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A constant topic of my reflections on the People of God concerns its mission to the entire global family. It was Pope John XXIII that gave me the key some 60 years ago in his encyclical Mater et Magistra (Christianity and social progress), beginning with the words Mother and Teacher of all nations—an echo of the vision of the Church in the mind of her founder, Jesus Christ. A Church to hold the world in an embrace of love.
Pope John XXIII was honouring and updating the social teaching put forward in Pope Leo XIII’s watershed encyclical of 1891, Rerum Novarum (Of New Things). It marked a significant step forward in the prophetic social justice teaching of the Church at a time when the human rights of workers were being brutally trampled underfoot. Pope Francis may well mark the 130th anniversary this year.
Pope John stretched the horizons of Church outreach to embrace the whole global family with statements like, “Mindful of Our position as the father of all peoples, we feel constrained to repeat… we are all equally responsible for the undernourished peoples” (Par.158).
He further demonstrated his desire for the potentially world-changing teaching to be put into practice by endorsing the method of operation of the Young Christian Workers (YCW) of See, Judge, Act (Par.236; 224) and was already spelling out vital themes for Vatican II that would take place in the following year.
His inspiration bore fruit, especially in the documents of the Council like Lumen Gentium (Light of the Nations). It declares that the Church is the holy People of God of the new covenant, sealed by its founder, Jesus Christ, in his own blood.
It proposes the Church as “finally established as ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people…’ who in times past were not a people, but are now the people of God” (9), that all share in the mission of Jesus as priest, prophet and king.
Consequently, “it shares also in Christ’s prophetic office, it spreads abroad a living witness to Him” (12). “All men [people] are called to belong to the people of God” (13).
Dei Verbum (Divine Revelation) states that Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church. Holding fast to this deposit, the entire holy people, united with their shepherds, remain always steadfast in the teaching of the apostles, in the common life, in the breaking of the bread and in prayers (Acts 2:42), so that… it becomes, on the part of the bishops and faithful, a single common effort (10).
Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World) notes, “Hence this Second Vatican Council, having probed more profoundly into the mystery of the Church, now addresses itself without hesitation, not only to the sons [children] of the Church and to all who invoke the name of Christ, but to the whole of humanity… Therefore, the council focusses its attention on the world of men [people], the whole human family” (2).
These three documents highlight the share that People of God hold in the Lord’s mission of leading the global family back to its Creator and Father. In short, it is the entire holy People of God that is Mother and Teacher (Magistra) of the Father’s already single human family. However, how to what extent the Holy People share in the Magisterium (teaching authority) of the Church is left open for further development.
Columban Fr Chris Baker resides in Essendon.
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