← All Things Catholic with Dr. Edward Sri
All Things Catholic with Dr. Edward Sri
The Church Is One
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Have you ever wondered why there are so many different Christian denominations out there? Dr. Sri explores the deep roots of the Catholic Church's unity, tracing it back to Scripture and the practices of the early Christians. Dr. Sri also encourages us to pray for greater unity in the wider Christian community.
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This podcast is brought to you by Ascension. To discover even more free Catholic podcasts, videos and resources to help you live your faith every day, visit ascensionpress.com hi, I'm Edward Sri and welcome to All Things Catholic, where real faith meets real life in the ancient creed, going all the way back to the early church. Christians for centuries have been saying the church is one. But have you ever wondered why there are so many different Christian denominations out there? You got the Roman Catholics, you got the Orthodox Church, Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, the Church of the Nazarene, and thousands and thousands of so called non denominational Christian churches, all believing different things, all worshiping in a different way, living Christian community a different way, viewing Jesus in different ways. In fact, according to the World Christian Encyclopedia, there are over 33,000 different Christian denominations. Do you think that's the unity Jesus wanted? In fact, the night before he died, he prayed for unity. Is this what we mean when we say the church is one? That's what we're going to take a look at in this week's podcast. So welcome to All Things Catholic. I'm your host, Edward Sri. And in thinking about this idea of the church and the history of the church and the unity of the church, this again is another one of those great topics we explore in this wonderful faith formation program where we filmed in 40 different locations on four different continents all around the world. It's called Foundations of A Journey through the Catechism. I'm talking about that a lot recently. And it's so important that we understand the roots of our faith so that we can live our faith better and share it with other people. And if you ever want to share why we want to be Catholic, why we want to be one as Christians, this is one of those topics we explore in the Foundations of Faith program that you can check out@ascensionpress.com but what I want to do is go all the way back to John, chapter 17, the gospel of John, chapter 17. It's the night before Jesus dies. He's there at the Last Supper and he makes this beautiful prayer to the Heavenly Father. These are some of the last words he says before he leaves the Last Supper to go to Gethsemane to be betrayed. And you know what he did? He said a prayer for us. Listen. Listen to these words he says to the Heavenly Father. I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may be one, even as you, Father, are in me and I in thee. That they may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. Now, I love this prayer. I want to unpack this here. So first of all, just unpack chapter 17 of John's gospel, verse 20. Notice what he says. He says, I do not pray for these. Only these people with me right now, his beloved friends, the apostles that are there at the Last Supper. He says, I do not pray for these only, but I also pray for those who believe in me through their word. In other words, who is Jesus praying for at that moment? He's praying for all those Christians who are going to come to believe in Jesus through the apostles. Word through the apostles and their successors throughout the centuries. In other words, this is a really personal prayer. He was thinking of you. Did you ever ponder that Jesus, the night before he died, right there at this climactic prayer at the Last Supper, was thinking of you and he was thinking of me and he was thinking of our family and our friends and our co worker. He was thinking of all the Christians that would come throughout the ages. Isn't that beautiful? The night before he died, he was thinking of you and me and he was praying for us. He said, I'm going to pray for them. And what does he pray for? Does he pray that we have good health? Does he pray that we have good jobs? Does he pray that we make a lot of money and have a good family? And you know, he could pray for those things. Did he pray for good spiritual things like, I pray that they be holy. I pray they grow in virtue. I pray they have good prayer lives. Those would be beautiful things to pray for. But what he chose to pray for on that night before he died was unity. He said, I pray that they may be one. That was so important to Jesus. Again, he could have prayed for our marriages and our families. He could have prayed for us to learn our catechism better. He could have prayed for us to love more. But the number one thing he was thinking about was unity. I pray that they may be one. On the depths of Jesus heart there at the Last Supper was that the church be one. And then the kind of unity he asks for. Notice what he says. He says, I pray that they may be one even as you are in me and I in thee, Father. In other words, he wants us to be one like he and the Father are one. Notice the kind of unity he's longing for here. This isn't just like some vague unity. I pray that they may remember me altogether. I pray that they may all just say this One prayer in common together, or, oh, I just pray that they may hold hands and sing worship songs together with me? No, he is praying for a profound unity. He wants us to