Final exam study areas for Joseph Ratzinger, Called to Communion 1) Ratzinger writes (p.

32): "[Ecclesia] signifies not only the cultic gathering but also the local community, the Church in a larger geographical area and, finally, the one Church of Jesus Christ herself. There is a continuous transition from one meaning to another, because all of them hang on the Christological center that is made concrete in the gathering of believers for the Lord's Supper." Write about the meaning(s) of Church and how to understand ecclesia de eucharistia. Include material from pp. 8082 (Eucharistic ecclesiology and episcopal office). Ratzinger understanding of Ecclesia is profoundly Christological. The church is found by Christ himself and her embodied in Christ who is present in the central act of worship: the Eucharist. By the last supper Jesus was forming a communion and had formed a new community origin the church. So, the church is a communion with the word and Body of Christ where the Eucharist as a center, which joins all people to the one and to his one and only Body. The Church is Eucharist -- each local community celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is taken up within the whole Christ embracing all of the faithful throughout all time. In short: a) Church: 4 meanings: 1- the cultic gathering, 2-the local community, 3-the Church in a large geographical area (diocese), 4-Church of Jesus himself. b) Ecclesia de Eucharistia: Lords Supper: is the Christological center that connects all meanings. The church is effectively realized in the Eucharist celebration. c) Eucharistic ecclesiology + Episcopal office: (St. Ignatius), one bishop in one place stands for the fact that the Church is one for all, because God is one for all.[ Ratzinger.] The Eucharist is public, (there is no own Eucharist) its of the whole church, of one Christ. The Eucharist is a sacrifice of reconciliation (unity) and it demands reconciliation with ones brother as prior condition (Mt5). The episcopate office is an essential component of the Eucharist as service to the UNITY. Since the Church is Eucharist, therefore it is communion, communion with the whole Body of Christ (whole church). Whoever receives Jesus in communion necessarily communicates with all his brothers who have become members of the one Body. Communio includes the dimension of catholicity. Communio is catholic, or it simply does not exist at all. 2) Communion and (Mystical) Body (pp. 35-40). Communion means the seemingly uncrossable frontier of my I is left wide open and can be so because Jesus has first allowed himself to be opened completely, has taken us all into himself and has put himself totally into our hands and hence, Communion means the fusion of existences (37). Communion makes the Church by .. gathering us into a deep communion of existence. It is the event of gathering, in which the Lord joins us to one another (37). The Church must constantly become what she is through unitive love and resist the temptation to fall from her vocation into the infidelity of self-willed autonomy (39-40). The church is never complete but is perpetually in need of renewal. She is always on the way to union with Christ (40) Pauline idea of Body of Christ or Mystical Body: 3 sources (view) found in scripture: Semitic, Eucharistic and Nuptiality.

1) Semitic; corporate personality: the idea that we all are Adam, a single man writ large. The I is constituted in relation to the thou and that the 2 mutually interpenetrate. 2) Eucharist; fusion of existence: (Because it is one bread, we, the many, are one body, 1Cor): Christ gives us his body, himself. The body is a mans self (Semitic view). Christ gives us his own body (in light of resurrection Christ continues to exist in a new kind of bodiliness). Thus, Communion means fusion of existences; the I is assimilated to that of Jesus. When we communicate (comungamos), we assimilate to the bread and thus are made one among ourselves one body. 3) Nuptiality; biblical philosophy of love: One flesh, a single new existence( marriage) In the sacrament, which is an act of love, two subjects are fused in such a way as to overcome their separation and to make one. In the Eucharistic mystery Christ and the Church are one body in the sense that man and woman are one flesh, that is, in such a way that in their indissoluble spiritual-bodily union, they nevertheless remain unconfused and unmingled. 3) The significance of Simon being renamed Peter by Jesus, and his position among the apostles. Simon renamed Peter: The designation rock to Simon yields no pedagogical or psychological meanings; it can be understood only in terms of mystery, that is to say, christologically and ecclesiologically: Simon Peter will be by Jesus commission precisely what He is not by flesh and blood. The symbolic language as a holy rock is found in Gods choice of making Abraham the rock. Abraham the Father of faith is by his faith the rock that holds back chaos, the onrushing primordial flood of destruction, and thus sustains creation. Simon the first to confess Jesus as the Christ and the first witness of the Resurrection, now becomes by virtue of this Abrahamic faith, which is renewed in Christ, the rock that stands against the impure tide of unbelief and its destruction of man. b) Peter position among the apostles; Peter has an especial position among the twelve and together with the sons of Zebedee they constitutes a group of 3 that stands prominently by being admitted to special moments of particular consequence; raising of Jairus daughter, the Transfiguration (Peter is the outspoken) and the Garden of Olives (Jesus addresses Peter)(Mt5,9,14). Peter is also the one who attempts to walk over the sea imitating the Lord, and also after the conferral of the power to bind and loose, Peter asks how often one ought to pardon.

