Lesson 4 (Church)

LA CONSOLACION COLLEGE BACOLOD
Galo Corner Gatuslao Streets, Bacolod City 6100, Philippines

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Distance Learning
Instructional Module
MY READING TEXT
Most of us would understand the Church as a sacred edifice, a group of religious
leaders, or a regular Sunday activity that one is morally obliged to attend. But Church is
more than just a thing. She’s a living organism because she is us, living human beings, who
gives life to her. And every time we come together as one, praying in the name of Christ, she
comes to life. We are who we are because it is her who nourished our faith through the
years, tirelessly bring us closer to God.
What is Church?
Church is defined as the community of men and

women who believe and share the same faith. In the Christian
perspective, a Church is a people united in Christ (through his
life, teachings, and commission) and guided by the Holy Spirit
(the Church continues to holy despite her shortcomings
because of the Spirit’s grace). As she journeys here on this
earth, she aims to press onwards towards the Kingdom of the
Father. As requested by Christ before He ascended into
Heaven, all of her members are bearers of the message of
salvation intended for all people.
The concept of the Church can be traced back to the 1st Testament concept of qahal
and the 2nd Testament’s ekklesia. Both terms mean the people called by God together or an
assembly convoked by God. She is a faith-based assembly whose root cause is God’s free call
to all to share His divine goodness and love in Christ.
The Origin of the Church

(Trinitarian)
The origin of the Church is not anchored only in Jesus but in the whole Trinity.
 The Church is willed by the Father. Since the beginning of time, God has the Church in
mind as part of His saving plan for all.
 The Church was inaugurated by the Son. She is Jesus’ redemptive mission, as part of
the Father’s will
 The Church is animated by the Holy Spirit. She continues to be holy, not because of
her own merits but because of the outpouring of God’s sanctifying work upon her.
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The Nature of the Church

 The Church is modelled on the community of love between the Father, Son and the
Holy Spirit.
 The Church is mission herself, and mission is at her heart, not just her task. The
Church exists because her mission is to do mission.
 The Church is to be a sign and instrument of the unity of humankind through her
three-fold mission (kingly, priestly, and prophetic).
The Church’s Ultimate Destiny
Eventually, the Church’s ultimate destiny is to share in

the life of the Holy Trinity. We, as a Church, are pilgrims
moving towards the Second Coming (Parousia) through
conversion and reformation. In other words, we are bound to
be with God at the end of time.
The Four Marks of the Church
One: By virtue of her source and origin, the Church is one.

 There is one Father of the universe, one Logos of the universe, and also one Holy
Spirit, everywhere one and the same.
 The Church is one: she acknowledges one Lord, confesses one faith, is born of one
Baptism, forms only one Body, is given life by the one Spirit, for the sake of one hope
(cf. Eph 4:3-5), at whose fulfillment all divisions will be overcome.
 Unity does not mean uniformity, but gathering in diversity—within the unity of the
People of God, a multiplicity of peoples and culture is gathered together. Among the
Church’s members, there are different gifts, offices, conditions, and ways of life. The
great richness of such diversity is not opposed to the Church’s unity.
Holy: By virtue of her source, God, who is alone “Holy” and who gathers “all nations” to
come and worship him.
 The Church’s holiness emphasizes not our perfection or sinlessness but the Head of
the Body who is without sin.
 The Church is Holy because the Most Holy God is her author; Christ, her bridegroom,
gave Himself up to make her holy; the Spirit of holiness, the Giver of her Life. Since
she still includes sinners, she is “the sinless one made up of sinners.” Her holiness
shines in the saints; in Mary, she is already all-holy.

