The Church as the Assembly of the People of God
Mark S. Roberti, Director of Stewardship
Heartland Parishes of Ellis County
Everything below the second paragraph in this article was written/preached by St. Cyril of Jerusalem, bishop. I have taken it from a daily reading in the Liturgy of the Hours. Non-Catholic Christians generally contend that Scripture, alone, is the sole rule faith and that the Church is an invisible body of believers. As Catholics, we don’t remotely buy that argument. Scripture, itself, calls the Church -- not Scripture -- “the bulwark and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15). From this article you will note that the Church is an “assembly of those called out.” Were it invisible, who would be assembling, invisible believers?
The Word of God was meant to be preached orally. Tradition is emphasized in Scripture. Those places where Jesus criticizes tradition, He is criticizing human traditions, traditions which skirt the spirit of the Law. In fact, the Eastern Church calls Scripture, “written tradition.” In Catholicism, there is no question as which came first, the chicken or the egg. The Church came first. The Scriptures flowed from it. Read below from St. Cyril of Jerusalem, what the early Church believed. Then you will better understand that trusting in your Church, the Church Christ established, is good stewardship.
The Church is called Catholic or universal because it has spread throughout the entire world, from one end of the earth to the other. Again, it is called Catholic because it teaches fully and unfailingly all the doctrines which ought to be brought to men’s knowledge, whether concerned with visible or invisible things, with the realities of heaven or the things of earth. Another reason for the name Catholic is that the Church brings under religious obedience all classes of men, rulers and subjects, learned and unlettered. Finally, it deserves the title Catholic because it heals and cures unrestrictedly every type of sin that can be committed in soul or in body, and because it possesses within itself every kind of virtue that can be named, whether exercised in actions or in words or in some kind of spiritual charism.
It is most aptly called a church, which means an “assembly of those called out,” because it “calls out all men” and gathers them together, just as the Lord says in Leviticus: Assemble all the congregation at the door of the tent of meeting. It is worth noting also that the word “assemble” is used for the first time in the Scriptures at this moment when the Lord appoints Aaron high priest. So in Deuteronomy God says to Moses: Assemble the people before me and let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me. There is a further mention of the assembly in the passage about the tablets of the Law: And on them were written all the words which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire, on the day of the assembly; it is as though he had said, even more clearly, “on the day when you were called out by God and gathered together.” So too the psalmist says: I will give thanks to you in the great assembly, O Lord; in the mighty throng I will praise you.
Long ago the psalmist said: Bless God in the assembly; bless the Lord, you who are Israel’s sons. But now the Savior has built a second holy assembly, our Christian Church, from the Gentiles. It was of this that he spoke to Peter: On this rock I will build my Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.
Now that the single church which was in Judea has been rejected, the churches of Christ are already multiplying throughout the world, and of them it is said in the psalms: Sing a new song to the Lord, let his praise be sung in the assembly of the saints. Taking up the same theme the prophet says to the Jews: I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts: and immediately he adds: For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified among the nations. Of this holy Catholic Church Paul writes to Timothy: That you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God , which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.