The Church is the “Body of Christ”, the “Temple of the Holy Spirit”, the “Bride of Christ”, the “People of God”, the “Sacrament of Christ”, the “Community of Faith”, the “Communion of Saints”, a “Priestly People”, etc. These are not sociological, political, psychological, philosophical, historical or “scientific” descriptors. They are theological images and metaphors whose meaning is discovered in love—not in our love, but in God’s love, which is revealed in Jesus.

The Church does not exist for itself. It is, by definition, called and sent—down into the depths of the Mystery that loves us, and out on mission to the margins of our world. Mission is not just something the Church does, then. Mission is what she is sent to be and do, because that is what Christ does and is: “good news to the poor, liberty to captives, sight to the blind, a time of the Lord’s favour”.

The Church’s identity is God’s gift to us in Christ because we are first and foremost God’s gift to Christ: “They were yours; you gave them to me” (John 17:6). And through us, as Christ’s Body, unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity continue to be God’s gift to the world: “so that the world may know that you have sent me, and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:23). Our unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity is, then, the heart of our mission and thus of our identity: at once a call to be (one with God in Christ) and a sending out of ourselves into the whole world to live (in faith, with hope, and, above all, as love).

This call and this sending are the same act in Christ: we are called and sent through him, with him, and in him, united by his Spirit. Apart from a constant focus on Christ, being one, holy, catholic and apostolic would lose its vital meaning. Therefore, in Christ, as his Body, we profess that the Church is “one, holy, catholic and apostolic”.

In GNFL this understanding of the Church as one, holy, catholic and apostolic is developed with these theological emphases:

• It is Christ who is one: completely and authentically himself, “fully integrated”, single-minded, wholehearted, and utterly alive. And as such, he is the unifying power of God at work in us through our sharing in his Spirit as his Body.
• It is Christ who is holy: divine, other, transcendent, marginal, and liminal (these are all part of the meaning of the word “holy” in Scripture). And as such, he is the sanctifying power who gives us his Holy Spirit, the only real source and meaning of the Church’s holiness.
• It is Christ who is catholic: one-with-God and one-with-us, whole-and-inclusive, open to all, and made up of all-into-one. And as such, he is the all-embracing opening up of the Triune God drawing us into the divine communion of love.
• It is Christ who is apostolic: coming from God, sent by God, and forever moving ahead of us leading us into God; and as such, the simultaneous act of grounding us in a living tradition and sending us out into the whole world to live and proclaim the gospel.
• Being one, holy, catholic and apostolic is the Church’s “radical tradition”.
• As we are called to integrity (“one”), wholeness (“holy”), and communion (“catholic”), so have we been sent in living continuity (“apostolic”) with all those who have gone before us (“tradition”), beginning with Christ himself (which is why this tradition is “radical”, from the Latin radix meaning “root”).

URL link to Theological Conversation chapter (PDF).