Vigils Reading

THE CHURCH OF THE CRUCIFIED

By Fr Hugo Rahner

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Precisely in weakness the Church of the crucified is the very essence of

God’s force of grace, the sacramentally humble symbol of the irresistibly

victorious love of the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The weak Church is the

joy of our faith. Not only despite her weakness, but rather because she is weak.

This is no theological dialectic that would release us from the responsibility of

constantly attempting anew to perfect the power of the Church’s witness, her

holiness, even her glory that can be dramatized here on earth.

However, our faith in the Church remains pure, resilient, filled with

unshatterable joy in the victory of Our Lord, only if we perceive that the power

and dominion of God, which is totally different in nature from anything else in

our experience, chooses to show itself most often in earthly impotence and

despicability – as long as we in the midst of the Church celebrate the death of

Our Lord, until Christ returns as the Messiah of glory. Christ, once and for all,

died beyond the barricades of human comprehensibility, and therefore the

Church must bear his disgrace.

Alas, this is so difficult for us here below to comprehend. Our eyes are

veiled, and our hearts are still as dull as those of the journeying disciples of

Emmaus. They recognized the Lord only after the breaking of bread. Then,

however, their hearts burned. It is the same with us. May faith assist the failure

of the senses. This also holds true for the mystery of the Church. It is the same

for her as it was for Our Lord: In sacrifice has he conquered, in the breaking of

bread he inflamed joy, in the fact that he was killed has he driven out the prince

of this world. Therefore we recognize him and his Church only in the breaking of

bread, in the breaking of our believing hearts.

And from his broken Church we discover with the quiet delight of tested,

suffered, disappointed and wise faith: Here is the Lord. Here is his Church, the

holy, the catholic. Then our hearts also burn. Then we know: She is still on the

desert path, but this leads into the promised land. She is still on the way of the

cross to death’s place of skulls, but only so will the Pasch come, and this means

the transition to the eternal…

Look about in this world – everywhere there is desert, aimless wandering,

thirst that cannot be quenched, strangers who no longer know home. But in this

desert you see a thornbush burst into flames, and you hear the divine words: “The

place where you stand is holy ground”. This is a type, a model of the holy Church.

She is a wretched, prickly shrub in the desert, but even now she bursts into flames

with heavenly fire. Here we stand: we believe in this Church of weak brambles and

tremendous fire. She is our trial of faith and our love’s joy.