Dom Gueranger: Third Week after Easter

The Church, which our Risen Jesus is organizing during these days, and which is to be spread throughout the whole world, is a true and complete society. It must, consequently, have within it a power to govern, and be able, by the obedience of its subjects, to maintain order and peace. As we have already seen, our Savior supplied this want by establishing a Shepherd of both sheep and lambs, a Vicar of his own divine authority: yet Peter, after all, is but a man; and however sublime his authority, he cannot exercise it directly and personally over each member of the flock. The new society has need therefore of magistrates of a lower rank, who, as Bossuet so well expresses it, “are to be sheep with regard to Peter, and Shepherds with regard to the people.”

Jesus has provided for everything; he has chosen twelve men, whom he calls his Apostles, and to them he is about to entrust the magistracy of his Church. By his having made Peter the head and, as it were, his second self, he does not intend the rest of the Twelve to have no share in the great work he has come from heaven to achieve. Far from this, he destines them to be the pillars of the building, of which he has already made Peter the foundation. They are Twelve in number, as heretofore, were the children of Jacob; for the ancient people was, in everything, a figure of the new. Before ascending into heaven, Jesus gives them power to teach in every part of the world, and appoints them Pastors of the Faithful in every place wheresoever they may happen to be. They are all on an equality, save with regard to Peter; and the very fact of these wonderful depositaries of Christ’s power being subject to Peter, is one of the clearest indications of the extraordinary authority committed to him by our Lord.

This unlimited delegation of pastoral power given to all the Twelve, was intended as a means of the solemn promulgation of the Gospel; but it was to cease at their deaths, save in the case of Peter, for his successor was alone to enjoy the apostolic power in its fullest extent. With this one exception, no lawful Pastor has ever been allowed to exercise an unlimited territorial authority. And yet, by creating the College of the Apostles, our Redeemer founded that sacred and venerable dignity which we call the Episcopacy. Although Bishops have not inherited either the universal jurisdiction, or the personal infallibility in teaching, of the Apostles, yet do they really hold, in the Church, the place of the Apostles. Jesus puts into their hands, through the ministry of Peter’s successor, the keys of spiritual power; and these they use, that is, they therewith open and shut, throughout the whole extent of the territory placed under their jurisdiction.


Under the Bishops, we find other subordinate magistrates in the Church; the reason of their being appointed is self-evident. Placed over a territory of greater or less extent, the Bishop stands in need of cooperators, who may represent his authority, and exercise it in his name and under his orders, wheresoever he himself cannot personally do so. These are Priests, who have the care of souls. They correspond to the seventy-two Disciples chosen by our Savior, and from whose number he selected the Twelve Apostles. Thus is completed the government of the Church. By means of this Hierarchy, everything works in the most admirable harmony:—authority is derived from one supreme Head; thence it flows to the Bishops; and these delegate it to the lower ranks of the Clergy.

We are now at the very season of the year when the spiritual jurisdiction, which Jesus had promised to communicate to men, emanates from his own divine power. He thus solemnly confers it: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth: going, therefore, teach ye all nation! He communicates a portion of his own power to the Pastors of his Church: it is an emanation of his own authority in heaven and on earth: and that we may have no doubts as to the source whence it flows, he says to them during these his last days on earth: As the Father hath sent me, I also send you.

So that the Father has sent the Son, and the Son sends the Pastors of the Church: nor will this mission ever be interrupted, so long as the world lasts. Peter will ever institute the Bishops; the Bishops will ever delegate a portion of their own authority to the Priests who have the charge of souls. No human power shall ever be able to intercept this transmission, or have power to set up as Pastors them that have not partaken of it. Cæsar (we mean, mere temporal sovereignty) shall govern the State; but he shall not have power to create a single Pastor, for Cæsar has no share in the sacred Hierarchy, out of which the Church recognizes but subjects. He may command, as King or Emperor, in temporal matters; but he must obey, and as submissively as the last and poorest of the Faithful, the Pastor who has to govern him in what regards his soul. There will be times when Cæsar will be jealous of this superhuman power; he will strive to intercept it: but it will elude his grasp, for it is a purely spiritual power. At other times, he will despise and persecute them that are invested with this power; nay, he will occasionally attempt to exercise it himself: but his efforts will be as vain as they will be wicked, for this power, which emanates from Christ, cannot be confiscated nor interrupted; it is the salvation of the world, and, on the last day, the Church will have to restore it intact to Him who deigned to entrust it to her before ascending to his Father.

Chorus novæ Hierusalem
Novam mellis dulcedinem
Promat, colens cum sobriis
Dracone surgens obruto,
Dum voce viva personat,
Prædam refudit tartarus:
Captivitate libera
Et dignus amplitudine,
Soli polique patriam
Ipsum canendo supplices,
Regem precemur milites,
Ut in suo clarissimo
Patri supremo gloria,
Honorque sit cum Filio

This Church—founded and maintained by Christ—is it nothing more than a society of minds that know, and of hearts that love, the truths revealed to it by heaven? Have we adequately defined it, when we call it “a spiritual society?” No, most assuredly; for we are told that it was to spread, and actually has been spread, throughout the whole world. Now, how could such progress and conquest have taken place, if the spiritual society, founded by our Redeemer, had not also been exterior and visible? On earth, souls cannot hold inter-communication without the bodies. Faith cometh by hearing, says the Apostle: and how shall they hear without a preacher? When, therefore, our Risen Jesus says to his Apostles: Go, teach all nations! he distinctly implies that the word of God will be heard, that it will resound throughout the world, and that its sound will be heard both by them that obey, and by them that reject, the teaching of his Ministers. Has this word a right to circulate thus freely, independently of any permission from earthly powers? Yes; for the Son of God has said: Go, teach all nations! He must be obeyed; the word of God cannot be fettered.