be one as he and the Heavenly Father are one. He's turning to trinitarian unity as the model of the unity he wants for us. And not just the motto, but it's a unity he's inviting us to share in. He wants us to share in that profound unity that he has with his Father. That is an intense unity. Is that the kind of unity we see among our churches today, among even just our own Catholic churches? Do we have this kind of unity? And then you extend out to the other Christian churches. Do we have that unity that Jesus prayed for? I think about what Paul says. St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 4, he says that there is one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and Father of us all. St. Paul understood the importance of the unity of the church. There's one hope, there's one faith. Why? Because there's one Lord, there's one God, there's one Father of us all. He says, in other words, we're all children of God and we're in one family together with our Heavenly Father, worshiping Him together as brothers and sisters. Do we have that unity? Does the Christian world today reflect the unity that Jesus prayed for, that St. Paul in the New Testament was calling us to, that the early Christians, early Christians gave themselves to? And I want to go back. I'm going to do something that I think most Catholic apologists, maybe Catholic teachers don't go to when they explain how the church is won. I want to go all the way back to the beginning. I want to go all the way back to Genesis Chapter one. Because Jesus's prayer didn't come out of nowhere. That, that prayer he made at the. At the Last Supper, that we may be one even as he and the Heavenly Father are one. That didn't come out of nowhere. That's not just Jesus thinking, okay, well, I'm going to be leaving. I'm going to leave this organization called the Church here. And what would be good for organizational health? I think it would be really, you know, we would be a more effective organization if we were united. So I'm going to pray for unity because it's good to have a common mission statement, a common vision and a common set of goals. And all the departments are aligned and united together toward those goals. You know, that is good for organizational health. Sure. But that's not what Jesus is doing. No, no Jesus. He is simply saying a prayer that reflects the Heavenly Father's desire for us from the very beginning. Written on the core of our hearts is the desire for unity. Go back to Genesis, chapter one, when God created us. What did God say? God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Way back right at the very beginning of the Bible, when He created us. In Genesis chapter one, verse 26, he says, Let us make man in our image after our likeness. Notice the first person plural there. Why is God speaking first person plural all of a sudden? It's a reference to his inner life as a trinity. This is God speaking within his very self. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. And he creates us, man and woman, human persons in the image and likeness of himself as the Holy Trinity. We're not just made in the image likeness of God in some vague general sense. We are made in the image and likeness of the Holy Trinity. And the Holy Trinity is the most perfect unity. The three persons united in one God, one nature. Think about the inner life of God. In the inner life of God, we have God the Father giving himself totally, pouring himself totally in love to his beloved Son. And that Son in return, pours himself out in total love, holding nothing back, giving everything of himself in love to the Father. And that very outpouring of love between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Trinity is the most perfect unity. And we are made in the image and likeness of that God, of that perfect unity. That's why we have a great desire for unity with God and unity with each other. And that's why the Catechism explains, we had that unity originally with God. The Catechism calls it original holiness. It was that union that we had with God originally in the Garden of Eden, in paradise. Perfect unity with God. And we had original justice, which is the unity we had here on earth. We had unity within our own souls. Our. Our souls had inner harmony so that we had. Could have unity with each other. Man and woman perfectly united, reflecting the unity of the Trinity. So the human family was meant to reflect the unity of the family of God, the Holy Trinity. This is what we were made for. This is what is on. Our heart's deepest desire, is for union with God and union with each other. But sadly, we lost that, didn't we? We lost that with the Fall. And that's what the Catechism explains. We lost the gift of that unity with God, original holiness. And then we lost the gift of the inner harmony we have within our own souls and the unity we have with each other, original justice. We lost all that because of sin and we were plagued with the wound of original sin. So we see right away, right after the fall, the division between man and woman, Adam and Eve, the division between Cain and Abel, the division of the human family. So as you read through the story of Genesis and you see all this fragmentation, all this war and violence and use and hatred, envy, pride, lust, all causing all this human division. We have a broken, divided human family now, a far cry from what we were made for. The united family of God, reflecting the unity of the Trinity. That's why when Jesus prays the night before he dies, that they may be one even as he and the Father are one. When he makes that beautiful prayer, he's simply praying for a