OK, so if you've listened to the second episode on St. Gregory of Narek, you might have noticed that the other big question that comes up is the question of the Universal Church. What is the universal Church?
And so the conversation I had with my producer centered around the fact that, on the one hand, the Catholic Church is still considered the True Church (Vatican II did not change that) but, on the other hand, Catholics are not the only Christians in the world (Vatican II did recognize this). So the reality is that even though the Catholic Church is the True Church, it is not the Universal Church, because there are Christians (there is "church" ) outside of the Catholic Church.. We saw this phenomenon temporarily with Novatian's schism - for the first time there were people who were Christian, but not Catholic (that is, it was a heresy, or heterodoxy, that did not go so far as to place one outside the boundaries of the Church as the Body of Christ). With the schism after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, it became permanent (at least so far).
So what do y'all think? How do we talk about the fact that the Universal Church is "bigger" than the Catholic Church, without falling into the problematic Protestant doctrine of a "visible" vs. an "invisible" Church? Or can we?
Dear friends - Please take 10 minutes to watch this personal update from me:
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
This is Michael Knowles' commentary on the murder of Charlie Kirk, and directly on the press conference about the arrest - In the middle is a great speech by the governor of Utah - overall excellent stuff if you have 1.5 hr to spend on it
with some Florida colleagues - all of them Protestant, but with varying traditions on the Eucharist - it was encouraging to hear how there are some Protestant denominations that have a real respect for the Sacrament (and I'm not talking about Anglicans or even Lutherans):
