FAITH IN THE CHURCH:

If one asks about Faith in God the Father, I would have to say statistics show our people do have such Faith, even though some might be struggling with the relationship between Faith and Science.

If we ask about Faith in the Holy Spirit, I would say there is not a severe crisis, in fact, there seems to have been a rejuvenation after Vatican Council II of faith in the action of the Spirit in our midst.

But, if one were to ask about Faith in the Church, I would have to say there is indeed a crisis. I wonder how many of our faithful, when they recite on Sunday the Nicene Creed, really mean that they believe in the Church. Many tell me that for our people to say sincerely that they believe in the Church is the most difficult of all the creedal statements.

There is a crisis of Faith in the Church and thus there is a crisis of authority. John Courtney Murray wrote an article in America around the time of the Council, or shortly before, in which he stated that if there is a crisis of authority in any community there is also a crisis of obedience. It is usually a sign that the community needs to articulate more clearly what its ideals and aims are and how they are shared. In a meeting in Rome that I attended long ago, Father Arrupe, S.J., once said that if there is a crisis of faith in authority, authority is the least capable of solving it.

What should one do? In such a crisis there is a need to go back to the essentials, as Vatican Council II tried to do. That is often called ressourcement. This means going back to the Epistles of Saint Paul and his description of the Church as the body of Christ, to the Patristic period, and especially to the Creeds, like the Nicene Creed I just spoke of: "We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church."

ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, AND APOSTOLIC

It is important to reflect on these four marks of the Church, preach on them, and make them our own. The marks are not totally distinct one from another but are overlapping.

I do not want to forget that I make these observations on this feast of Philip and James, Apostles. We cannot help but notice on this feast and in the quote from Ephesians that the Church is apostolic.

1. The Church is one. In the first two chapters of Ephesians the image of the Church as the Body of Christ is emphasized. Christ is the capstone: "Through him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit."

Jesus Christ is the source of unity in the Church. We are one in Christ. Every Eucharistic prayer makes that clear. There is but one Christ. Paul is upset with the Corinthians where one says he is baptized by Apollo, another says he is baptized by Paul. He finds that kind of designation divisive. (Is it wise today to say - as I heard someone say the other day on EWTN - I am a Pope-John-Paul-II Catholic?) That oneness has its source in the same one Spirit. The Body of Christ continues to be built up in unity by the one Spirit.

I often attended meetings of the Common Ground Initiative. The first evening as the group gathered there was always tension in the air. The purpose was to bring together scholars of differing views, often people who had spoken rather harshly about each other. But after we celebrated Eucharist the next morning the atmosphere changed perceptibly. We were one in Christ first of all.

2. The Church is holy. Holiness in the Church comes from the union with Christ and most of all the action of the Holy Spirit, the sanctifier. In each Eucharist we ask the Holy Spirit to come upon us and make us holy.

That is why we are no longer strangers but fellow citizens with the holy ones. That is why we talk about the communion of saints. That is why we must emphasize the action of the Spirit in our Sacraments and not see them as just the work of our own hands. That is why we also talk of our union with the apostles, all the saints, and with the pope, the local bishop, and all bishops.

3. The Church is Catholic. One can take that term in two senses. The first is "universal." If we really say we believe that the Church is universal, then we accept that the Church is always evangelizing, embracing everyone. Secondly, it can mean the Church is all embracing with regard to truth and all the means needed for salvation. For example, Pope Benedict XV, the pope during the First World War and immediately after it, said one should never add a modifier to the world "Catholic," like "orthodox Catholic" or "authentically Catholic," since the word Catholic, meaning fullness, is enough.

4. The Church is apostolic. In the scripture reading we had for this feast of two of the apostles we read "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets." Later in chapter 4 of that same letter to the Ephesians the author talks of unity in the Body of Christ - one body, one Spirit - and mentions the gifts of the Spirit given to the community. In that list again "the apostles" comes first. But note also that it is not the only gift of the Spirit to the community; prophets and all the others are also listed!

The Church is apostolic, founded on the apostles. At first they were 12 in number, a symbol of continuity with God's people of old. When one was missing through Judas's death, the number had to be made whole again through the election of Matthias. But with the death of James some time later, it was not necessary to continue this symbolic number. A gradual transition was taking place toward the formation of a world-church. There a different structure for continuity would take place with the laying on of hands. Although that transition might still be very obscure in its historical details, the result is clear: a group of bishops or overseers was formed by the original apostles to carry on the ministry in the local churches that the apostles founded. The apostles were freed up to continue their mission of bringing the Gospel to all nations, to preach the good news to all.

We are surprised that we know so few details about the lives and activities of the apostles, most of whom drop out of sight. The fantastic stories that are told about their travels to far off places to found new churches may seem irrelevant to us, but they show us the importance in the early Church of being apostolic, that is, founded on the apostles. Founded on the apostles becomes the hallmark of continuity with the Church Jesus founded.

Because of this, we Catholics bring to the ecumenical table the quality of longevity. Perhaps because we have lived so long as a Church (since the beginning) we have made all the mistakes that can be made and, we hope, have learned from them.

CONCLUSION

If we know little about the apostles, about Philip and James, it does not matter. They are our link today to the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church." We celebrate our oneness in Christ through the Spirit, our oneness with the apostles, and our oneness with all who have been members of that apostolic Church now and in the past.

In that act, we strengthen our faith in the Church and prepare ourselves to strengthen the faith of the people to whom we minister.