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Catholic. By virtue of her source, Jesus Christ, who is present in her, and her mission, which
is to be sent to the whole of the human race.
 Classical Understanding: The Church is Catholic or universal because she is spread
abroad over the whole of the earth and can reckon on a large number of members.
 But Catholicity has nothing to do with geography and statistics.
 The Church is Catholic: she proclaims the fullness of faith. She bears in herself and
administers the totality of the means of salvation. She is sent out to all peoples. She
speaks to all men and women. She encompasses all time. She is missionary of her
very nature.
Apostolic. By virtue of Jesus Christ, who was sent from the Father. “As the Father has sent
me, even so I send you.” (Jn 20:21) “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”
(Matthew 28:19)
 The Church is Apostolic: she is built on a lasting foundation, the twelve apostles of
the Lamb (Rev 21:14). She is indestructible (Mt 16:18). She is upheld infallibly in
truth: Christ governs her through Peter and the other apostles, who are present in
their successors, the Pope and the College of Bishops.
 The whole Church is Apostolic, in that she remains, through the successors of St.
Peter and the other apostles, in communion of faith and life with her origin; and in
that she is ‘sent out’ into the world. All members of the Church share in this mission,
though in various ways.
The Church’s Main Biblical Images

The People of God (The Father)
You will be my people and I will be Your God. – Jer 30:22
Since the beginning of time, the Father willed to make humanity holy
and to save them by making them into a single people. When Jesus
incarnated, He explained that the Father’s people is not a
continuation of the people of Israel but a new and definitive people,
regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity, background, etc.
The Body of Christ

You are the body of Christ, and each one of you is part of it. -1
Corinthians 12:27
During His earthly existence, Jesus has always been with people,
associating and interacting with Him. He has drawn His followers to
Himself and made us a part of Himself. We are His body and He is our
Head.
The Temple of the Holy Spirit

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Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit? -1
Corinthians 6:19
The Holy Spirit is the Paraclete, the Helper promised to us by Jesus
to help us. The Holy Spirit is the vital principle of the Church, giving
life, unifying, and moving us, the material body of Christ in today’s
world. Through us, the will of God is realized as the Spirit inspires us
to move and act on this will.
So Why Go to Church?
By Ronald Rolheiser, OMI | Seeking Spirituality
No Spirituality of the Church today is complete without a section that tries to answer,
within the present anti-ecclesial climate, the question: Why go to church? Indeed, why go?
What is your apologia pro vita sua for going? What do you tell your friends or perhaps even
your own children who no longer go but wonder why you do? Why might you consider going
if you are not going?
The reasons given here are confessional and personal as well as theological and
objective. Moreover they are rational rather than emotional, hoping for intellectual respect
more than for emotional sympathy. What is being proposed is not a series of reasons why
you might want to go to church but why you should go to church; but that is not necessarily
a bad thing. An old philosophical dictum suggests that love follows knowledge, that the heart
needs a vision, that we can think ourselves into a new way of feeling. Scripture affirms the
same thing when it says that without vision the people perish.
So what can be a vision, a reason for going to church and committing ourselves in an
irrevocable covenant to a group of very flawed men and women and agreeing to journey
with them for the rest of our lives? What are the reasons that one should go to church?
Most of these have already been seen, in one guise or other, in the preceding pages. Thus,
here, the effort will more to name than to explain. Hence, the present anti-ecclesial climate
notwithstanding, I should go to church for these reasons:
1. Because it is not good to be alone

We are essentially social by nature. To be a human being is to be with others. We wake
up to consciousness not as an isolated ego, but as one among many. When Scripture says, it
is not good to be alone', it means that for every man, woman, and child forever. Hell is not
the other person, as Sartre once suggested, but the reverse. Our quest for God must be
consistent with our nature. Hence, it must have, as a non-negotiable part, a communitarian
dimension. Ecclesiology, church, by definition is precisely that, walking to God within a

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community. To attempt to make spirituality a private affair 1s to reject part of our very
nature and walk inside of a loneliness that God himself has damned.
2. To take my rightful place humbly within the family of humanity

