Breaking Open the Word

By James Cavanagh

May 3: Fourth Sunday of Easter

Scripture readings:
• Acts 4:8-12
• Psalm 118:1, 8-9, 21-29
• 1 John 3:1-2
• John 10:11-18

Overview:  Christ is the “cornerstone” of the Church who binds all things together in perfect harmony and love. He is also the “good shepherd” who laid down his life for the “sheep” so that they, divided and enslaved by sin, might become “one flock” united under one shepherd (Gospel reading). This week’s readings focus on the idea that Christ and his Church are inseparable; he is the cornerstone upon which the whole edifice of the Church is built and depends.  In the first reading—echoed in the Psalm—Peter declares that Christ is the “stone” rejected by the “builders” (aristocracy and religious hierarchy). This stone, Peter asserts, has become the cornerstone of a new society—the Church. The second reading stresses the identity of the Church as one family bound together as “God’s children.” Some people want to divide Christ and his Church, as if they were somehow opposed to each another: “Christ, yes!” they say, “The Church, no!” But this is a false dichotomy. As St. Joan of Arc said to her accusers: “About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing, and we shouldn’t complicate the matter” (“Catechism,” 795).

Key verse: “There will be one flock, one shepherd“ (Jn 10:16).

“Catechism of the Catholic Church”: “The word ‘Church’ (Latin ecclesia, from the Greek ek-kalein, to ‘call out of’) means a convocation or an assembly. It designates the assemblies of the people, usually for a religious purpose. Often, too, the Church is called the building of God. The Lord compared himself to the stone which the builders rejected, but which was made into the cornerstone. On this foundation the Church is built by the apostles and from it the Church receives solidity and unity” (Nos. 751, 756).

Pope Benedict XVI: “The Church is commuio; she is God’s community with men in Christ and hence the communion of men with one another—and, in consequence, sacrament, sign, instrument of salvation.  The Church is the celebration of the Eucharist; the Eucharist is the Church; they do not simply stand side by side; they are one and the same” (“Principles of Catholic Theology”).

Application: During the Easter season, the readings focus on how the risen Lord continued to act in and through his Church. It is in and through the Church that the name of Jesus Christ, the name by which we are saved, is given to the human race. There is only “one name” by which we are saved because only Christ has been raised from the dead. Because there is “one name” and one Christ, it follows necessarily that there is one body—Christ and his Church, which together make up the “whole Christ” (“Catechism,” 795). This Sunday especially, pray for the unity of the Church.