In his homily for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God on 1 January, Pope Francis emphasised why we not only need personal faith in Christ, but also the Church. Starting from the point that we can’t understand Jesus’ incarnation without understanding Mary, he continues that Mary’s motherhood is the motherhood of the Church, since Mary and the Church are as inseparable as Mary and Jesus.
To separate Jesus from the Church would introduce an “absurd dichotomy”, as Blessed Paul VI wrote (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 16). It is not possible “to love Christ but without the Church, to listen to Christ but not the Church, to belong to Christ but outside the Church” (ibid.). For the Church is herself God’s great family, which brings Christ to us. Our faith is not an abstract doctrine or philosophy, but a vital and full relationship with a person: Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God who became man, was put to death, rose from the dead to save us, and is now living in our midst. Where can we encounter him? We encounter him in the Church, in our hierarchical, Holy Mother Church. It is the Church which says today: “Behold the Lamb of God”; it is the Church, which proclaims him; it is in the Church that Jesus continues to accomplish his acts of grace which are the sacraments.”
So many people today are willing to profess a belief in Christ, but want nothing to do with the Church. But there is a great risk in such an attitude, the Pope explains:
“Without the Church, our relationship with Christ would be at the mercy of our imagination, our interpretations, our moods.”
The Church’s entire being is inconceivable without Christ. She is not a human construct, but a divine one built up out of human followers of the Lord. Christ reaches out to us and wants to be known. He has tasked the Church with making this possible, to be known from one human being to the next. Answering to this invitation to enter into a relationship with Him, we look to the Church, the greater body of faithful, greater than just ourselves, and to the sacraments He has given her to allow people to come to Him. This is what Christ has done, an achievement far greater than any human work or person.