There are three major stages to life. Different ages have had different ways of
teaching this. Contemporary psychology speaks of the process of individuation and what lies
before and beyond that. The ancient biblical sage, Job, spoke of two kinds of nakedness
('Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return again' Job 1:21) and what
lies between them. Essentially what both, new and old, teach is the following:
The first stage of life is birth. We emerge from our mothers, from nature, naked and
helpless, more of an acorn than a tree, not very actuated in terms of self and not very
differentiated in terms of others. At this stage, smelling of the earth and of the womb, we
are still primordially linked to the family of humanity We are humble.
But, almost immediately, we begin the second stage- washing he smell of the earth
off ourselves, clothing, accumulation, distinction, separation, and actualization. We spend
our early years and, if we never really grow up, the rest of our lives trying to distinguish
ourselves, to set ourselves apart from others, to accumulate things, to have successes, to
create some privacy for ourselves. This stage is characterized by the urge to separate and
clothe ourselves (in Job's terms). For the first half of our lives this is a healthy thing.
But at the point when adulthood is reached, something else is asked of us, not just by
God but also by nature. Our task now is no longer to try to emerge, but to merge to go back
into community, to lose our separateness, to not stand out, to become naked again. This is
the real meaning of humility and it describes perfectly what is contained in the great
imperative that asks us to take our place within the family of humanity. To be human
is, ultimately, to be part of the group, naked and unmarked. But how to achieve this? What
concrete community can offer us that place to merge? Our blood families can help, but they
are too narrow and excusive fully to identify us with all of humanity. Humanity as a family is
inclusive enough, but is too abstract. The Church - infinitely more inclusive than blood family
and infinitely less abstract than humanity-offers us that place. The Church gives us the place
to die to elitism. To join a church is to give up elitism. That is both perhaps the greatest
obstacle to church participation and the greatest benefit of it.
3. Because God calls me there

The Holy Spirit is not a piece of private property, neither is God's call. The Judeo-
Christian God is clear. Spirituality is not a private search for what is highest in oneself but a
communal search for the face of God. The call of God is double: Worship divinity and link
yourself to humanity. There are two great, equal, commandments: Love God and love your
neighbor. There can be no real Christian spirituality divorced from ecclesiology. To deal with
Christ is to deal with church.

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4. To dispel my fantasies about myself

Away from actual, historical church community, whatever its faults, we have an open
field to live the unconfronted life, to make religion a private fantasy that we can selectively
share with a few like-minded individuals who will never confront us where we most need
challenge. The churches are compromised, dirty, and sinful but, just like our blood families,
they are also real. In the presence of people who share life with us regularly, we cannot lie,
especially to ourselves, and delude ourselves into thinking we are generous and noble. In
community the truth emerges and fantasies are dispelled. Not being involved with church
because of the Church's faults is often a great rationalization. What is too painful to deal
with is not the Church's imperfection but my own fantasies about my own goodness which,
in the grind of real community, will become painfully obvious. Nobody deflates us more than
does our own family. The same is true of the Church. Not all of this is bad.
5. Because ten thousand saints have told me so

I go to church because by far the majority of good and faith-filled persons that I know
go there. Moreover, not only do they go to church, but they tell me that whatever goodness
and faith that they carry is, in an essential way, fostered there. The saints of old and the
saints of the present day are fairly unanimous regarding the importance of church. It is hard
to imagine Mother Teresa or Francis of Assisi apart from their connection to ecclesiology.
Of course, I know too some good and faith-filled individuals who do not go to church.
However, even there, I see in their lives, in their commitment to their families and
communities, the functional dynamics of church. In every case, they are in real commitments
that give them community, keep them humble, dispel their fantasies, and let them know, in
whatever shape this takes in their minds, that God wants them to walk the spiritual road not
alone but with others.
6. To help others carry their pathologies and to have them help me carry mine
Anthropologists tell us that one of the primary functions of any family is to carry the
pathologies of its members. In past times, when families were stronger, there was a lot less
need for private therapy. The therapy of a public life helped provide what today individuals
must seek elsewhere. To go to church is to seek the therapy of a public life and to be part of
that therapy for others. Simply put, I go to church so that other people might help me carry
what is unhealthy inside of me and that I might help them carry what is unhealthy inside of
them. If this is true, and it is, then we should also not be surprised that we find every kind of
sickness within our churches. But the presence of those pathologies should then not deflect
us from going to church but, instead, positively beckon us there.
7. To dream with others

Edward Schillebeeckx once said: What we dream alone remains a dream, but what
we dream with others can become a reality. I go to church because I realize the impotence

