SFX RCIA Church History 1

Why should we study Church History?• We understand, appreciate and remember who we

are as a family of faith. It’s a kind of family history. • We encounter people, events, places which are an

intrinsic part of the Catholic faith and will strengthen our own journey of faith.

• We are inheritors of a great legacy of almost 2,000 years.

• Church history is a part of God’s plan for our salvation.

• We avoid an “identity crisis” as we encounter attacks against the Church in history.

• The Church itself is a mystery that is both visible and invisible, physical and spiritual. It has a divine as well as a human element.

What the Popes say…

• “Christ is the foundation and center of history; He is its meaning and ultimate goal.” Pope St. John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, 5.

• “Historical analysis is never an end in itself it is not made solely with a view to knowing the past, rather it focuses decisively on conversion and an authentic witness of Christian life on the part of the faithful.” Pope Benedict XVI Wednesday General Audience, June 13 2007.

Christ founded the ChurchJohn 21 Again Jesus said to them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, so also I am sending you.” 22When He had said this, He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”…

Acts 1: 7 – 8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you ; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

CCC 770The Church is in history, but at the same time she transcends it; is only with the eyes of faith that one can see her in her visible reality and at the same time in her spiritual reality as bearer of divine life.

From the Second Vatican Council“This is the unique Church of Christ that in the Creed we avow as One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. After His Resurrection our Saviour handed the Church over to Peter to be shepherded, commissioning him and the other Apostles to propagate and govern it. And it was this Church the He erected for all ages as “the pillar and foundation of truth.” (1 Timothy 3:15) Constitution of the Church, 8

It is of the essence of the Church to be both human and Divine, visible yet endowed with invisible resources, eager to act and yet devoted to contemplation, present in this world and yet not at home in it. The Church is all these things in such a way that in it the human is directed and subordinated to the Divine, the visible likewise to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to that city yet to come which we seek. Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, No.2

THE APOSTOLIC AGE

Pope Benedict XVI

• “They were not to proclaim an idea but to witness to a person. Before being sent to preach, they had to be with Jesus, establishing a personal relationship with Him.”

Wednesday General Audience on Witnesses of Christ, March 22 2006.

FIRST CENTURY A.D.

SharingWhat struck me when I read the Acts of the Apostles? What was the strongest impression I was left with? What do I think about all that happened after Christ ascended to His Father?

The Acts of the Apostles

• Author: Luke (written around AD63.)

• In the face of opposition neither plots, persecution nor prison could thwart the spread of the Gospel through the power of the Holy Spirit.

• The primacy of Peter • The apostleship of

Paul

The pillars of the early Church which are our models of discipleship

• Koinonia: Community in Christ (Acts 2: 42 – 47)

• Leitourgia: Liturgy, Worship, the breaking of bread.

• Kerygma: Proclaiming, Preaching, Sharing the Good News (words)

• Martyria: Witnessing, Testimony (deeds)

• Diakonia: Service “Love one another as I have loved you.”

THE ROMAN EMPIRE AT THE TIME OF THE EARLY CHURCH

The Persecution of the Early Church• “The world suffers nothing from Christians but

hates them because they reject its pleasures.” St. Justin Martyr. (100 – 165 AD)

• “If the Tiber rises too high or the Nile too low the cry is “The Christians to the lions”. Tertullian (155 – 240 AD)

• “Refined as it is, your cruelty serves no purpose. On the contrary, for our community, it is an invitation. We multiply every time one of us is mowed down. The blood of Christians is the seed of the Church.” Tertullian.

The first three hundred years

Constantine

Some terms…

• Heresy is an emotionally loaded term that is often misused. It is not the same thing as incredulity, schism, apostasy, or other sins against faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him" (CCC 2089).

The Church Fathers• Immediately

succeeded the Apostles:Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Polycarp of Smyrna, Irenaeus of Lyon.

• Other great Christian figures: Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian of Carthage, John Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine.

The Church in the Medieval World (800 – 1517)

• The Church and feudalism • The East–West Schism, between the Eastern Church and the

Western Church in 1054 until today. • New religious orders mendicant and contemplative. • Scholasticism – St. Thomas Aquinas • The Crusades 1096 – 1270 • The Inquisition (The Medieval Inquisition, the Roman

Inquisition and the Spanish Inquisition) • The Avignon Papacy 1309 – 1377 • The Black Death 1347 - 1353 • The Western Schism, a split within the Roman Catholic

Church that lasted from 1378 to 1417 • The Renaissance 15th to 17th Century.

Prayer for the Church

We pray You, O almighty and eternal God! Who through Jesus Christ hast revealed Your glory to all nations, to preserve the works of Your mercy, that Your Church, being spread through the whole world, may continue with unchanging faith in the confession of your name.

Amen.