1. How does the Church look?
How should the Catholic Church look? Well, the usual answer is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. Patristic writings, however, extolling the Blessed Virgin Mary lovingly declared her as the personification of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church should be like Mary.
2. Like Mary.
To show that the Church is personified in the Blessed Virgin takes some mental-spiritual gymnastics. Both are Virgins, both love God alone, both lived silent lives, both lived consecrated lives, both are obedient to God,… this could be endless…but both were contemplatives; a contemplative defined as loving God alone, in silence and solitude.
3. There seems to be two ways of life, essentially identical, in answer to Christ’s invitation to follow Him.
4. One is commonly described as life in the desert (but not necessarily a physical life in the desert).
Note the tendency for Christ to go out alone to the desert. St. Paul was known to have stayed in the desert of Arabia. John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, perhaps, by force of circumstances, frequented the desert where he founded a community. Mary Magdalene, also, went to the desert.
5.The other is the life of Martyrdom.
Christ and most of the apostles were martyred. This was clear so martyrdom became the goal of Christians who would follow Christ. St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Caecilia, St. Stephen, St. Teresa of Avila who tried to go to the moors to be martyred.
6. Life in the desert was the alternative for life of martyrdom
The two ways of lives were in fact, identical. One was called red-martyrdom and the other white martyrdom. When red martyrdom eased because of the patronage of Constantine, white martyrdom became the popular substitute. The first Christians still knew that martyrdom was the goal in following Christ but it was difficult to find persecutors, though there was never a lack for it. They went for the second choice, life in the desert, commonly called white martyrdom. So we see the first Christians, literally, flooding the desert; St. Anthony, St. Paul the hermit, St. Benedict, and the so-called desert Fathers. During those times, when asked where is the Catholic Church, they always pointed to the desert. St. Athanasius spoke so eloquently on monasticism as imitation of Mary.
7. How come they knew so much?
The apostles saw Christ and could follow Him thus becoming humble like Christ, willing to give up all things, including their lives. Because they lived the fullness of the teachings of Christ, which consist in giving up all things, including losing one’s life, to gain it, which was the goal of both martyrdom and monastic life, they were INFUSED with a complete knowledge of the teachings of the Catholic Church, as recorded by the Fathers of the Church: not through studies either in seminaries or theological schools.
8. How come people know little Catholic Dotrines today? No contact with Christ and as a consequence difficulty of becoming humble and meek.
The way to have a complete knowledge of the teachings of the Catholic Church is either by preparing oneself for martyrdom, (whether that happens or not is immaterial) or living a contemplative, monastic life (not necessarily in the desert).
Definitely, both the life of martyrdom and the monastic life will continue to exist in the Catholic Church. While the apostles had contact with Christ, the monks did not have and had to make up for it by attaining contemplation where they “behold the face of Christ,”
Bearing in mind the words of Christ, “I shall manifest Myself to him..”
9. But how will the Catholic Church look like at the end times?
The Christian, in the last days, will re-discover the Apostolic equivalent to seeing Christ face to face, and this is through the contemplative-monastic life. The Church will look like Mary dwelling in the desert, i.e. monastic and contemplative. The Apocalypse narrates the vision of the Woman clothed with the sun who flew to the desert in a place of safety, specially prepared by God. The Church will look like Mary-the woman fleeing to the desert, in a place specially prepared by God; the place is the contemplative-monastic way of life. For one last time, the Church will learn again, through this way of life, the complete teachings of Christ, just like the first apostles, by pure infusion or revelation.
(Picture above is “The Woman of the Apocalypse” by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-16400) in Munich, Germany.)