By Emily Mendez
Connecting Creed and Life
Editor’s note: For 2025, the weekly Connecting Faith and Life column will be renamed Connecting Creed and Life. To celebrate the 2025 Jubilee Year and the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, the columns will consist of reflections on the Nicene Creed, corresponding with related paragraphs in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC).
“I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church” (CCC 823-829).
There is a saying that goes, “If you find the perfect Church, don’t join it because then it will not be perfect any longer.” It is a funny little dig, but it gets at the paradox of saying “The Church is Holy.” If you have been to church and you have seen the people there (including yourself!), you know it is a very mixed bag of sinners. You have seen even more if you have served a year or two on the Parish Council, volunteered to organize an event, served on a fundraising committee to remodel or build a new building or worked professionally in Church ministry. It is easy to see within the Church the flawed people, the conflict and the brokenness that are usually present in some way. So, what does it mean to say that the Church is holy?
First, the word “holy” (in Hebrew, Qadosh) means “to be set apart” and “sacred.” Simply, the Church is holy because Jesus is holy and the Church is united to him as the mystical body of Christ. The Church, as the mystical body of Christ, is set apart from the world, and namely, from sin, by the salvific work of Christ. So how do we hold the paradox of being “set apart” from sin by baptism and faith in Jesus on the one hand and the reality of the sinners we find when we look at the actual human beings that make up the Church on the other? The Catechism states, “In everyone, the weeds of sin will still be mixed with the good wheat of the Gospel until the end of time” (CCC827). This paradox lives within each one of us, where we are sinners on the road of sanctification through Christ in and through the Church. The work of the Church is the work of sanctification in Christ. We, as members of the Church, receive this work of sanctification through the sacraments and ministry of the Church, but we are also responsible, as members of the mystical body of Christ, to embody the sanctifying work of Christ to the world.
There have been terrible sins committed by members of the Church, but there also have been heroic acts of virtue lived by members of the Church, too. Sometimes the same person is on both ends of the spectrum. There are lives that have been officially canonized as saints and held up for all to see and imitate. Recently on Sept. 7, Sts. Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis were canonized saints, and Pope Leo said in his homily, “Both … cultivated their love for God and for their brothers and sisters through simple acts, available to everyone: daily Mass, prayer, and especially eucharistic adoration.” These two young men were sanctified by the sacraments and reflected holiness by being close to Jesus. Pope Leo also said in his homily for the canonization, “Another essential practice for them was frequent confession. Carlo wrote: ‘The only thing we really have to fear is sin;’ and he marveled because — in his own words — ‘people are so concerned with the beauty of their bodies and do not care about the beauty of their souls.’” If we desire for the Church, the people of God, to fulfill its call to holiness, we must begin with ourselves. We see the paradox of a holy Church made up of sinners, but the Church is holy because of Jesus. So, as we draw closer to Jesus’s heart, in and through the Church, we draw closer to holiness. As we frequent the sacraments, we receive the sanctifying grace that Jesus intends for us to strengthen us in holiness. And, the closer we are to Jesus, the more our lives look like his, and we share his message of salvation with the world.
Emily Mendez is a stay-at-home mom in Jasper, where she lives with her husband and four sons. She has a master’s degree in Theology. She can be contacted at emilyandpedrom@gmail.com.