Bishop Lyke, the new apostolic administrator, hopes to be able to write in The Georgia Bulletin regularly. This opening column on what it means to be a Catholic Christian is the first portion of a keynote talk given by him at the 15th annual Galveston Houston Congress sponsored by the Continuing Education Office of that diocese on Feb. 17, 1990.

Bishop James P. Lyke, OFM, Ph.D.

When I first accepted the invitation to address the subject of "Who are we as Catholic Christians?" I was most enthused about the topic. "Ah, I thought, "now is my opportunity to offer a clear, explicit, unquestioning and apologetic presentation of the Catholic faith, one that would go around the listener's deep religious interest and sensibilities that she or he would immediately make banners and T-shirts proclaiming, "I'm Catholic and I'm proud!"

Then, I began reviewing a number of books on my shelf. In particular, picked up Avery Dulles' fine work, The Catholicity of the Church, in which he discusses such topics as, "The Concept of Catholicity from Below," "Catholicity in Breadth," "Catholicism in Length," "The Structures of Catholicism," and "Catholic and Protestant: Contrary or Complementary" -- all topics of voluminous possibilities.

After reading this 184-page book, which Father Dulles would consider a very rudimentary discussion, I felt a sense of awe before this mystery we call Church, this many splendored community of believers and disciples with such a rich history and splendid teachings.

My mind returned to my childhood, when my mother at the age of 50 encountered the Church when she enrolled me in the nearby Catholic school. From that moment on, she became fascinated with the Church and drawn to its boundless treasury of spirituality and thought and the great examples of holiness among its people. Moved by the sacramentality of its ritual and the great gift of the Eucharist and the then host of "catholic ways" of living and doing, she had found a new home and was comfortable. Subsequently, my other sisters and brothers followed her lead.

How am I to approach this vast and many-flavored subject with you? I am reminded of the wise mother whose first-born had gone off to the local college to begin higher studies. The mother observed the daughter sitting down with her textbooks, yellow marker in hand, "highlighting" the important passages -- which meant that virtually every sentence was ending up highlighted in yellow. The mother watched for a while, then observed simply, "Girl, if you underline everything, you ain't underlined nothing!" So trying to remember not to underline absolutely everything, I will try to propose some of the main elements in the identity of a Catholic Christian.

Re-Claim Jesus Christ

I) To be a Catholic Christian means, most obviously and fundamentally, to actively claim and re-claim Jesus Christ as the Lord of life and history and the lord of my life and my history. This thought, I believe, contains three elements:

A) To be a Catholic means first and foremost to be a Christian. While I trust that to this group that is a "truism" that need not be stated, it's important for us to remember that to many members of our church this is still a concept not fully understood. And similarly, there are still some churches within the Protestant tradition that have a hard time acknowledging us as a "Christian" church.

When we say we are first and foremost Christian, this means that our faith is rooted before all else in the person of Jesus Christ and in the Scriptures that present Jesus to us. Again, this is not always as obvious to everyone as we might assume it to be. We need to re-claim the title, "Bible Church" for ourselves, because our faith, as much as anyone's, is rooted in the Scriptures and centers around the person of Jesus.

B) To be a Catholic means fundamentally to take Christ as our personal savior, to borrow a phrase used more by other churches, but whose meaning applies as much to us as to other Christians. There are many other dimensions to an authentic Christian faith, such as orthodoxy in doctrinal beliefs, fidelity to the moral teaching of Jesus, participation in the communal life of the church, authenticity in liturgical worship, mission outreach and evangelization. But all of these flow from the basic faith-commitment to Jesus. Similarly, we may find other people who share much of the world-view we embrace as Christians, but unless they believe in Jesus as Lord, their faith is not really a Christian faith.

C) To be Catholic means to stand before Jesus as the Alpha and Omega of life and history. That is to say, for Catholics, while we respect the religious beliefs of others, Jesus commands our conscience in such a way that we believe this earth cries for transformation in Christ. Catholics unashamedly proclaim that Jesus "rules over" our innermost thoughts and inspires our actions toward the building of the reign of God.

