The Church must introduce the individual Christian into an encounter with Jesus Christ and bring Christians into His presence in the sacrament.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
For individuals to become fully active in the Church, they generally must experience a spiritual conversion and a social integration.
In baptism, new Christians become part of a body of fellow believers who are called to spiritually encourage one another and hold one another responsible for consistent Christian living.
The Church is the new creation, it is life and joy, it is the sacramental fellowship in which we share the ultimate purpose of God, made real for us now in our hearing the Word and sharing the Sacrament.
God is always coming to you in the Sacrament of the Present Moment. Meet and receive Him there with gratitude in that sacrament.
Those who embrace belief in Christ Jesus are bound together in Him, in a real yet incomplete way, in his Body, the Church. Faith is never a solitary activity, nor can it be simply private. Faith in Christ always draws us into a community and has a public dimension.
We are to introduce our people into the life of the Church, which is salvation, that they may grasp its meaning, its contents and purpose, to taste and see how good the Lord is.
It's very easy for a church just to slide along from week to week, taking it for granted that we do our services like this and that, and we celebrate the sacraments like this and that.
As the Church is the aggregate of believers, there is an intimate analogy between the experience of the individual believer, and of the Church as a whole.
At the centre of Christianity is community; we are gathered by the Lord around the altar.
Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be, even as wheresoever Christ Jesus is, there is the catholic church.