Congar - Church as 'Jacob's ladder' between Christ and the world [The Wide World My Parish 4]

If then, this is the place of Jesus Christ, we have to determine what is the consequent place of the Church, in relation to him and in relation to the world. 

The Church is Church only because of Christ, but she is made up of human beings. She is a gathering of men among other gatherings of men, but bearing amongst them the mystery of Jesus Christ. She is the company of witnesses to him. In as much as it depends on men's faithfulness, she brings Christ to the world, offering it opportunities to recognize him as the key to its destiny. 

Provided we are careful not to turn a convenient and, surely, necessary distinction into a separation, it will be useful to look at the Church from each of two points of view: (1) as God's people, the community of Christians, she represents mankind towards Christ; (2) as institution, or sacrament of salvation, she represents Christ towards the world. Jacob 'dreamed that he saw a ladder standing on the earth, with its top reaching up into heaven; a stairway for the angels of God to go up and come down' (Gen. xxviii. 12; cf. John i. 51). Two mediations are joined in the Church, one going up, or representative, the other coming down, or sacramental; and through them she is the place where Christ gives himself to the world, and the world gives itself to Christ, the place where the two meet.

In this two-fold movement the Church actualizes the biblical idea of first-fruits. Coming from Christ and composed of men, she constantly bears the whole of one towards the whole of the other. When she takes root in some human grouping, there she makes Jesus Christ present and at work, that Son of God of whom St Paul writes that it is God's pleasure 'through him to win back all things, whether on earth or in heaven, into union with himself, making peace with them through his blood, shed on the cross' (Col. i. 20). No doubt this does not mean that all men, in the sense of each and every individual, will in fact be saved; it means that the act by which Christ makes the union effective is of itself really directed towards and includes all men, the totality of the world as such, offering all that is necessary for the achievement of the end that God has in view for them. 

Since the Church makes Jesus Christ present and active to the world, all worth is finally judged by her, and it is in regard to her that men are seen to be blessed or rejected. Clement of Alexandria had this in mind when he wrote, early in the third century, 'Just as God's will is a deed and it is called "the world", so his intention is man's salvation, and this is called "the Church".'* That is not plainly seen as physical things are: 'What do we see now? Not all things subject to him as yet' (Heb. ii, 8). What St Paul says of the Christian is not true of his personal life alone, but also of apostleship and of all that the Church does: 'Your life is hidden away now with Christ in God. Christ is your life, and when he is made manifest, you too will be made manifest in glory with him' (Col. iii. 3-4). 

It is true that to the eye of faith the Church never looks small in this great world. There she wears the best aspect she can, for the people she is able to reach. But, however modestly, she has always to seek to have and to show an appearance that betokens the Gospel, that betokens the Covenant, and a covenant that is in principle universal, for of that she is the sign and sacrament. 

Each one of us for his own little world, all of us for the world at large—we are Jacob's ladder. The representative going up of mankind to God and the representative coming down of Jesus Christ to the world pass through us. The whole Church is sacramental and missionary, and so is each Christian in his degree. Each of the members of any group (e.g. a parish) that seeks Christ through the Church stands for the whole group. To what extent do they effectively aid the group in its journey to God? It cannot he known. But they are its first-fruits, a sheaf offered up, and they are intercessors for it: had there been ten righteous men in the city, God would have spared it (Gen. xviii. 32). 

We can only look ahead, and so we cannot see anything, for there is nothing to see in the future, unless with the eyes of faith and hope. It has been rightly observed that mankind goes forward in its history backwards, because it only sees the road it has already travelled. When we reach the end, we shall see how the final results took shape in the beginnings, the first-fruits. And we shall give thanks. 

* Paedagogus, i, 6. It is very remarkable that this idea, of bearing the world's meaning like a living seed, was given expression at the very time when Christians were a small minority, looked on with contempt, persecuted and often killed off. See also the Letter to Diognetus (2-cent.): 'Christians are in the world what the soul is in the body. The soul is dispersed throughout the members of the body, so are Christians among the cities of the world. . . . Christians are as it were held in the prison of the world; yet it is they who sustain the world.' St Irenaeus (d. c. 200) speaks of the 'recapitulation' of all things in Christ, the Church's head (cf. Eph. i. 10). Origen (d. c. 254) calls the Church 'the universe of the universe'. And so on. 

Yves Congar, The Wide World My Parish: Salvation and its Problems (1962) p. 19-21