1. A visible Church.
God instituted a very visible Church precisely so that all men can know her and be able to enter her. But God also created men free to enter His Church or not. And as Ronald Knox noted, mankind have had the great misfortune of entering always the wrong Church due to his fallen nature.
Man’s fallen nature is such that even most Catholics seems to be entering the wrong Church even though the Four clear visible signs of the true Church is recited by every Catholic every Sunday Mass; one, holy, catholic and apostolic.
These four visible signs, recited in the Nicene Creed ,had been explained and expanded by many Fathers of the Church but today the more popular work going around is the new English translation of ‘de notis ecclesiae’ by St. Robert Bellarmine, Jesuit saint and doctor of the Church. Here, St. Robert expanded the four visible signs into 15 signs adding a few more but still taken from Divine Revelation.
2. The visible signs.
As long as the church is the true Church of Christ, the four visible signs will surely be visible. All of them. Not just one or two but all of them. Though it can happen that a developing church would gradually have one or two signs until it grows into maturity wherein all the signs become visible. It will only be the true Church of Christ when all the signs are visibly present; either the four classical signs or the 15 expanded marks according to St. Bellarmine.
The problem is this. After mastering the visible signs of the true Church of Christ, if we look for it around we won’t find it. They are not in the local Diocese and parishes. The signs are not in Catholic congregations and communities. They are not in ecclesial communities and Catholic schools. And they cannot be found in individual cardinals, bishops, priests, nuns or layman.
Occasionally we can find one or two visible signs in a person or in a community but not all the four signs…..or the 15 signs.
3. What can we do?
Just exactly what the first apostles did when nobody was yet a Catholic during their times…..go and establish a church. How do you go about it? In the last posts, we showed that the Fathers of the Church, like St. John Chrysostom, stated that Christ used to present His teachings in a coded way. So that while the true seeker are able by the grace of God to break the code, the mere curious will not be able to do so. So we re-arranged the list of commands in the 24th Sunday Gospel and showed how the entire Gospel simply described the three important steps on how to seek God. All the rest of the commands were simply explanation of the three important steps.
The four visible signs of the true Church as enumerated in the Nicene Creed are also mixed up so that the mere curious would not know which to develop first and which is second.
The Nicene Creed enumerates four visible signs; One, holy, Catholic and Apostolic. Now, let’s pretend that I am going to establish the true Church of Christ. Where do I begin? Not with ‘One’ nor ‘Catholic.’ I will begin with ‘Apostolic.’
4. Apostolic.
Since Christ trained a bunch of apostles as the first members of His Church, to make the story short, then I must try to learn from them how this Church looks like and how I can enter this Church. And I will make it a point not to deviate from their teachings. Since their teachings are found as part of Divine Revelation in Sacred Scriptures, then I must have a Bible that expresses as close as possible their teachings. Maybe the Douay-Rheims version will be fine.
After mastering and prayerfully studying the teachings of the Apostles I am now prepared to teach a small group ‘what’ the Apostles taught in Scriptures. But how can that ‘what’ be put into practice? How can the teachings of the Apostles be put into practice. Fortunately, while the first apostles were teaching the first Christian communities how to put into practice their teachings, there were holy people who wrote down their oral teachings. These are called the apostolic Fathers. These were the followers of the Apostles, like St. Polycarp.
So, not only can I teach my small group what were the teachings of the first Apostles. I can, also, teach them how those teaching were put into practice as written down by the Fathers of the Church.
I must make sure that my small group have the intellectual knowledge of ‘what’ are the teachings of the Apostles and ‘how’ to put them into practice. All the members of my small group should know these two things. And there must be no deviation from this knowledge.
This being so, my small group is ‘apostolic,’ but not yet one, holy and catholic. How long should it take me to make my small group ‘apostolic?’ As long as the hidden life of Christ; around 30 years if we are as good as Christ. But more if we are not as good. The 30 years hidden life of Christ is a figure of this effort.
