The Bishop, the Priest, and the Laymen in the Church TODAY.
1. The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, would want to know how a Pope, a bishop, a priest and a layman should function within the Church TODAY. So his former thesis, the ‘Theology of History according to St. Bonaventure” is suddenly of great interest to him. There he described how the Church would look like now, that he is Head of the Church. All priests, too, must know how they must function within the Church today and not the Church 100 years ago.
2. The Church is a living being. She grows everyday. Though she looks essentially the same (one, holy, Catholic and apostolic) , there is a slight difference in her spiritual image as she grows into maturity. And depending on whether she is an adolescence or a young adult, the function of the Pope and priest would slightly differ within her. There is a slight difference in piloting a teenage from a young adult church to her eternal goal.
3. This difference in the image of the Church is clearly portrayed in the two fishing incidents in the lives of the apostles. The first fishing trip was during the public life of Christ before Easter where they caught both good and bad fishes. This image of the Church is repeated in the parable of the wheat and the cockle where both good and bad were together in the Church. Then there is the fishing trip after the resurrection of Christ where they caught only good fishes.
4. The two images of the Church are: when she was a teenager, with bad blood, therefore, filled with pimples. And when she is a lovely young adult ready to be wedded to the bridegroom Jesus Christ.
5. These two images of the Church were further described in the Apocalypse; where we see the woman clothed with the sun “in the world.” Then, after a while she was given two wings by which she flew to the desert to a place specially prepared by God for her protection. And the devil who is in the world vomits water to drown her in the desert. There is a church in the world and a church that has flown to the desert. There is a difference in which the Pope and the priests minister to the Church in the world and how they would minister to the Church in the desert.
6. The implication here is that when the Church, personified by the Woman clothed with the Sun, flies to the desert the world will not find the Church in the world. They have to go to the desert to find and be able to enter the Church. Of course, this is an allegorical description and its meaning must be figured out from the writings of the Fathers specially St. John Chrysostom.
7. The season of Advent is no longer a preparation for the first coming of Christ, Christmas, because that is over. Instead it is a preparation for the second coming of Christ, at the end times. The preparation is a life of repentance, which is Old Testament spirituality. But note that the 4 Sunday Gospels of Advent, the Mass for Vigil of Christmas and Christmas Mass do not deal with Christmas but with the parousia, the end of the world. And from the feast of Mary and the Holy Family preparation for the second coming continues ending with Christ the King and resuming with Advent.
8. It is for this reason that the Immaculate Conception is within Advent and only approved as a dogma recently. Because it will only make sense today. Mary, the Immaculate Conception is the symbol of the Church that contains only good fishes, all wheat without the cockle, the Woman in the desert – Immaculate, without sin. Didn’t Christ say that during these days, the angels will remove all the cockles thus leaving only the sinless within the Church? That was the Church St. Grignion de Montfort was trying to work on… a Church that was Immaculate like Mary, and which St. Bonaventure foresaw at the end times…and which Joseph Ratzinger took as topic for his thesis as a young priest.
9. Where is the Church now? How does she look like now? Is the Church today pre-Easter or post- Easter? In his thesis, Pope Benedict is hinting that we are in the post -Easter era. If so, are we inside the fish net that is made up of only good fishes….the symbol of the Immaculate Conception?