The Church is the koinonia of faithful people. At least, it is what the Church as the Ekklesia, is meant to be. Bing the koinonia of the faithful to God, the Church is in full communion with God and those who are also Saints, functioning as the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-31). This Christian koinonia is the Ekklesia because these faithful in koinonia have been called (kaleo) by and to serve God out of (ek) this world. Faith (pistis) is what characterizes this ecclesiastic koinonia, the Church. This is based on the origin and growth of the Church as Luke described in the Acts of the Apostles.
Acts 2 describes that the
Church was born out of the koinonia
pistos (faithful communion) of the original disciples of Jesus, whom he
summoned to commission, before his Ascension (Matthew 28:18-20; Luke 24:50-53;
Acts 1:1-9). Upon being commissioned by Jesus, the disciples (mathetai) witnessed his ascension and
waited in Jerusalem to receive the Holy Spirit as another Parakletos. Then, on Pentecost, they received the Holy Spirit. It
was when the Church, the Ekklesia,
was born – born out of the disciples and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Now, how about the Church
today? Is she really faith-driven and Holy-Spirit-filled apostolic koinonia?
When I think of this
question, I see the Church today is quite different from the original Church,
called by Jesus out of the world to serve God, filled and driven by the Holy
Spirit. The Church today is rather a highly bureaucratic institution. Politics
and “administrative” issues dominate the Church today, while the original charism of the disciples seems lost, as
it is difficult to find among those who make up the institution. Perhaps, this
“bureaucratization” and possible loss of the charism are attributed to the Roman-imperialization of the Church
by Emperor Constantine, c.a. 312-313 A.D.. Ever since that time, the Word of
God has not been growing on the Church as it should. To put this
ecclesiological condition in the context of Jesus’ parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1-23//Mark 4:1-20// Luke 8:1-15), the Church is not like
the fertile soil. Perhaps, she is more like the thorny ground as secular
concerns, such as political and administrative issues, plague the heart of the
Church, choking the growth of the Word. The Church under such a condition also
does not allow the Holy Spirit to function as the water and light to facilitate
the growth of the seed, which is compared to the Word.
This phenomenon is also
observed on a parish level. If you observe how those who sit in the pews at
Mass are taking the readings during the Liturgy of the World. You can ask those
who come out of Mass randomly, what the scripture readings are about and what
the homily was about. Chances are, more than what you think reveal that they
really do not know. The heart of them are comparable to the rocky shallow soil
and thorny ground in the Jesus’ parable of the sower. The heart of those who no longer attend Mass,
because they do not want to, is like the path in the parable of the sower. Given
this reality, finding actively practicing Catholics, whose heart is comparable
to the fertile soil in the parable of the sower may be just as difficult as
finding the original charism of the
disciples in the Church today.
The parable of the sower is
meant to examine the spiritual health of the Church – globally and locally. Is
the heart of our koinonia – the heart
of our Ekklesia healthy enough to be
comparable to the fertile soil in the parable? Or, is it suffering from the
spiritual attention deficit, thus, making it like the rocky and shallow soil,
where the seed may sprout fast but it will wither soon? Or, is it plagued with
many worldly concerns to choke the growth of the Word in us, like the thorny
soil will choke the seed?
The ultimate remedy to this
problem is the power of the Holy Spirit.
For the healthy heart,
comparable to the fertile soil, the Holy Spirit is like the rain and sunshine
to promote the growth of the seed. For the preoccupied heart, comparable to the
thorny ground, the Holy Spirit, which is like the cleansing fire (Isaiah 4:4),
can burn off things that plague the heart, as thorns on the ground will be
cleared out by combustion. For shallow attention-deficit heart, the Holy Spirit
will patiently work on removing all the obstacles of your attention, as the
Holy Spirit is powerful enough to have raised Jesus from the dead (Romans
8:11), rolling the heavy stone out of his tomb.
Now, for those whose heart is
psychospiritually hardened enough to reject the Word – namely, those who no
longer consider themselves in the Church, just as rain water softened hard
path, the Holy Spirit will softens the hardened heart (Ezekiel 36:26-28).
Both our koinonia and Ekklesia
always need the Holy Spirit so that the Word of God grows to bear abundant
fruits through our heat, which is also the heart of the Church. As the
condition of the heart of the Church improves, the Word of God, like the seed
sown to the fertile soil, will grow on us to its abundant fruition, aided by
the Holy Spirit. At the same time, the fruits of the Holy Spirit will be born
out of the Church, as she becomes like the fertile soil.
To redeem the fertility of
the Church – for the Word of God to grow on the Church, we must return to the
Church at her birth and her nascence, described in the Acts of the Apostles. It
was when the Church was totally filled with the Holy Spirit, making the heart
of the ecclesiastic koinonia
receptive to the Word. Because of that, the Church herself grew and grew, even
facing severe persecution.
As Ekklesia, the Church is called (kaleo)
to sow the Word in the world (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8). For this reason, the faithful who make up
this ecclesiastic koinonia are
apostolic, which means “to be sent” on mission. As the Word that Christ has sown grows to its
abundant fruition, we carry them on our mission so that we, too, can serve God
as His sowers. For us, as the Church, to
function this way, we must make sure that our heart is psychospiritually
healthy, and the Holy Spirit empowers us to stay healthy enough for the Word to
grow on us, as the seed grows on the fertile soil.
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