Mar 25 Wed
Why do we say that the Church is the People of God?
Recently, Pope Leo XIV described the Church as the People of God—a People that everyone is called to enter.
“God, who created the world and humanity, and who wishes to save every man, carries out his work of salvation in history, choosing a real People and dwelling among them.”
As Israel, according to the flesh, which wandered in the desert, was already called the Church of God, so too, the new Israel, which advances in this present era in search of a future and permanent city, is called also the Church of Christ.
This is the new and perfect Covenant, ratified in Christ, proclaiming the fuller revelation given through the Word of God Himself made flesh.
“Indeed, it is Christ who, in giving His Body and His Blood, unites this People in Himself and in a definitive way.
It is a People now made up of members of every nation; it is united by faith in Him, by adherence to Him, by living the same life as Him, animated by the Spirit of the Risen One.
This is the Church: the People of God who draw their existence from the body of Christ and who are themselves the body of Christ; not a people like any other, but the People of God, called together by Him and made up of women and men from all the peoples of the earth. Her unifying principle is not a language, a culture, an ethnicity, but faith in Christ."
“The Church, then, is a messianic People, precisely because it has Christ, the Messiah, as her Head. Above any task or function, therefore, what really matters in the Church is to be grafted onto Christ, to be children of God by grace ...
We are in the Church to receive life from the Father unceasingly and to live as His children and brethren among ourselves. Consequently, the law that animates relationships in the Church is love, as we receive and experience it in Jesus; and her goal is the Kingdom of God, towards which she walks together with all humanity.”
The identity of the People of God is the dignity and freedom of the children of God, in whose hearts the Holy Spirit dwells as in a temple. All her members have the same dignity, since all have been redeemed by the blood of Christ and called to holiness. This dignity is compatible with a diversity of roles among different members.
“Even those who have not yet received the Gospel are, therefore, in some way, oriented towards the People of God, and the Church, cooperating in Christ’s mission, is called upon to spread the Gospel everywhere and to everyone, so that every person may enter into contact with Christ."
“Thus, every Christian is called to proclaim the Gospel and bear witness in every environment in which one lives and works. This People shows its catholicity, welcoming the wealth and resources of different cultures and, at the same time, offering them the newness of the Gospel to purify them and to raise them up."