3) P. 64: "The Church is founded on forgiveness." Reflecting on the commission given to Peter he sees that he is commissioned to forgive sins. As he writes the Church is founded upon forgiveness. Peter himself is the personal embodiment of this truth, for he is permitted to be the bearer of the keys after having stumbled, confessed and received the grace of pardonThe church is not a communion of the perfect but a communion of sinners who need and ask forgiveness." Only through such forgiveness in total fidelity to Jesus Christ and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit will full communion in the Body of Christ come about.

4) The four marks of the Church are described in an interesting fashion on p. 95, e.g., without unity there is no holiness. Describe the interrelationship among the marks. This is so because without love there is no holiness, which is realized principally in the integration of the individual and of individuals into the reconciling love of the one Body of Jesus Christ. It is not the perfecting of ones own self that makes one holy but the purification of the self through its fusion into the all-embracing love of Christ: it is holiness of the triune God himself. Without unity, as Ratzinger observes, there would be no true holiness, for this demands the gifted love that is the bond of unity. Church is a communion with the Word and Body of Christ where the Eucharist seen as the permanent origin and center of the Church, joins all of the many, who are now a people, to the one Lord and to his one and only Body. This already implies that the Church and her unity are but one.

5) The function of the ordained priest to act on Christ's behalf. Ordination is not about the development of one's own powers and gifts. It is not the appointment of a man as a functionary because he is especially good at it, or because it suits him, or simply because it strikes him as a good way to earn his bread. "Sacrament means: I give what I myself cannot give; I do something that is not my work; I am on a mission and have become a bearer of that which another has committed to my charge." One can receive what is Gods only from the sacrament, by entering into the mission that makes me the messenger and instrument of another. This very selfexpropriation for the other, this leave-taking from oneself, this self-dispossession and selflessness that are essential to the priestly ministry can lead to authentic human maturity and fulfillment p. 116. Christ entrusts his mission, so it enables man to do what he cannot do but what the lord does p.117. As with the bishop, so the "foundation of priestly ministry is a deep personal bond to Jesus Christ." So, priest must be a man who knows Jesus intimately, who has encountered him and has learned to love him. For this reason priest must be above all a man of prayer, a truly spiritual man. Without a strong spiritual substance, he cannot long endure in his ministry. Christ must also teach him that the main purpose of his life is not self-realization and success. He must learn that he is not in the business of building himself an interesting or comfortable life, or of setting up for himself a community of admirers and devotees, but is working for another and that it is he who truly matters. It is Christ speaking and acting through them as his instruments when they teach true doctrine, celebrate the sacraments, and govern properly. They can call "nothing" their own. It is all Christ's presence and action, just as all he had is from the Father in the Holy Spirit. The true meaning of the Priesthood as a sacrament and not a mere ministry; the necessity of the Eucharist as the Sacrifice of the Savior now offering Himself on our altars;