restoration of what God's plan was from the beginning. He's praying for our heart's deepest desires. We were made for this kind of unity, union with God and with each other. And we see this unity expressed in the early church. We see it expressed in three ways, three key ways. Now, I want to be clear. This unity isn't about cookie cutter Christianity. Everyone dresses the same and likes the same music and expresses their faith in exactly the same way. There was diversity of expression, cultural expression, different languages. But we see there was a core unity of belief and worship and united around the bishops and especially the Bishop of Rome. I want to talk about these three key ways. Do you know the three key ways the early Christians exhibited the unity that Jesus prayed for? Do you know the three key ways? The catechism describes the oneness of the Church, the unity of the Church. Let's talk about those. The first one is a common belief that they didn't have. Some people say, oh, I think Jesus was merely human. And another group of Christians, you know, over in Greece saying, oh, I think Jesus was divine, but he. He didn't become man because that would be too messy to take on human nature. You didn't have all this diversity of belief. They came to see we need to be united. And they had these various church councils to clarify. Is Jesus human? Is he really divine? And if you want to be a true Christian, you want to follow the faith of the apostles. What do we believe about these things? And they converged on, no, he's fully human and fully divine. But notice, to be a faithful Christian, a faithful Christian following that apostolic faith, you had to believe these core doctrines that were summed up in these summary statements called the Creeds and you already see creeds right there in the New Testament itself. St. Paul in First Corinthians, chapter 15 gives a summary little creed. And he does it in other passages from his letters. You see these creeds developing in the early church. And then formally you see them develop at, say, the Council of Nicaea, which is the one I was referring to. This understanding of Jesus as God from God, light from light, true God from true God. He truly is God. He's human. He did take on human flesh, but he truly is divine. And so you see these creeds bringing the unity of the church. You can go even earlier. I like to think of the great saint Irenaeus. Can I share with you a quote from Irenaeus? I don't know if you know much about Irenaeus, but think about this. Irenaeus is writing in the second century. He was discipled by a man named Polycarp, an early church bishop. And Polycarp was discipled by St. John the Apostle. So this is like early, early Christianity. He's like a spiritual grandson of John the Apostle. So he knew the great tradition of the faith. And he says, for the churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the east, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world. But as the sun is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shines everywhere and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth. So just as there's one sun shining its rays on different parts of the world, so there is one faith, one common faith. The creed is summarizing this, but one common faith, shining light, enlightening the souls of Christian believers in different parts of the world. So there was this understanding of this unity of faith, unity of belief. There's also unity of worship, unity of worship, the way we worship God, that we all know that we need baptism. We need baptism to receive the life of the Holy Spirit into our souls. You didn't have some Christians, you know, that were faithful Christians saying, oh, yeah, everyone needs baptism, you know, if you're in Egypt, but over here in Syria, we don't really believe in baptism. But if you're a Christian over there in Rome, well, it's optional. No, no, no. Everyone knew to be a faithful Christian, to be a part of the one church, we need baptism. That's the way God fills us with his Life. They also didn't have the celebration of the Eucharist as an option. It was like, no, no, no. Everybody believed, you know, yeah, we need to celebrate the Eucharist. And they celebrated on the Lord's Day, the day of the Lord, Sunday. And we see this in various texts all around the Mediterranean world in the early centuries of Christianity. So there's unity of belief summed up by the creed, unity of worship summed up in, say, the sacraments, especially the celebration of the Holy Eucharist and the idea of apostolic succession that you lived your unity with the successors of the apostles, the bishops, and those bishops united around the Bishop of Rome. And so, my friends, this idea of the unity of the Church, this goes all the way back. This is what you see in early Christianity. And you see one church united. And there were many dysfunctions within this church. I want to be really clear on that. Just as today we have many Catholics that will fight with each other. They don't live out the unity well, but the core beliefs, the core worship and united with your bishop and Bishop of Rome. Those were the three key markers of unity that we see throughout the early Church. There was a significant break, a very tragic one, that took place 1052 A.D. when the Greek Orthodox Church broke off from the Bishop of Rome. Now, that was very tragic, but I want to highlight. They still had common belief. They still held to the creeds. And so in terms of, like, what we believe and what the Orthodox Church believes is, you know, like 98%. We have core common beliefs in terms of doctrine. There's a few small, you