Today’s readings: Acts 15, 1-2.22-29; Apocalypse 21, 10-14.22-23; John 14, 23-29.

Very often we speak of the need to go back to the sources and to the early Church. The reason is not nostalgia but the need to rediscover the Church as it was meant to be by its founder and by those who were his first witnesses. Reading Acts these weeks gives the sensation of freshness, of the essentials that make up the Church. It discloses also how distant that is from things as they are.

There has been a radical change from the early evolving Church to the Church as it came to be understood along the way down the centuries, seen mainly from the straightjacket of juridical terms and political categories.

We believe Jesus Christ to be the founder of the Church. But we have to acknowledge that he is not ‘founder’ in the normal meaning of the word, as other known founders who set up institutions and congregations down the line. Jesus is more the foundation.

The Church is not first and foremost an organisation. It is an organism, a living body, as explained by St Paul himself. Recently, Pope Francis said that “when the Church becomes a bit bureaucratic, it loses its principal substance and runs the risk of turning into an NGO”.

The Church is a love story, said the Pope. At times we forget that to guide the Church in time Jesus gave her the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, not rules. Probably it is there where we think he might have been mistaken, because rules would have been more secure and reassuring.

As was expected, there was anxiety in the disciples as Jesus was speaking rather awkwardly about his going away and returning and that they should be glad to know he was leaving. This anxiety was more understandable given that Jesus gave no blueprint of how things should be managed after his departure. He left no statute to lay down beforehand how the Church had to be organised and things handled.

From the start, the Apostles had to rely on the guidance of the Spirit to discern between what was merely accessorial and what instead made up the core message to be delivered. They had the capacity of vision, as we read in the Apocalypse, with John seeing that “there was no temple in the city since the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb were themselves the temple”.

When discord arose in the community and things needed to be cleared and decided, the Word was the focus, and guidance from the Spirit was sought. It may sound far-fetched, just as many people today feel sceptical when we bring in the Holy Spirit in the choice of a Pope or in the decision-making processes in the Church. But this, after all, is what distinguishes the Church from any other institution. Jesus did not give the answers to all questions. He invested in the intelligence of people empowered by the Holy Spirit.

The Church we belong to is always work in progress. It has had crossroads in time and the point in time we’re in is undoubtedly one of them. Where its mission is concerned, discernment should lead to putting priorities in order and making choices. Paul and Barnabas in the early Church chose to turn to the pagans and knew there were consequences they had to face, particularly in having to address cultures and frames of mind alien to the world of belief. But they did it boldly and daringly.

The Church today is undoubtedly called to turn to the pagans and to face the consequences.

Roger Ebert, the renowned American movie reviewer who died lately, wrote in his memoirs Life Itself, that he is not a believer, not an atheist, not an agnostic. “I am more content with questions than answers,” he wrote. But, he continues, “dictums strike me as lacking in the ability to surprise”. It is this ability to surprise that makes our mission and our preaching extremely challenging today.

We cannot afford in the world as it is to represent more of the same without making room for sincere truth-seekers.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.