View Shaped By Scriptures

II) Having said all this, however, it is important to emphasize that to be a Catholic Christian does imply a certain world-view shaped by the Scriptures. As Jesus points out in the gospel, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven but only the one who does the will of the Father (cf. Matthew 7:21). To understand the will of the Father we must look at the whole range of truths proclaimed in the Scriptures and unfolding in the lived experience of the Christian Church down through the ages. Some elements in this world-view would include:

A) A sense of God's plan and purpose for all of creation. As Catholic Christians we believe in divine providence, in an overall plan which unfolds in and through the ebb and flow of events, especially events shaped over time by the free choices of people guided by the Holy Spirit. This "providence" is expressed repeatedly by Paul in the Scriptures. In the first chapter of Ephesians, Saint Paul writes:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved. In him we have redemption by his blood, the forgiveness of transgressions, in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us. In all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will in accord with his favor that he set forth in him as a plan for the fullness of times, to sum up all thing in Christ, in heaven and on earth." Ephesians 1:3-10

B) Yes, a certain world-view! Because we see God's hand a work in and through human history, a Catholic-Christian view of reality sees Jesus as the Lord and entry of history. Again, let me just read from the Scriptures. In the first chapter of Colossians, Paul writes:

"He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation.

For in Him were created all things in Heaven and on Earth,

the visible and the invisible,

whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;

all things were created through him and for him.

He is before all things,

and in him all things hold together.

He is the head of the body, the church.

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,

that all things he himself might be pre-eminent.

For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,

and through him to reconcile all things for him,

making peace by the blood of cross

(through him), whether those on Earth or those in Heaven." Colossians 1:15-20

Although we as Catholic Christians should and must become fully involved in the events of the world here and now, we believe that the most decisive moment in human history has already taken place, and that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the ultimate point of reference for everything else that occurs in our history.

Jesus the First Source

C) A certain world-view! Because we believe Jesus his life and ministry stand at the center of human history, we look to the teaching of Jesus, known to us through the Scriptures, as the first source of moral ideals to guide our lives. Jesus is the "Way, the Truth, and the Life," for his followers. While these ideals often must still be interpreted and applied to new and changing situations in order to make specific moral judgements, they nevertheless are the foundation upon which we build a moral and ethical system to guide our lives.

D) Again, a certain world-view! Because Jesus called together a community and gave them a mission to go out into the whole world and call others to faith and community, Catholic Christians believe that the call to be a follower of Christ is at the same time a call to be a member of a church community. Disciples of Jesus Christ are necessarily incorporated into the Church. A strong ecclesiology is one of our distinctive characteristics.

E) A certain world-view! Because the Father willed that his Son would be born of a woman, a chosen maiden with an intimate role in the drama of redemption, this church community includes Mary, the Virgin Mother of Jesus, the community includes Mary, the Virgin Mother of Jesus, the Messiah, and the Mother of the Mystical body, the Church. It includes also the men and women of the past who lived by the Spirit of Christ and are saints; and this Church reaches in to the future to all who will ever be born.

F) A certain world-view! Because Jesus gave himself up "so that sins might be forgiven," Catholic Christians have an unusual confidence in God reaching out to us and in our ability to return to God in our most shattered moments. Every Catholic Christian knows that our humanity and our world were seriously flawed by sin. When we were broken and could not repair ourselves, the love of God, revealed in Jesus' fiery moment of truth on the Cross, lifted us and sanctified us.

G) Indeed, a certain world-view. Within the church community, Catholic Christians see the sacraments as the most basic and essential signs of the Lord's continuing presence and action in our midst - not signs cast upon a movie screen for us to watch, but action-signs, ritual acts of which we are part and in which we play a part. In the basic Scriptural signs of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and in the additional ritual acts which enflesh Jesus' ministry of healing, of forgiveness, of calling to different forms of discipleship - in all these signs, these sacraments, Catholic Christians find visible, concrete expression of the faith in Jesus who is the bedrock of our whole system of belief.

The conclusion of this talk will be carried in the Aug. 16 issue of The Georgia Bulletin.