know, things that are significant, but it's not the majority. The majority of beliefs are the same. It wasn't a break in the Creed, and it wasn't as much of a break in worship. They still believe in the sacraments and believe in the Mass and the Eucharist, but it was definitely a break from unity with Rome. That was the primary marker of the break. Was there. More tragic was what happened in the 1500s with Martin Luther saying that we can just go to the Bible and just go to the Bible to figure everything out. And we don't need a church, we don't need sacraments, we don't need these creeds. We just. It's sola scriptura. I can just go to the Bible. Now. Martin Luther did believe in some sacraments, but it was his interpretation of the Bible. He separates himself from the Church, but it was also a break in worship, a break in the Creed as well, a break in belief. And As a result of Luther applying that principle, if I can go to the Bible and I decide for myself what the Bible teaches in his own lifetime, there were people applying his principle and disagreeing with him on the interpretation of Scripture. And they said, well, I think you're wrong, Luther. So I'm going to start my own church. So Luther had his church and others start another church. And then someone else comes along and says, no, I think it should be like this. And then someone else comes along and says, I think it should be like this. So right away, in Luther's own lifetime, you already are seeing fragmentation, deeper division within his movement that he started in the Protestant Reformation and that continued in the next generation. And the next generation, the next generation until today, we have thousands of different denominations all believing different things about Jesus, about the call of discipleship, what it means to live as a Christian, the moral life, all those different debates, which is why they often break off and, okay, we should worship. We want to worship this way. We want to live community this way. And breaking away from essential things like core doctrine, breaking away from essential things like how we worship in the sacraments and the Mass, and breaking away from apostolic succession, unity with the bishops and the Bishop of Rome. And so what we want to do is pray for unity. And first and foremost, these are the practical points I'm going to leave you with. Let's know that the unity of the church isn't just an external thing. We just have to follow, you know, these external rules. I want to dress like a Catholic and look like a Catholic. That's not what it's about. It corresponds the deep longings on our heart going all the way back to Genesis. We were made for unity with God, in unity with each other. We long for unity. Isn't it beautiful when you find other people that you can really be vulnerable with and you can share life with? And what's uniting you isn't just, oh, we like each other's personality. There is a common vision of life. We like the same things. We have certain convictions that we hold. And that could be on a superficial level about your favorite taste of music, your favorite sports team. It could be on deeper things like, oh, your favorite novel or your favorite business guru book, or your favorite approach to therapy. It could be deeper things like that. But the deepest things have to do with, who is God? What are we made for? How do we encounter God today? What is God asking of us? How do we worship him? How do we live in community together as Christians? How do we imitate Jesus how do we take on the life of Christ? Those are super fundamental things. And do we have the same mind? Are we of the same mind? Are we really one body, one spirit, one hope following one Lord with one faith in one baptism? That's the kind of unity that God has for us. And it is what we ultimately long for. It is what brings about the greatest unity, not just in your favorite tastes and preferences, but what we're ultimately made for. We are made for union with God. So that's the first thing I'd say. And then let's pray for unity. Second thing I would say is for our own lives. Like, let's pray for greater unity, our own marriages, greater unity with our own children and our own families. How can I be a better instrument of peace? How can I be a better instrument of unity in my parish and in my office? You know, oftentimes I think we can have these high ideals. And more important than following our ideals are we keeping unity with people. And that's a great thing. And it doesn't mean we give up the ideals, but we'll never reach those ideals if we don't bring people along the way with us. And so how can I be a man, a woman, of greater peace, a greater unity in the relationships God has given me? Thirdly, we need to pray for greater peace within the Church, greater unity in the Church, because as we know, there's many Catholics that are often fighting with each other, disagreeing with each other, hurting each other. Let's pray for greater unity within our own Catholic Church. And then fourthly, let's pray for greater unity in the wider body of Christ, that we may be one again. Let's pray for our Protestant brothers and sisters. Let's pray for the Orthodox Church. Let's pray for ourselves that we can all come together in God's plan in one creed, one worship, united together with the bishops and the Bishop of Rome. Thanks for listening, my friends. If you want to learn more about the history of the Church and the unity of the Church, questions about why we need a church, check out the faith formation program called Foundations of a Journey through the Catechism. You can learn about that@ascensionpress.com.