Theological Foundations new file

115 CHAPTER FOUR THE ECCLESIAL DIMENSION OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE The Church plays an important role in guiding the faithful as they try to live Christian lives and the two authors are very well aware of this fact. Therefore, they strongly emphasize in their teaching that Christian formation takes place in the Church and through the Church. Father Papczynski and Father Matulaitis-Matulewicz each bring out different aspects of this community of salvation. Hence, in this chapter, I depart from the pattern which I had adopted in earlier Chapters and discuss sep- arately the concept of the Church as presented by each author. However, both of these concepts provide a very similar image of the Church: Jesus Christ is the Shepherd, and the bishops and priests are His representa- tives on earth. In their teaching, the two authors place a very strong emphasis on the need to support our shepherds and on the necessity to build the Church and see to its growth and development. For this reason, they make pastoral work one of the main goals of the Marian congrega- tion. 1. The Biblical Vision of the Church Father Papczynski’s teaching on the Church draws from and elaborates on the biblical thought about the Church; the author brings the evangeli- cal image of the Church closer to the reader. He adopts a characteristic manner of presenting the nature of the Church; the manner to be later fol- lowed by Vatican II, which consists in using various images associated with tending the soil and with the life of shepherds (cf. KK 6). 1 Through these images, the author demonstrates his understanding of the Church, his reverence, devotion and love for it. For Father Stanislaus, the Church is — to quote the words of St. Paul — “God’s