What Constitutes the Church?

What Constitutes the Church? In his customarily creative, intuitive, suggestive, provocative but vague and confusing fashion, Pope Francis last week spoke of “synodicality” as constitutive of the Church. The suggestion seems unhelpful to me as it is tied to a limited, juridical institution, the synod. A broader, deeper concept is that of “collegiality” which properly understood is far broader and deeper than the judicial structures of the synod or even the hierarchy but derives from the “communio” reality of union with the Trinity in Christ as it permeates every reality of ecclesial and human existence: the family and sexuality, friendship, economics, politics and culture as well as the visible, sacramental Church. But his comment did provoke me to wonder: What does constitute the Church? The Church, bride of Christ, is constituted by the Bridegroom’s loving action upon herself. But this infinitely dense, profound, fecund and symphonic mystery has several dimensions, dynamics, currents or movements that cannot be separated because they mutually infuse each other but can be distinguished so we can marvel with clarity of vision at the SPLENDOR OF THE CHURCH. Seven such currents are clear: four are primary or fundamental in that they will continue after this life and history itself into eternity; three are essential but secondary in that they will disappear with this life and this world. The primary movements that create the Church in the love of Christ are: the work of the Holy Spirit (pneumatic); the Word of God which is the person and event of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, as infallibly articulated in Scripture and Tradition within the Church (evangelical); the life of worship and prayer (the liturgical); the holiness of life perfectly expressed in the body and soul of Mary and those in communion with her, especially the consecrated (Marian); and the community of love in all its fecundity, richness and variety (Johannine) as evident in family, ecclesial community, friendship and all wholesome, holy expressions of human communion. The three movements which are essential in this life but temporary are: office or hierarchy, sinfulness and consequent contrition/repentance and pardon/mercy, the missionary impulse and concrete actions of mercy. The hierarchical Church will prevail until the end of history; but not afterwards. It is infallible in teaching and efficacious in the sacramental bestowal of sanctifying grace, but is subservient to and expressive of the pneumatic, evangelical, marian and johaninne. Likewise sinfulness pervades every human dimension of the Church: each person, community and institution including the Pope and the holiest among us. And so, confession, repentance and reparation as well as forgiveness and patience (with self as well as others) is constitutive of the Church in time, but not in eternity. And so also with the missionary and agapic or active dimension of the Church: it defines the Church in history, in flesh and time, but not in heaven. There is a temptation to elevate these three subordinate, if definitive, but penultimate dimensions to a position of dominance over the higher four. The result can be clericalism (office), activism (mission and works of charity), and pessimism (a Calvinist or Jansenist obsession with sin). This understanding of the dynamics of movements infusing the Church incorporates the breath and catholicity evidence by the "models" approach of Cardinal Dulles while overcoming that approach's extrinsic, Kantian tendency to define the dynamics against each other rather than indwelling each other mutually. Finally, we might see that the Church of history is quintessentially constituted by the Eucharist in which Christ's conjugal love for His bride, at once spiritual and physical, temporal and eternal, perfectly expresses every dimension: the pneumatic, the evangelical, the liturgical, the marian, the hierarchical, the penitential/confessional, the missional/activist.