Angelus News | September 6, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 18

LETTER AND SPIRIT
SCOTT HAHN
Scott Hahn is founder of the
St. Paul Center for Biblical
Theology; stpaulcenter.com.
All together now
comes from the Greek word meaning
universal. St. Ignatius of Antioch gives us our
“Catholic”
earliest surviving witness to the common use of
the term. He wrote to the Christians
of Smyrna: “wherever Jesus
Christ is, there is the Catholic
Church.”
Ignatius wrote those words in
A.D. 107, not terribly long after
the first Christian Pentecost. If
you read the passage in context,
you’ll see that Ignatius simply
drops the phrase without fanfare
or explanation. It is quite likely
it was already well established by
that time.
The Church celebrated its
unity and universality from the
day of its birth. In the Acts of the
Apostles we find that all manner
of people were in Jerusalem
when the Church received the
Spirit: “Parthians and Medes
and Elamites and residents
of Mesopotamia, Judea and
Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt
and the parts of Libya belonging
to Cyrene, and visitors from
Rome, both Jews and proselytes,
Cretans and Arabians” (Acts
2:9–11).
The Church was universal from
that beginning, and the apostles
spent their lives and shed their
blood in order to preserve that
original unity and catholicity.
Why? Because it was a distinguishing mark of Christianity.
A little more than half a century after Ignatius, a North African
named Tertullian said that his neighbors in Carthage
marveled at the indiscriminate kindness of Christians. They
remarked that Christians wore charity like a brand or tattoo
on their bodies.
The world had never seen anything like this before. Every
other cultural current was tribal. Every other movement,
“Christ and Mary Enthroned in Heaven with Saints,” miniature from
Book of Hours of Simon de Varie, anonymous, Master of Jean Rolin II. |
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
even among the Jews, was intended to divide — my people
from your people. And the only way to unify was to conquer
by brute force, as Rome did, as Persia did, as Macedon had
done.
Where everyone else divided,
Christians unified by means
of charity, understanding, and
a hermeneutic of generosity.
Don’t get me wrong: They made
important distinctions; and they
certainly called out evil when
they saw it; and they were willing
to die for their witness. But they
managed, by grace, to transcend
the political bitterness and corruption
of their times.
And they managed to convert
their neighbors to a better way.
At this time, in my country,
we are living through a time of
bitter division. I hope we have
seen the worst of it, but I fear we
haven’t, and I find my prayers
sounding more urgent as we
enter the final month before our
general election.
The weeks ahead call us to take
great care in our witness. People
will judge Christianity by what
they see of Christians. When
we speak and act with charity,
we’ll witness to Christ. When we
don’t, we won’t.
Some people are calling this
election a referendum on the
future of the country. I’m begging
them to look at the coming
weeks and days as a referendum on our personal sanctity,
yours and mine. When we’re more holy, we unify — and we
make the world more Catholic.
Consider, too, that our universality, our unity, includes the
heavenly Church, the “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews
12:1). They are our older siblings already inhabiting our
heavenly home. They are souls at rest, at peace, and their
peace is contagious. Stay close to them.
32 • ANGELUS • September 6, 2024