For the small group to be ‘apostolic’ much is expected from the teacher or evangelizer. St. Thomas of Aquinas wrote; ‘he has to have a perfect knowledge of Christ’s teachings.’ While the small group are required to be good disciples and good listeners.
A church can have the visible sign of ‘apostolicity’ in different degrees; but without the other three signs she is not yet the true Church of Christ.
5. Holy.
With ‘apostolicity’ the members of the small group must, first, ‘know’ what are the commands of Christ and secondly. ‘how to observe’ the commandments of Christ as taught by the apostles. If and when they know ‘all’ the commands of Christ and have observed them (as required by the Apostolic Commission), then we say that the small group has ‘holiness.’ This is equivalent to saying that they have the theological virtue of Faith and can merit for the group eternal life in heaven.
Making the members of the small group ‘holy’ is a work of God, not by men, not by priest nor even the Pope. Now, having Faith and ‘holiness’, the Holy Spirit can unite the several souls in the small group and make them one heart and one mind. Thus the next visible sign is ‘One.’
6. One.
An evangelizer like me can help in the first visible sign, ‘apostolicity.’ Humans cannot help in the second visible sign; ‘Holy.’ Only Christ can help here. And only the Holy Spirit can help in the third visible sign, ‘One.’ Each member of the small group have ‘apostolicity’ and personal holiness. But for each of the members of the small group to be united together into a living Church is a work of the Holy Spirit.
Note that the second visible sign we described above, ‘holiness’ is defined in ecclesiology as ‘union of a soul with the Body of Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. While the third visible signs we mentioned above, ‘one’ is defined in ecclesiology as union with the soul of the Church, God the Holy Spirit.
At this point the small group has completely entered the Catholic Church. They are perfect Catholics. And being so, anywhere each member of the small group go, whether in Zambis, Paraguay, New Orleans, Papua or Philippines. they are all united to one another in Faith, Hope and Charity. They still make up one Church though scattered over the whole world. And their being Apostolic, Holy and One…….makes them ‘Catholic’ in that they are all over the world though they remain One.
7. See how easy it is to establish the true Church of Christ. It is just a matter of developing those four visible signs mentioned in the Nicene Creed in each person of any community. The role of an evangelizer is simply to help develop in them the visible sign of ‘apostolicity.’ Then God takes over and does the rest; namely, One, Holy and Catholic.
8. So I return to my question. How come priests, bishops, cardinals and the present Pope do not have the four visible signs as mentioned in the Creed. Nor do they have the expanded 15 signs according to St. Robert Bellarmine. How come the Benedictines where I stayed for more than 40 years, the Jesuits where I studied for more than 10 years and the Dominicans where I studied for a year do not have these visible signs. How come all Catholic organizations for laymen who came for retreats do not have these signs. How come prominent catholic parishes and catholic dioceses do not have these signs. How come the Bishops’ Synod and Bishop’s conferences do not have these signs even in their newsletters. How come all Catholic schools that were under me as head of the Commission on Catechetics did not have these signs. And they get peeved if anyone rightfully demands from them these credentials of Catholicity which they should be automatically be exhibiting to the whole world.
9. Even the impressive and brilliant writers on religious topics in the internet shows great knowledge of their Catholic religion but cannot show the four visible signs of Catholicity. Of course, it can be that I am just dumb. Or as often the case, they have one of the visible signs but none of the rest.
As mentioned above, the visible sign of ‘apostolicity’ is a good sign but alone it cannot be a sign of the true Church. But ‘holiness’ alone is a true visible sign of one’s membership in the true Church of Christ. He who has ‘holiness’ will surely have ‘oneness’ and ‘Catholicity.’
10. I wish to return to an existing reality.
I cannot find neither the four visible signs of the true Church nor the 15 marks of the Church enumerated by St. Robert Bellarmine in our priests, bishops and cardinals. I cannot even find those signs in Pope Francis.
These are visible signs. They can be seen by all men if they have it. That has been the teaching of the Catholic Church all these years. How come they cannot show these visible signs? Maybe, they are not Catholic?