Mission, Identity and History of The Church

Mission and Identity of the
Church
Jesster Fonseca, M.A.
Assistant Professor 6
Introduction
• The concern of Jesus was the Kingdom, God's dream for creation. To bring
this Kingdom to bear on this world and to transform it into God's final
design, Jesus chose compassion and justice as his life principle.
• The mission of the Church must be seen and understood from this
perspective: totally in the service of God's Kingdom designed for the
transformation of the whole of creation.
• Since Vatican II she sees herself more as leaven of the Kingdom or in the
service of the Kingdom that is broader than herself.
The Threefold Mission
• First: to proclaim in Word and Sacrament that the Kingdom of God has
come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Sacrament means that the Church
symbolically opens up the everyday world to the ultimate, the Kingdom of
God. But, in doing so, the Church is also forced to accept her provisional
character.
• Second: to create Church communities (local churches) everywhere and,
in so doing, present the Church community as a place where the Kingdom
of God makes itself visible.
• The disciples should make present once again that compassion of God
which Jesus showed in such feasts to be the heart of his own God-
experience.
• In choosing compassion and justice as its principle of action the
community presents itself as "contrast society" witnessing to the
Kingdom as God's ultimate plan of how human society should be
restructured.
• In building the "local" Church the Kingdom is brought straight into the
midst of the people and finds expression in their own culture and
circumstances.
• Third: to engage in dialogue with the world and with the other religious
traditions. That means, first, to challenge society as a whole, to transform itself
along the basic principles o f the Kingdom now present: Justice, peace,
brotherhood/sisterhood and human rights.
• Secondly, to engage in dialogue with other religious traditions in which God's
Kingdom makes itself present as well. These are "constitutive elements of
proclaiming the Gospel," since the ultimate goal of the Kingdom is the
transformation of the whole of creation, and the Church must understand her
mission in the service of the imminent Kingdom.
• In these documents Redemptoris Missio (RM), Dialogue and
Proclamation (DP), and Dominus Jesus (DJ) interreligious dialogue is
seen in terms of appreciation of the implicit Christian elements discernible
within other religious tradition. In this view, the basis required for
dialogue lies in these commonly shared though implicit elements, and the
object of dialogue is to bring these elements to light. The Kingdom as
God's saving will for all human beings is present anywhere.
• Concerning the community building aspect of the Church's mission, since the
coming Kingdom of God in the present world always remains a preliminary"
or anticipation of the Kingdom, an ideal community will never emerge.
Human societies and the Church herself need structures, which will always
reveal this preliminary aspect as well as the "sinfulness" of all human
endeavors. Only when the fullness of the Kingdom comes, will all structures
of the community be done away with, because the Kingdom in glory is a
community or society that no longer needs structures, because perfect love has
become the guiding rule.
Two ways of Mission
• First, we are called to make God's Kingdom present by proclaiming its presence
in word and sacrament. This happens through the creation of Christian
communities in which God's Kingdom shines forth like a foretaste of what is to
come in fullness in God's own time.
• Secondly, we are called and sent into the world to serve and to promote the
ongoing action of Jesus and the Spirit. From this the second dimension of our
mission follows: to be at the service of, and to promote collaboratively, God's
own continuing action in the world and among people outside the Church
community.
How Christians relate to the concerns of the
world?
• Separatist: they decry the pride and materialism of the fleshpots of the world.
They preach a repentance that implies withdrawal from secular concerns.
• Reformist-integrationist: identified with traditional churches and denotes
those Christian communities that have undertaken social works of charity and
mercy largely within existing political-economic structures. They have been
prophetic in the sense of being reformist and calling for improvement in
social institutions, but they have been primarily "integrationist" in that they
tend either to accept those institutions or to draw sharp distinctions between
How Christians relate to the concerns of the
world?
• "legitimate" claims of the earthly and heavenly fatherlands.
• Political Christians: this posture envisions a radical incompatibility
between the kingdom and the world. Yet, its strategy is not to withdraw,
but radically to transform the world in order to reflect the coming of
God’s kingdom today.
• Sociologists ask: ”What are the guiding values and ideas that serve as a
basis of Christian union and how these contrast with other groups? What
are the behavior both of institutions and of individuals? What are its
functions?
History of the Church regarding social
teachings
• Gospels on wealth and poverty
• Church Fathers’ commentary on social themes on their course of teaching
• Right to exist (Constantine)
• Unity of civilization and triregnum of Popes (the triple power of the Pope):
father of kings, governor of the world, and Vicar of Christ.
• Monastic life (rule of St. Benedict)
• Refer to pp. 8-9

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