Summarizing Thomas Aquinas: The Roman Catholic Church

Catholic is an uncomfortable word for many protestants because of its modern day association with the Roman church. However, the church fathers who wrote the Nicene Creed did not understand catholic to mean the Roman Catholic Church. The visible and invisible idea can also be helpful when determining what it means to be catholic. Along with a distinction of true and imitating Christians, a distinction must be drawn between true and imitating churches. The early church differentiated between the two by describing the true church as catholic. Cyril of Jerusalem warns, “if you ever have cause to visit a strange town, do not ask simply… “Where is the church?” Instead, ask “Where is the catholic church?” Explaining the meaning of catholic, Cyril …show more content…
Summarizing Thomas Aquinas, one can say that the church is universal in that it spans across the entire globe, to all people, and through all time. As technology continues to make the world smaller, the concept of the church spanning across the globe and to all types of people has grown easier to grasp. However, the church expanding throughout all time can seem to be somewhat of a mystery. In addition to believers alive today, the church also includes all the saints who are with the Lord, or as the book of Hebrews puts it, “are enrolled in heaven” (Heb 12:23). This broadest understanding of the church, to include those past and present is what Stanley J. Grenz refers to as the “mystical church”, “the one body composed of all believers of all ages.” One beautiful aspect of this understanding of the church is the impact it has on worship. When Christians gather for worship, they do so in union with those who are eternally worshiping God. This reality is conveyed in the Book of Common Prayer’s Eucharist when the celebrant declares, “therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name; evermore praising