The E-catechism: March 2000 |
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After Death Archives |
The Church | |
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After Death At certain time and even recently, a relatively dominant spirituality
among Catholics was to have contempt for present life because
the most important was to acquire merits for the next world,
"to earn one's place in heaven"! Today fortunately
giving evangelical meaning and value to their present life mostly
concern them. What is happening for the next world? And after
death? Questions at the heart of Christian hope. |
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The Church The word means "call together", "convened assembly"
The first Christians chose this Greek word to name their communities
because they were aware of being assembled together not only
through their will but also from the call of God. The Church
keeps these two aspects, a human society and an answer to a call
coming from somewhere else. Nonetheless, it is through the visible part of the Church that one can see its spiritual part. Surely the Church is not a human construction only, however mankind have the responsibility to make its visible aspect in agreement with its spiritual aspect. Too often the word "Church" evokes the permanent ministers of the institution, the hierarchy, the authority and not any more the faithful who assemble together. For historical reason the people of God have been divided into clerics and lay persons, the first having the power to teach, to govern and to sanctify through the sacraments, the others having only a passive and obedient role. Jesus has not founded the Church with the organization we
know. He announced the Kingdom. His death had symbolically tear
apart the veil of the Temple which was separating the sacred
from the secular, the pure from the impure, and the man from
the woman in the logic of the time; although unfortunately it
still exists today. Within not much more than four centuries
this veil was completely restored. |
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