Jesus Christ founded a Church that inherited His doctrine, His law, His grace, and His Love: the Holy Spirit. The mystery of the Church was the culmination of Salvation history, of that mysterious Love of a lover that God had manifested towards humanity and His Chosen People.
By Patrick Tchakounte
16 September 2017
In the history of Salvation, Israel is the theophoric people, the People set apart for a holy purpose, which is the establishment and the extension of the Kingdom of God on the Earth. The Christian religion is the bearer of the good news of the coming of the Son of God into the flesh, inaugurating a wedding between Eternity and Time, God and Man, the supernatural and the natural, the infinite and the limited. The Incarnation, is the central principle of Christianity, the vehicle of a theandric grace that re-unites Creation itself, under the Mediation of the Incarnate Word, the one God-Man, Pontiff of an eternal Priesthood, according to the order of Melchizedek.
The words of the Incarnate Word resonated across the walls and within the hearts of Israel. The gospel was testified to in the awesome Speech of the Teacher, in the ardent Love of the Redeemer, in the mysterious and divine Power of the Son. The Son of Man had come to fulfill the Law and prophecy and, according to the Will and the Design of God, the Messiah’s ministry culminated in his saving death on the cross—a death on the Tree of Crime of Original Sin and of personal sin itself in order to defeat death and evil. The Jewish People who had been the chosen People, the repository of the Divine Promise, had received through the mouth of the prophets the Promise of redemption and restoration that the Messiah would bring to all people; however, for some, it was left misunderstood, unrecognized, and ill-received.
The Second Israel emerged at the Foot of the Tree of the Cross, out of the right side of the wound of the Temple not “made by human hands.” In Heaven, “there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one. And there are three that give testimony on earth: the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three are one” (1 John 5:7-8). The Catholic Church of Rome was born from the water and the blood that proceeded from the sacred wound made by the lance. That blood and water consecrated the spirits of its members, in particular, the Holy Virgin Mary and St. John, the beloved disciple. It was the naissance of the new Israel within the old one, the new People of God, consecrated in their hearts, their souls, and their spirits in the infused sanctifying grace emerged out of the Messianic Temple.
Jesus, the Christ, had founded a Church that had inherited His doctrine, His law, His grace, His Love, the Holy Spirit, the true Soul of the one Mediator. The mystery of the Church was the culmination of Salvation history, of that mysterious Love of a lover that God had manifested towards humanity and His Chosen People in particular. God had created man, tested him, chastised him, made a covenant with him, guided and educated him as Father, nursed him as a mother, and loved man to the very end, in order to manifest His unfathomable Love disfigured in human consciences and human memories by the ruin of sin. The Church was God’s Bride, whom Christ had wedded in time by the very substance of His Death on the Cross. The Church, that lofty and select mystery at the heart of Christianity that was the certain fruit of the Christ’s consummate spirituality. “God is a spirit; and they that adore him, must adore him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).
The center of such lofty a mystery is itself Christ’s desire to spiritually wed humanity and bring to His Eternal Father a communion of adoptive sons who, with the Son, would be partakers of the Divine Nature and share in the rich spiritual treasuries of Grace. In truth, a corporate Body of believers that would provide God with perfect adoration and true spiritual worship. In a real way, therefore, the Church is Christ Himself because its individual members have been united to his one physical and mystical body by virtue of the infusion of his Spirit. Christ loves the members of his body as his own and, as they are joined to him, they are enabled to love as God loves, pray to the Father as Christ himself prays, and share in the infinite, unending joy of God himself.
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Photo Credit: By Sebastiano Conca (Sotheby’s) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Patrick Tchakounte is a four-year Biochemistry major from the University of Oklahoma with a minor in Spanish and a two year Web Design and Development major from Oklahoma City Community College. He has been a blogger for the past ten years and regularly posts on a personal blog titled Mysterium Verbi. He has a passion for the Roman Catholic Church, having served as an altar server, and is in the process of discerning to join Opus Dei. Mr. Tchakounte has diverse interests in philosophy, art, theology, comic books, and film. Additionally, he speaks French fluently.
Complete heresy! The catholic church was not born out the side of Christ! On the contrary. Even a cursory reading of the New Testament will reveal that the Catholic Church does not have its origin in the teachings of Jesus or His apostles. In the New Testament, there is no mention of the papacy, worship/adoration of Mary (or the immaculate conception of Mary, the perpetual virginity of Mary, the assumption of Mary, or Mary as co-redemptrix and mediatrix), petitioning saints in heaven for their prayers, apostolic succession, the ordinances of the church functioning as sacraments, infant baptism, confession of sin to a priest, purgatory, indulgences, or the equal authority of church tradition and Scripture. So, if the origin of the Catholic Church is not in the teachings of Jesus and His apostles, as recorded in the New Testament, what is the true origin of the Catholic Church?
For the first 280 years of Christian history, Christianity was banned by the Roman Empire, and Christians were terribly persecuted. This changed after the “conversion” of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Therefore the Roman Catholic church came from Constantine! Not Christ!
Dear Jason,
You’ve listed several protests. They’re all wrong. Your are incorrect on every single point. I don’t have time to get into all of them, but one of the mistakes you’re making is thinking everything must be spelled out verbatim in the Bible, explicitly, word for word. That, actually, is a heresy (sola scriptura) born out of the Protestant revolution in the 16th century. The first Christians of the Church (Church Fathers) and the Church today (same institution and reality) has never accepted sola scriptura. If you’re going to argue using sola scriptura, how can you accept the dogma of the Trinity? Nowhere is the word “Trinity” mentioned in scripture. The word finds its origin in Tertullian’s writing, an early Catholic who lived in the 2nd and early 3rd centuries.
The Church most certainly does have its origin in Jesus. As one example among many, Christ installed St. Peter as the leader of the Church, giving him the keys to the kingdom and the powers of binding and loosing (Matt 16:17-19). Everywhere in scripture, Peter is mentioned first. It’s clear Jesus installed him as the earthly leader of the Church. He became the First Bishop of Rome. The Bishops of Rome (popes) are his successors. There’s been 266 in the history of the Church. The problem with Protestantism (one among many) is that it has no earthly leader or central authority established by God. That’s why it displays constant splintering and doctrinal changes/loss.
If you think Constantine started the Catholic Church (Roman Church, if you please), explain why St. Ignatius wrote this in about AD 107: “You must all follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles. Reverence the deacons as you would the command of God. Let no one do anything of concern to the Church without the bishop. . . . Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church” ( Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans). Ignatius was speaking of the Catholic Church centuries before Constantine was born.
One last point, the equality of Sacred Tradition and Scripture is taught by St. Paul: “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter” (2 Thess 2:15). Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are both divine revelation. It’s just that they differ in their modes. One is written down (scripture); the other is passed on orally (tradition). Oral tradition has always been an integral part of the life of the People of God. How do you think the Israelites handed on divine revelation through the centuries before it was written down? An example is the creation story in the Book of Genesis. Scholars believe it was written around the 5th century BC. The creation story began as oral tradition that was written down in response to faulty creation myths such as the one held by the Babylonians.
Sorry, but you’ve been duped by 16th century Protestant revolutionaries who fabricated in many ways a new religion.
I suggest you check out Lizzie Reezay. Once she became historically conscious through reading the early Church Fathers, she realized that the first Christians were Catholic. They believed what Catholics do today. Go here: http://joyintruth.com//youtuber-lizzie-reezay-announces-shes-becoming-catholic/