A Military Church

Those who have been a Catholic for more than a minute have likely heard at least once the term "Church Militant". I'm not speaking of the news organization for Catholics that sprung out of Detroit, I mean the more theological term you might hear on a Sunday. We refer to those in Heaven as members of the Church, and we here are also called members of the Church - for we are all one Church, we are all members of the Body of Christ, though we have this divide between us currently. What our Catholic predecessors use to classify these different "sections" of the Church, if you will, is in the different states that we are in. There is the Church Triumphant, who have succeeded in running the race and have received the prize that is at the end, which is the welcoming into the presence of God for the rest of eternity. There is the Church Penitent, those who have died and are being purified, currently awaiting their entrance into Heaven. Then there is the Church Militant, which is all of us on the earth who are united with the Church which Christ established.

The part of the Church which we are part of is what I wish to speak on today. The name, I think, is very fitting for us. The word "militant" has the same root as military and so in my mind invokes the image of those of us on earth as a branch of the Lord's military. Unlike the angels whose mission, among the many given to them, is to protect against demonic forces in the world, our mission is not so much against the supernatural but rather the rescue of souls claimed as territory by the Enemy.

We were given the mission by our great commander, Christ, to go out into the world and share His victory (Mark 16:14) with all the world. If you go to the verse in your Bible you'll see the typical translation as "go and preach the gospel", but many do not know the meaning of the word "gospel". You will have heard it called "the good news" which is accurate, but it's a specific good news - it was the message of victory that Caesar would send ahead of him of a great military success so that the cities he would pass through would be ready to celebrate when he arrived. Christ coopted this idea and reinvented it - still with the same meaning of of a military victory and a call to celebrate - but this is the greatest and truly final victory that matters because it is the Kingdom of God having beaten the kingdom of the world. The victory we are called to celebrate is that final victory over the grave, and the celebration of our new right to eternal life as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. The gospel is a tale of victory, triumph of good over evil, the conquering of death, the institution of our King over all the earth.

But, even with this victory there are still battles to be won, and dominions to be conquered. There are still souls to be won over.

Take Matthew 16:18 as an example of our crusade, you might call it - our holy war against the prince of this world (John 14:30). In Matthew it is said that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church. This passage is setting up the authority of the Apostles to lead the Church and Peter as the representative of Christ on the earth, but I wish to focus just on this portion of the passage for this moment. The gates of Hell shall not prevail. Explicit in this verse is the fact that the Church is forward-moving and conquering, and that those called citizens of Hell will be freed from their sin and given the opportunity to be citizens of the Heavenly Kingdom. The Church will have victory in the end, and we will have victory now, though it will not be the complete conquering of others until our King declares it.

Do not think of the gates of Hell as the metallic bars a few feet high of a gated community, for that is not what Christ was describing to His disciples. He acted as king and gave the keys to His kingdom on earth to the steward, Peter (Isaiah 22:22), and so He expected them to imagine the gates of a castle. A fortress, that holds others in as much as it holds others out. Those trapped by their sin, feeling the need to defend it against others, but who really need to be freed from their shackles. They are starving within their black fortress, their people are diseased, and their time is limited. For the Kingdom of God we are not meant to enter in and slay all those within, He tells us to fell the gates. It is after this that we invite those within to enter the Kingdom of our Lord, to become a brother or sister to us.

Soldiers, this is what we are for the Lord. We are more than just this, of course, but we are also soldiers. Proclaim the victory of our King over His enemies (the Gospel). Free those captives, heal them of their infirmities, tell them of their liberation (Luke 4:18-21). Our mission is liberation - not through our own power, but in the name of our King. Our King and commander, He is Christ our Lord and God. The mission we've been given is to go out into the world and win the hearts of others, and we do that with the weapons we've been given to use, Faith, Hope, and Love. We are to take these tools and keep them with us each day and brandish them at every opportunity, for they are our swords as well as the banners we use to proclaim our allegiance to our King. Take them, and wield them often.

Written for VME Catholic, by Ethan Hall