The tendency of many believers is to celebrate the major solemnities/feasts of the Catholic Christian calendar in a serious manner and then, when the celebration is over, “get back to normal” as they continue on with their lives. In doing so, believers allow the gap between faith and life to reappear in their lives.

The liturgical calendar of the Church offers a gentle challenge to the tendency. It has a flow to it that shows the interrelationship that each solemnity/feast has with the other solemnities/feasts. For example, during Lent we saw the interrelationship between the Incarnation (Christmas) and Good Friday – Jesus needed a body to fulfill the mission he had received from the Father.

Taken as a whole, the liturgical calendar helps believers to think with the Church, to pray in union with the Church, to grow spiritually each year as they experience worship and internalise more and more the meaning of the various solemnities/feasts. In this column, I want to reflect on the period from Easter to Pentecost.

My method will be to review what happened in the early Church during the Easter/Pentecost period and also list a few contemporary implications for our reflection as members of the Church in modern times.

The post Easter experience

As we know from the gospels, the reports from the women on Easter Sunday about the resurrection of Jesus were not received well. In fact, in some cases the reports were called nonsense.

The initial reaction among the followers of Jesus was disbelief. Why? There are two basic reasons:
1) the disciples had no prior experience with the concept of resurrection; and
2) they did not yet understand the meaning of all that had happened so quickly during what we now know as Holy Week. 

We must recall the psychology of learning and understanding. New insight about any concept builds on prior knowledge. Without prior knowledge, learning is a very difficult struggle. The story of the struggle of the early Church in trying to understand what could be called “information overload” is found in the Acts of the Apostles.

I recommend to the readers of this column that the most appropriate biblical reading for the Easter to Pentecost period of the liturgical calendar is the Acts of the Apostles. The Acts show how clarity about issues emerged slowly from the struggle the early Christian community experienced.

The agenda of the early Church

The prior knowledge of the disciples was rooted in the Old Testament and the worship tradition of the Temple. Understandably, the initial tendency of the disciples was to reread the events of Holy Week in the context of prior knowledge. The gospel norm of “new wine, new wineskins” had not yet been articulated.

What issues challenged the early Church? Let us consider three major agenda items:
1) Universalism or Exclusivism
Prior knowledge told the leaders of the early Church to think in terms of exclusivism based on the Old Testament concept of the Chosen People.

However, the reality of the situation challenged that reaction. The ministry of Jesus touched all people and most converts were Gentiles. While it was true that some Christian leaders continued to worship at the Temple, it is also true that Paul challenged Peter on the grounds that the Christ event freed the Gentiles from the Mosaic Law.

Contemporary implications: there are still people in the Church who struggle with the issues of universalism or exclusivism. They may not use the terms but the tension between the viewpoints is still present. For example, those who struggle with the call of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI for a more profound and experiential sense of solidarity in the Church may find on reflection that the root cause for their resistance is the same as it was in the early Church, namely, looking at themselves more in terms of exclusivity than in terms of Catholic universalism.

2) Church or Jesus Movement
Jesus used the word Church twice in his public ministry. The first time was in reference to Peter as the rock on which he would build his Church (Mt 16: 18). The second time was in reference to fraternal correction (Mt 18: 17).

However, Jesus provided few specific instructions on how to build the Church prior to the Ascension. The details were left to the Apostles and their successors.

While the Church was being structured initially, there were various groups that needed special attention. There were still groups of people who had followed Jesus since his Baptism by John the Baptist.

They never left Judaism. How were they to be incorporated into the Church? What about the Gentiles? What about the so-called Gnostic groups, referred to in Patristic literature, which were clearly distinct from the Church that was being structured? Were they part of the Church or were they just spiritual movements that some scholars call “Jesus movements”? The early Church had to settle all these questions.

Contemporary implications: although the Church is now fully structured, there are still tensions in the Church about the relationship of “spiritual movements” who are in opposition to the Church as institution. These groups involve people who are not in union with the Church, but who still call themselves Catholic.

There are also the new Gnostic groups of New Age spirituality. Finally, there are the conservative groups who resist the teaching of Vatican Council II. The contemporary Church must face these new but essentially ancient questions.

3) Catechesis
The Scriptures were authoritative for Jews as well as Christians. We must remember that the New Testament had not yet appeared in written form. The Apostles had the responsibility of forming the new Christian people. Apostolic teaching supplemented the teaching Jesus gave during his ministry.

The Church also had to develop teaching for situations that Jesus did not encounter. The body of teaching once written became the New Testament. It had to be passed on verbally to the next generation because most of the people were unable to read. The new community had to be taught the faith through catechesis.

Contemporary implications: Catechesis is still a high priority in the Church and for the same reason: the people must be taught the faith and formed in the faith. Most people can now read, but they do not read.

There are signs that the younger generation is becoming more comfortable with catechesis if the catechetical methodology is interactive. Adult education/formation is now considered essential because the adult population, as believers, is finding it more and more difficult to cope with the challenges and pace of modern life.  Indifference is challenging the Church as it tries to build a new tradition of adult education/formation.

Conclusion

As the reader of this column can now see, my recommendation to read in a reflective manner the Acts of the Apostles prior to Pentecost is not so simple. The Church still has to apply the Catholic Tradition to the many issues troubling international society.
The challenge to the early Church is the challenge to the modern Church.