The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

Vocation and Mission

October 29, 2008

Christ sending the Apostles

An issue that has been of constant concern to me even before I entered the Society of St. Pius X in 1990 has been the canonical standing of Traditionalists. I remember writing Ecclesia Dei about a priest in the modern church who threatened to withhold absolution in the future if I continued to attend the SSPX chapel in Liverpool, England, where I had been received into the church.

Now it has been said ad nauseam that Rome does not consider the SSPX to be schismatic. In regards to ordination, though, for liceity the call to accept orders must come from the Church. When a person says they “have a vocation” they are in effect stating (according to Catholic principles of theology) that they think they have a vocation. In entering religion it is the church which discerns that vocation. If she believes the candidate is worthy she calls them (in Holy Orders) to embrace that state. This is the proper meaning of a calling or “vocation” – the call of the church to the candidate. As a corollary of this “call” the ordination or acceptance by the church of the vows of a religious entrusts the candidate with a mission or sending into the world. In the modern idiom we would say the church empowers the candidate with the work of working in the Lord’s vineyard.

Without this call by the church and the consequent mission which the church entrusts, Trad clergy and religious are no better than paper dolls. St Cyril of Alexandria provides a beautiful meditation on the true natrure of "Vocation" and "Mission" (or "sending") as follows:

Our Lord Jesus Christ has appointed certain men to be guides and teachers of the world and stewards of his divine mysteries. [Note: Our Lord appoints - not some Trad cleric who installs himself or has himself installed] Now he bids them to shine out like lamps and to cast out their light not only over the land of the Jews but over every country under the sun and over people scattered in all directions and settled in distant lands. That man has spoken truly who said: No one takes honor upon himself, except the one who is called by God, for it was our Lord Jesus Christ who called his own disciples before all others to a most glorious apostolate. [Note: Our Lord calls] These holy men became the pillar and mainstay of the truth, and Jesus said that he was sending them just as the Father had sent him. [Note: Jesus sends]

By these words he is making clear the dignity of the apostolate and the incomparable glory of the power given to them, but he is also, it would seem, giving them a hint about the methods they are to adopt in their apostolic mission. For if Christ thought it necessary to send out his intimate disciples in this fashion, just as the Father had sent him, then surely it was necessary that they whose mission was to be patterned on that of Jesus should see exactly why the Father had sent the Son. [Note: Thus in Christ who is called and sent by His Father, we see the pattern for the calling and sending of other Apostles by the Church] And so Christ interpreted the character of his mission to us in a variety of ways. Once he said: I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance. And then at another time he said: I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. For God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

Accordingly, in affirming that they are sent by him just as he was sent by the Father, Christ sums up in a few words the approach they themselves should take to their ministry. [Note: Their "ministry" is given and not usurped] From what he said they would gather that it was their vocation to call sinners to repentance, to heal those who were sick whether in body or spirit, to seek in all their dealings never to do their own will but the will of him who sent them, and as far as possible to save the world by their teaching.

A commentary on the gospel of John by St Cyril of Alexandria

Now the vocation and mission (calling and sending) is done in the context and in connection with the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church alone can demonstrate the truth that she has received an unbroken succession of orders back to the original Apostles, a succession it should be stated, that has been received and exercised in union with the Successor of St. Peter who is the rock upon which Christ founded His Church.

Every Trad cleric who is not in union with Pope Benedict XVI cannot truly make the claim that he has a vocation or calling from the Church of Christ and still less a mission or sending to do the work of the Church in the world. Unity with the Holy Father is a sine qua non ! All others have arrogated their "authority" no matter what the line they try to sell you about why they do what they do. The continuing crisis within the Church does not sufficiently justify a perpetual state of practical schism from Rome.

+TF