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of my individuality, the limits of my private self. Alone, standing apart from community, I am
no more powerful than my own personality and charisms which, in a world of six billion
people, will not make much of a difference.
When I watch the news at night and see all that is still needed in our world, I go to
bed somewhat depressed, painfully aware of my own powerlessness to change anything.
That depression is well founded. Alone, I am pretty powerless, able to make a splash, but not
a difference. A very large group of people watching the news together could change the
world. The Church is that group of persons. As a world organization with a heart for justice,
peace, and the poor it is far from perfect, but it is the best of a bad lot and it offers positive
hope. The first thing I should do, if I hope to help bring about some justice and peace on this
planet, is to begin to dream with others within a worldwide body of persons committed to
the same dream. If I hope to do that I should go to church.
8. To practice for heaven

Heaven, the Scriptures assure us, will be enjoyed within the communal embrace of
billions of persons of every temperament, race, background, and ideology imaginable. A
universal heart will be required to live there. Thus, in this life, it is good to get some practice
at this, good to be constantly in situations that painfully stretch the heart. Few things and we
certainly all admit this stretch the heart as painfully as does church community. Conversely
when we avoid the pain and mess of ecclesial encounter to walk a less painful private road
or to gather with only persons of our own kind, the heart need not and generally does not
stretch. Going to church is one of the better cardio-vascular spiritual exercises available.
9. For the pure joy of it. .. because it is heaven!

Carol Shields ends her recent novel, Larry's Party, with depicting a dinner party. Larry,
the bungling hero of her story, has invited a motley group of persons to join him for a
Saturday night dinner. The guests include his two ex-wives, his present girlfriend, and an
array of disparate individuals, each of whom is well equipped to illustrate all the virtues and
sins in the world. The party goes as go all dinner parties. There is banter, jealousy, and
argument about politics, religion, and life. Old wounds raise their ugly heads and new
wounds are created even as the evening progresses. People are reminded in subtle ways of
their past stupidities and infidelities, even as these are being washed clean by the
celebration taking place. Food and wine get passed around and, underneath it all, despite
everything that has been wrong and still is wrong, there is a deep joy present. A wee
messianic banquet is taking place. Redemption is happening.
Most of our family or church gatherings pretty much mimic this scene. The family is
home for Christmas, but your spouse is in a sulk, you are fighting tiredness and anger, your
seventeen-year-old is pathologically restless and does not want to be there, your aging
mother is not well and you are anxious about her, your uncle Charlie is as batty as an owl
(and you are worried that he is a pervert), your thirty-year-old unemployed son sits in the

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bathroom most of the day, and everyone is too lazy or selfish to help you prepare the
dinner. You are readying to celebrate but things are far from idyllic. Your family is not the
holy family, nor a Hallmark card for that matter. Its hurts, pathologies, and Achilles heels lie
open not very far below the surface...but you are celebrating Christmas and, underneath it
all, there is joy present. A human version of the messianic banquet is taking place and a
human family is meeting around Jesus's birth.
That is what church, in this world, perennially looks like. Most of the time, it is so
frustrating that we do not see the joy that is, in fact, underneath. In the end, we go to church
for the same reason that we continue to have Christmas dinner together as a family- for the
pure joy it.
Jesus and the Church
What do we know first about Jesus?

• Accounts of his birth can be found in the infancy narratives of
Matthew and Luke
• He was born during the time of Caesar Augustus, the emperor of
the Roman Empire
• Though it is meant to be a book of faith, the Bible (particularly the
Gospels) narrates historical activities and locations of Jesus during
His earthly existence
• He suffered and died under Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea
of that time
• After his resurrection , He stayed for a while before He ascended
into Heaven
How The Apostles Saw Christ In History

By Team of Daughters of St. Paul | The Church’s Amazing Story
The apostles proclaimed Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of humankind. They knew that
the coming of a Redeemer was awaited everywhere from the beginning of time. They knew
this with certitude from the Bible, understood according to the teaching as they had
received it from Jesus and by the light of the Holy Spirit. The first Christians, as they came in
turn to the faith, felt themselves affected by an event which, inserted into human history,
now dominated it completely. The Jews recognized in Jesus Christ the fulfillment of the
promises which God had made to their ancestors. The Gentiles saw themselves as the
objects of an extraordinary divine benevolence which now was fully manifesting itself. The
person and work of Christ, the center of a wonderful plan of Providence, was linked up with
the origin of the world and coincided with the limits of history.