But the people thus assembled must have their buildings, their temples. Therefore do they erect houses of preaching and prayer. The stranger—that is, he who is not a Christian—seeing these new places of worship, asks: “What means all this? Whence come these people who pray aloof from their fellow citizens? would not one be inclined to say that we have a nation within the nation?” The stranger is right: there is a nation within the nation, and it will continue to be so until the whole nation itself have passed into the ranks of this new people.

Every society stands in need of laws; the Church therefore will not be long without giving outward proof of her internal government. There are her festivals, her solemnities, which denote a great people; her ritual rules, forming a visible bond of union between the members of her society, and this not merely during the hours of divine service; there are commandments and orders made by the various degrees of the hierarchy, which are promulgated and claim obedience; there are institutions and corporations existing within the great society itself, and they add to her strength and beauty; in a word, there is everything that is needed, even penal laws against offending and refractory members.

But it does not suffice to the Church that she have places where her children can assemble together; provision must also be made for the support of her clergy, for the expenses attendant on the divine worship, for the necessities of her indigent members. Aided by the generosity of her children, she enters into possession of certain landed properties, which become sacred by reason of their use, as also because of the superhuman dignity of her who owns them. Nay more; when the princes of this earth, tired of their vain efforts to stay the Church’s progress, shall ask to be admitted as her children—a new necessity will arise from this: the supreme Pontiff can be no longer the subject of any temporal sovereign, and he himself must become King. The Christian world hails with joy this crowning of the work of Christ, to whom all power has been given in heaven and in earth, and who was one day to reign, with temporal power, in the person of his Vicar.

Such is the Church: a spiritual but, at the same time, an exterior and visible, Society; ;just in the same way as man is spiritual because of his soul, and yet is material because of his body, which is an essential part of his being. The Christian, therefore, should love the Church such as God has made her: he should detest that false and hypocritical spiritualism which, with a view to subvert the work of Christ, would confine religion within the exclusively spiritual domain. We never can admit such a limitation. The Divine Word has assumed our flesh; he permitted his creature man to hear and see and handle him; and when he organized his Church on earth, he made is speaking, visible, and so to say, palpable. We are a vast State; we have our King, our magistrates, our fellow citizens; and we should be willing to lay down our lives for this supernatural Country, whose excellence is as far superior to that of our earthly country as heaven is better than the whole earth. Satan has an instinctive hatred for this Country, which is to bring us to the Paradise whence he has been driven; he has used every means in his power to ruin it. He began by attacking the liberty of the word, which is preached to men, and leads them to the Church. Did not his first agents forbid the Apostles to speak at all in the name of Jesus, to any man? The strategy was shrewd enough; and although it failed to arrest the progress of the gospel, it has ever been resorted to by the enemy, even to this very day.


The Laws promulgated by the Church, and the communications of the Pastors with one another and with the Sovereign Pontiff—these, also, have excited the most tyrannical jealousy. The right of self-government has been denied to the Church; servile men have aided Emperors and Kings to fetter the Spouse of Christ. Her temporal possessions, too, have tempted the avarice of sovereigns. These possessions procured her independence; it was, therefore, considered necessary to rob her of them, that she might become the creature of the State. Wicked as the attempt was, and one which has brought the most terrible chastisements upon the countries where it was perpetrated, yet there is one more wicked still, which is even now being plotted, and aims at depriving of his Throne, venerable by its thousand years’ duration, the Pontiff who holds in his sacred hands the keys of the Kingdom of God.

Meanwhile, the most detestable errors are being propagated. Among these, we would mention one, which in spite of its impious absurdity, find favor with thousands: we mean the doctrine that the Church should be purely spiritual, or, if it is to be a visible Church, that it should be an instrument in the hands of government, for political purposes. Let us hold such doctrine in execration; let us think of those countless Martyrs who have shed their blood in order to the maintaining and securing to the Church of Christ her position as a Society, visible, external, independent of every human power, in a word, complete in herself. It may be that we are the last inheritors of the promise; and if so, it would be an additional reason for our proclaiming the rights of the Spouse of Christ, upon whom he has conferred the empire of the world, which only exists because of her, and will be destroyed as soon as it refuses her a resting place.

Eia harmoniis,
Socii, laudum resonis
Hujus splendide vernantis
Celebremus gaudia
Per Christum patet
Sibi raptos,
Plaga mortis
Supremo
Grates regi,
Quo nos redemit
Canopica,
More Judæorum,
Solvimur pœno,
Mentes pariter
Præparemus,
Typicam ut immolemus
Insigniti mentis domo,
non pavemus Angeli ensem
mysticis ut ejus
Epulemur carnibus,
Fermenta criminum
Pergemus,
Eremo vitæ quimus
Per cœleste lumen
Inimicis elapsi,
Digne ipsum laudare
Hymno Moysi,
Qui suos maligno pressos
Pharaone alumnos
Liberat,
Obstructo
Certante nunc voto,
Jubilemus
Præclesæ pietatis
Pulsemus
Prescibus devotis,
Moriendo ut qui mortis
Legem rupit atrocis,Hic redemptos custodiat,
Ne post tergum decidant,
Sed ut regnum scandant