Jesus Founded the Church
Peter and Paul
Today, June 29 the Church celebrates the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Peter was the first Pope, and Paul was the greatest missionary. But neither Peter nor Paul are the founders of the Catholic Church.
All other religions and churches were founded by mere men. The Catholic Church was founded by the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
Jesus founded the Catholic Church when he instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday evening. Jesus continues to govern, teach and make His people holy through the Catholic Church; and no matter what, Jesus will keep it in being until the end of time.
Most importantly, Jesus is the Head, and the Catholic Church is His Mystical Body. Some people think they can have a relationship with Jesus but not the Church.
Imagine saying to someone
· I want a friendship with you
· But if you’re going to RELATE to me through your body
· Well then I want nothing to do with you
The normal way to have a relationship with Christ, is through His Body the Church
Christ identifies Himself with His body
· What you do to the Church
o love it,
o leave it,
o persecute it
o you do to Christ
· Same as with us and our bodies
The Institution of the Eucharist
Jesus founded the Catholic Church when he instituted the Eucharist. The Church is in her inmost self a Eucharistic community, hence, a communion in the Body of the Lord.
CCC 776 The Church is the People of God who are nourished with the Body of Christ and become the Body of Christ. Each member enters the Catholic Church, the Body of Christ through Baptism, but the life of Jesus in our soul needs to be nourished constantly by the Eucharist.
CCC 1392 What material food produces in our bodily life, the Eucharist wonderfully achieves in our spiritual life. Communion with the flesh of the risen Christ, a flesh "given life and giving life through the Holy Spirit," preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace received at Baptism. This growth in Christian life needs the nourishment of Eucharistic Communion, the bread for our pilgrimage until the moment of death…
We need the Eucharist or we spiritually starve. In John 6 Jesus said “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you.”
For those of you listening who have not gone back – what are you waiting for? Do you not want to receive God?
For those who are unable to go to Church to receive the Eucharist but want Jesus, please call your parish, there is a good chance your priest or a parishioner can bring you the Eucharist.
The Twelve Apostles
Jesus chose twelve men to be with him and participate in his mission. He gives the twelve a share in His authority…for through them Jesus directs the church.
CCC 552 Peter holds the first place among Twelve; Jesus entrusted a unique mission to him…Our Lord declared to him: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the powers of hell can never hold out against it." Christ, the "living Stone", thus assures his Church, built on Peter, of victory over the powers of death…Peter will remain the unshakable rock of the Church. His mission will be to keep this faith from every lapse and to strengthen his brothers in it. The office and authority of Peter continues in the Pope until the end of time.
CCC 553
Jesus entrusted a specific authority to Peter: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." The "power of the keys" designates authority to govern the Church. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, confirmed this mandate after his Resurrection: "Feed my sheep." The power to "bind and loose" connotes the authority to absolve sins, to pronounce doctrinal judgments, and to make disciplinary decisions in the Church. Jesus entrusted this authority to the Church through the ministry of the apostles and in particular through the ministry of Peter, the only one to whom he specifically entrusted the keys of the kingdom.
St. Paul
From the moment of his conversion on the road to Damascus St. Paul never shrank back from taking risks to help others to Jesus through friendship.
2 Corinthians 11 “Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak?... For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”