In a blog entitled, “All Things Lawful and Honest,” Fr Peter contemplates in a recent article how we should think about the church and the language we use to describe it.
All too often during the lock down, we heard the mantra that the church isn’t a dusty old building, but the people. This is an oversimplification. The Church is much more than this beguiling either/or description.
Fr Peter reminds us in the article, “Before the Church is ever people or buildings, it is surely Christ: Christ, living in the baptized who make up his Body; Christ, embodied in the physical buildings that signify his presence; Christ incarnated through the worship that takes place in them; Christ, present through time and in eternity through the eschatological promise of resurrection for his people; Christ, powerful in his Spirit energising and directing the Church; Christ, known through the teaching and proclamation made by the Church in word, deed, and sacrament; Christ, the heroic strength of the persecuted and the burning love of those who fight for social justice; and Christ, felt through the prayers of the saints and those who have gone before us in faith.
The Church can never merely be either a group of people or a building. She is an eschatological mystery through which Christ reigns over and in and through his creation so that God’s Kingdom is made more and more of a reality.”
Full text of Fr Peter’s article here.