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God, the Creator of man and of the universe, had always watched over His creatures,
both individuals and nations, and had led them paternally toward the realization of their
destinies in unity and in diversity.
Although rebellion and sin, and with them sickness and death, had since the
beginning broken into human history, God had always looked lovingly on His creatures,
making Himself known by His works, "giving to each one life, breath and all things." The
providential action of God is at the origin of nations, of civilizations, and of the religious
traditions of men, to which God makes Himself known through the order of nature and of
conscience, touching their hearts so that they will search for Him to "find Him if possible, by
groping.
Involving themselves in the world, the apostles entered God's realm and found there
traces of His presence, though they were often covered over by the egoism and the disorder
of men enslaved by sin. Because of this, St. Paul calls the pre-Christian phase of salvation
history the period of God's patience and forbearance.
Not all men had lived in the same condition before Christ's coming. The apostles
knew that for the sake of certain men God had in the past taken some extraordinary steps,
choosing for Himself a particular people for the realization of His plan.
About 2,000 B.C., God had chosen Abraham, a just and upright Hebrew, to be the
head of the People of God. With Abraham and his family God had made a covenant: He had
asked Abraham to undertake freely an obedience and a moral commitment and had
promised to him a blessing which would extend to the whole multitude of his descendants,
and through them to all the nations of the earth. in His universal and providential plan, God
had intervened in human history by choosing Abraham. He began with him a special
dialogue: "All the nations will be blessed in your offspring."
A few centuries later, Moses gave to the descendants of Abraham a national
consciousness. This was based on the experience of the extraordinary interventions of God
and on the collective alliance struck by God with Abraham, making of his line a holy nation, a
priestly people"; "to proclaim the name of God to all nations." This collective alliance
required obedience to the ten commandments which God had entrusted to Moses as an
expression of His will. "You will have no God but me. You will not take the name of God in
vain. Remember to keep holy the day of the sabbath. Honor your father and mother. Do not
kill. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Do not covet your neighbor's wife. Do not covet your neighbor's goods."
The reason for and goal of this special intervention was the formation of a people
who would proclaim Him all over the earth, in view of the universal new covenant and the
perfect revelation which God would bring about in the fullness of time through His
ambassador, the Messiah. "Messiah" is a Jewish expression meaning anointed or
consecrated.

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The giving of the New Covenant is marked by an intimate presence of God to men
and by the spread all over the earth of the knowledge of God and of His love. An important
text of the prophet Jeremiah announces this:
"Behold, says the Lord, the day is coming when I will establish with Israel and with
Judah a new covenant…and this is the covenant which I will establish with Israel: I will place
my law in their hearts and impress it on their minds; they will be my people, and I will be
their God. A similar text from Ezekiel adds: "I will give you a new heart, and I will place in you
a new spirit,...I will place my spirit in you and you will walk in my law.
This New Covenant is the one which God established in Jesus Christ. Paul the apostle
sums up this great event in these words: "In the fullness of time, God sent his Son, born of a
woman, born under the law (of Moses) so that we might receive adoption as sons of God.
Since that time, the covenant with the Jewish people has spread, in a new and universal
kingdom, with Jesus Christ as its, center: man-God, mediator of salvation, savior of all men.
In Him, God is present in humanity; through Him, men are transformed and made
able to approach God.
What would you think if you read that message for the first time, perhaps after years
of wondering what life is all about and whether or not God cares about you? Imagine, then,
the impact of the "Good News on those to whom it was first preached by men whose own
lives had been wholly transformed through the experience of Jesus, the God-man!
No wonder that in a few years, thanks to their witness, belief in Jesus Christ spread
with incredible speed!
The Major Events in the Life of Jesus

that Established the Church
Though the Church sprung forth at the time of the Pentecost (the birthday of the
Church), the laying down of her foundations unfolded in the major events in the life of Jesus.
The Preaching of the Kingdom

