Corpus Christi Blog

As you as Catholic as the Apostles were?

04-23-2017Weekly ReflectionFr. Chad King

Happy Easter everyone — our Lord is Risen, Alleluia! Today, the Deacons are preaching in order to give Fr. Rey and I a little break after Easter. I have the utmost confidence that our Deaconswill be preaching inspiringly on Divine Mercy and, in particular, on the Sacrament of Confession. Inour Gospel today, Jesus instituted this great sacrament when He gave the power to bind and loosesins to His disciples (the first bishops). Therefore, I wanted to share a little reflection based upon ourfirst reading for this Sunday that I heard from Dr. Brant Pitre, one of my favorite theologians. During theSeason of Easter, the first reading isn’t taken from the Old Testament, but instead, from the Acts ofthe Apostles. Today, the first verse of our first reading is key: Acts 2:42. Here are Dr. Brant Pitre’sinspiring comments:

It says they devoted themselves (1) to the apostles' teaching, (2) to fellowship, (3) to the breaking of bread and (4) to the prayers. So what are those things referring to? Well it is fascinating to me as I look at that, that those four elements being described here, are really:

  1. The doctrine of the Church with the teaching of the apostles.
  2. The fellowship — the Greek word there is koinonia, which means something like lived communion with one another within the community of believers.
  3. The breaking of the bread — ever since ancient times (and all the way up to today) most scholars think that that isn't just a statement that they would eat lunch together or have supper together at night, but the breaking of the bread was the breaking of the Eucharistic bread. It was the sharing of what Paul calls "the Lord's supper," and you can see that because, if you go back to the Gospel of Luke 24 ... you'll see that Jesus is known to them in the breaking of the bread. It is a term in the early Church for the Eucharist, for the Eucharistic Communion.
  4. So we have the doctrine of the apostles, we have the life of the community — fellowship with one another, we have the Eucharistic breaking of the bread, and then finally, we have the celebration of the prayer. This would be them gathering together in common to pray with one another.

One of the reasons I think that that's fascinating is that you can kind of correlate that with the four parts of the Catechism of the Catholic Church — the official compendium of the Church's teaching on matters of faith and morals. The first part is on the apostles' teaching; it is on the doctrine, the creed. The second part is on the sacraments, above all the Eucharist, the breaking of the bread. The third part is on life in Christ, on fellowship with one another: how do we love God and how do we love our neighbor; how do we keep the Commandments and live with one another according to justice and mercy and love. And then the fourth part of Catechism is on prayer. It's on the Lord's Prayer in particular, but on the life of prayer in general.

So it's kind of neat there that you see that those four pillars of the Church's teaching are already present in this initial description of the early Church. And for me I think that it's important to see that any authentic expression of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, what it means to be a Christian, what it means to be a member of the Apostolic Church, is always going to have all four of those. In other words, if you are a member the Apostolic Church, if you're part of what goes on to be called the Catholic Church, you don't just believe the doctrines. It is important to believe the doctrines, but you also have to live the sacramental life of the Church. The same thing is true…you can't pick the sacramental life of the Church and say that "I am going to participate in the sacraments but I don't believe anything the Catholic Church teaches." No, you need the doctrines of the Church and you need the sacramental life of the Church. Or you can't say "well I am going to live the community life, I am going to be active in my parish, but I am not going to receive the sacraments and I am not going to believe what the Church teaches." No, activity in the parish or in community, the fellowship of the Church, isn't enough. That's an important part. It is necessary but it is not sufficient. You have to both participate in the life of the Church and believe what the Church teaches and receive the sacraments. And then finally, you can't just believe what the Church teaches, go to church and participate in it and receive the sacraments, you also have to live a life of prayer; your own personal prayer, prayer in the family, prayer in the home, and a life of daily prayer. So if you're part of the apostolic Church, if you're in the Catholic Church, if you are living like the first Christians believed, then you should be praying every single day just like the early Christians did.

So I just think that it's really fantastic that the Church gives us this little glimpse of what the Christian life was like from the Acts of the Apostles, because it's always a helpful corrective to any inclination that we might have to just take a piece of the life of the Church and not take the whole. The word Catholic, although it frequently gets translated as universal — which is true — literally means according to the whole. That's what it means to be Catholic, we live according to the whole. We take the whole life of the Church, all the doctrine of the church, all the sacraments of the Church and all the prayers of the Church and we try to live those out. And that's what's happening here in the Acts of the Apostles in chapter 2.

BACK TO LIST