Читать книгу Being Catholic Today - Laurence McTaggart - Страница 14

If this is what faith is about, then it shows us how important the Creed is, and what the teaching of the Church’s magisterium is for. Doctrines are vital because they attempt to encapsulate and apply the content of the Gospel. They derive their significance from the personal contact with Christ which is that content; the wonder or amazement of which John Paul II has spoken. This can be demonstrated from the simple experience of the Church’s history and life. For example, as we will see below, the only way to express adequately in human language the intensity with which Jesus gives himself to us in the Eucharist is to talk of eating his Body and drinking his Blood; and to mean that, literally. Less controversially, when discussing the nature of Christ, the early theologians insisted that Christ was fully human, because ‘what was not assumed by God in Christ was not saved’, and the Christian hope is of salvation of the whole human person.

The Pope and the bishops have the task of interpreting human need and divine response in each age and all circumstances. This is a sufficiently daunting commission to encourage one to have sympathy with them. Even more so, when one realizes that they do so, and can do so, only in union with the whole Body of Christ; including you and me.

This tells us, further, how to interpret the Church’s teaching. Any given doctrine is not the result of speculation, but is forced on us to express our faith. So, in turn, we say that we believe the doctrine, that is, say it is true, because the doctrine says what we mean by putting our faith in God, revealed in Christ. Conversely, pick a doctrine, and we can try to work out what it really means in the light of the Gospel it expresses. Take murder. The Church agrees with many others that in most instances it is wrong to kill. Why? Because each human life has an equal value in God’s sight. Conversely, I am loved by God in and for myself, regardless of how tall I am or what I do. Hence, you are too. So it would not be consistent with the good news of my own life to take yours.

If only life were that simple all the time. We are nearly ready to tackle some real problems. But first, we need a few doctrines to provide ammunition, protection and shorthand. In the next few chapters, we shall look more closely at the figure approaching across the storm-tossed waters. Who is he, and what does he have to do with us?