The Catholic Church


The Catholic Church is a "standard among all nations," as the [First] Vatican Council puts it, following Isaiah. She is a rallying point for all, "inviting those who as yet have no faith, and assuring her own children that the faith which they profess has the fimest of foundations." She is the mountain visible from afar, the radiant city, the light set in a candlestick to illuminate the whole house. She is the imperishable building of cedar and cypress, which defies the passage of time in its awe-inspiring massiveness and gives to our ephemeral individualities their measure of confidence. She is the "continual miracle," always announcing to men the coming of their Savior and manifesting his liberating power in examples without number; the magnificent vaulting under which the saints, like so many stars, sing together of the glory of the Redeemer. Through the depth and cohesion of the doctrine she puts forward, her experience of men, and the fruits the Holy Spirit continually ripens in her, the Church exercises over people of spiritual integrity an attraction that is witnessed to throughout history by a vast number of conversions, which are, humanly speaking, startling in the extreme. As the depositary and guardian of Scripture, she is the diffusion point for its illuminating power, which alone can make our history intelligible. And thus she leads us to Christ by many ways, all of which converge. In her, God makes himself continually visible to the eyes of those "who see wisdom"; anyone who has given himself to her with his eyes open proves it for himself again and again:

Haec est cymba qua tuti vehimur,
Hoc ovile quo tecte condimur,
Haec columna qua firmi nitimur
Veritatis!

To a man who lives her mystery, she is always the city of precious stones, the Heavenly Jerusalem, the Bride of the Lamb, as she was to St. John; and seeing her thus, he feels that very joy which bursts through the light-split skies of the Apocalypse and glows in its visions of serenity. One begins to understand what makes him cry, like St. Augustine: "When I talk about her, I cannot stop."

-Henri De Lubac