The Kingdom of God is the central theme of Jesus’ preaching and
the content of His symbolic actions. This Kingdom is not a place but
God’s dynamic and active presence in the lives of the people. By
preaching the Kingdom, Jesus is giving us a new lifestyle, a new
way of living, aligned to the will of the Father. The preaching of
God’s Kingdom became the mission of the Church.
Call of the Twelve

This refers to the twelve tribes of Israel. They are ordinary people
who form a community with Jesus as their Master. He shares with

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them His mission, the Good News, and the Cross. They are rehabilitated sinners who
recognized their sins, frailties, and imperfections. Nevertheless, they were still chosen and
eventually, became the ones who led and carried out what Jesus has started.
Promise to Peter
In the ministry of Jesus, Peter has a prominent role. Despite his
weaknesses, Jesus chose Him to become the cornerstone upon
which He would build His Church. He has a very important role in
the church of Jerusalem, becoming the Apostle to the Jews. That’s
why, in the Catholic tradition, Peter is regarded as the first pope of
the Church by virtue of being chosen as the her first leader.
The Last Supper

Also regarded as the first Mass, the Last Supper is the memorial
that Jesus established for His followers to keep on. By sitting
together in one table and sharing the same bread and wine, this
sacred meal became the venue for fellowship and communion for
Christians everywhere.
Pentecost
Through the coming of the Holy Spirit, the disciples had fully
understood the person and mission of Jesus. They were given
effective powers to go out and proclaim the Good News. They
were recognized and they boldly and fearlessly go on mission. The
Church came to being with the event of Pentecost.
Denaux-Kung Summary
 In the pre-Easter period, Jesus did not found the Church; it was His preaching and ministry
that lay the foundation of the emergence of the post-resurrection Church.
 The Church started in the time of resurrection.
 The foundation of the Church is the entire life, person, and mission of Jesus Christ who is
sent by the Father, sending the Holy Spirit. It is only at the time of the resurrection and
Pentecost that the apostles fully understood the person and mission of Jesus.

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 They were able to understand what Jesus was doing before and was given the power to
proclaim the Good News when the Holy Spirit descended upon them.
 Whatever the apostles proclaimed in the mission were all anchored to Jesus’ life.
 The emergence of the Church did not happen in an instant but rather was completed in
the Pentecost event.
The Church’s Beginning
Our sources for the knowledge of Christian life in the present time are primarily the
New Testament writings, particularly the Acts of the Apostles and Letters of St. Paul.
The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost

Acts 2:1-12
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a
sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where
they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to
rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other
tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under
heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each
one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these
who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native
language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and
Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near
Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear
them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked
one another, “What does this mean?”
Peter addressed the crowd and made a compelling speech about Jesus as the Lord
and Messiah raised by God to save His people. After listening to him, people asked the
apostles to baptize them. About three thousand joined their movement, devoting
themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the
prayers. This kind of new lifestyle, the ‘Jesus lifestyle,’ was very apparent in this following
passage.
Acts 2:44-47

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All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their
possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as
they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food
with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.

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LA CONSOLACION COLLEGE BACOLOD

Galo Corner Gatuslao Streets, Bacolod City 6100, Philippines

Church is defined as the community of men and

The Origin of the Church

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The Nature of the Church

The Church’s Ultimate Destiny

Eventually, the Church’s ultimate destiny is to share in

The Four Marks of the Church

One: By virtue of her source and origin, the Church is one.

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The Church’s Main Biblical Images

The Body of Christ

The Temple of the Holy Spirit

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1. Because it is not good to be alone

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2. To take my rightful place humbly within the family of humanity

3. Because God calls me there

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4. To dispel my fantasies about myself

5. Because ten thousand saints have told me so

7. To dream with others

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8. To practice for heaven

9. For the pure joy of it. .. because it is heaven!

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Jesus and the Church

What do we know first about Jesus?

How The Apostles Saw Christ In History

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The Major Events in the Life of Jesus

The Preaching of the Kingdom

Call of the Twelve

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The Last Supper

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The Church’s Beginning

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost

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