Summary of “Lumen Gentium”
(The Church in the Modern World)
-By Jayson M. Brunelle, M.Ed.

Of the 16 documents that emerged from the Council, four documents, in particular, stand out as documents of the highest caliber, demanding full and unconditional assent of both the intellect and the will by all the faithful, without exception. These four Dogmatic Constitutions are Dei Verbum, SacrosanctumConcilium, GaudiumetSpes and Lumen Gentium. This last constitutional document, Lumen Gentium, was solemnly promulgated on November 21, 1964, by Pope Paul VI, who continued, and ultimately brought to conclusion, the Second Vatican Council that his predecessor had begun.
Lumen Gentium, has played a most significant role in defining the nature, mission and identity of the Catholic Church in the modern world, and has had a monumental impact on theology in general, ecclesiology in particular, and additionally in the thought, preaching and writings of the first four post-conciliar popes, Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul I, Blessed Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, all of whom were present at the Council as theological contributors.
For the sake of precision and accuracy, a summary of and occasional brief commentary on each of the eight chapters that comprise the document shall be presented in chronological order. Thus, the sections/chapters to be covered shall include:

(1) The Mystery of the Church;
(2) On the People of God;
(3) On the Hierarchical Structure of the Church and in Particular on the Episcopate;
(4) The Laity;
(5) The Universal Call to Holiness in the Church;
(6) Religious;
(7) The Eschatological Nature of the Pilgrim Church and its Union with the Church in Heaven;
(8) The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God in the Mystery of Christ and the Church.

INTRODUCTION
The “Introduction” contains the thesis of the document, as the Council Fathers explain that since “Christ is the Light of nations,” (which is the English translation of the Latin title, Lumen Gentium) the “sacred synod…eagerly desires…to bring the light of Christ to all men” (LG, 1). Therefore, “since the Church is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of…union with God and of the unity of the whole human race, it desires…to unfold more fully to the faithful of the Church and to the whole world its own inner nature and universal mission” (LG, 1). This, then, constitutes the purpose and nature of the document.

CHAPTER ONE - “THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH”

This first chapter provides a summary of the very nature of the Church as both the visible and invisible reality through which all persons are called to participate in the Trinitarian, divine life of God through, with and in Christ Jesus. “Fallen in Adam, God the Father did not leave men to themselves, but ceaselessly offered helps to salvation, in view of Christ the Redeemer, ‘who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature’” (LG, 2). God “planned to assemble in the holy Church all those who would believe in Christ” (LG, 2). Thus, God’s plan was to reestablish all of creation in His Son, the Christ, through whom all persons would be enabled to become adopted sons and daughters of the Father, brothers and sisters in Christ. This is accomplished chiefly through the Church’s sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. Baptism grafts and unites the elect to Christ’s Mystical Body, and enables them to participate in Christ’s work of Redemption, perpetuated in the Sacred Liturgy. “As often as the sacrifice of the cross in which Christ our Passover was sacrificed (1 Cor 5:7) is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried on, and in the sacrament of the Eucharistic bread, the unity of all believers who form one body in Christ (cf. 1 Cor 10:17) is both expressed and brought about. All men are called to this union with Christ, who is the light of the world, from whom we go forth, through whom we live, and toward whom our whole life strains” (LG, 3).
After Christ had accomplished his sublime work of redemption which, as stated above, is continued and renewed in an unbloody fashion each time the holy sacrifice of the Mass is celebrated, the Holy Spirit of God was sent on the day of Pentecost in order to continue and bring to fruition the Church’s work of sanctification. “The Spirit dwells in the Church and in the hearts of the faithful, as in a temple (cf. 1 Cor 3:16). In them he prays on their behalf and bears witness to the fact that they are adopted sons” (LG, 4). Christ, in preaching the “good news” of the Gospel, established his kingdom on earth, which is the Church. Having endured his passion and death, the risen Christ sent his Spirit in accordance with his promise to the disciples, that they would be led into the fullness of the truth. “From this source the Church, equipped with the gifts of its Founder and faithfully guarding his precepts of charity, humility and self-sacrifice, receives the mission to proclaim and to spread among all peoples the kingdom of Christ and of God and to be on earth the initial budding forth of that kingdom” (LG, 5).
The nature of the kingdom of God, or the Church established by Christ, is conveyed and depicted by the Lord via the use of metaphors. For instance, “the Church is a sheepfold whose one and indispensable door is Christ (Jn 10:1-10). It is a flock of which God himself foretold he would be the shepherd (cf. Is 40:11; Ex 34:11), and whose sheep, although ruled by human shepherds, are nevertheless continuously led and nourished by Christ himself, the good shepherd and the prince of the shepherds (cf. Jn 10:11; 1 Pt 5:4), who gave his life for the sheep (cf. Jn 10:11-15)” (LG, 6). The Church is the Building of God, as Christ refers to himself as “the stone which the builders have rejected which has become the cornerstone” (Mt 21:42), and this edifice is built on the foundation of the apostles. Additionally, “the true vine is Christ who gives life and the power to bear abundant fruit to the branches, that is, to us…” (Jn 15:1-5).

While Christ uses a multiplicity of metaphors to convey the nature of the Church, as has been shown, Lumen Gentium points out the additional metaphors of the Church as “mother” (Gal 4:26), and the “spotless spouse of the spotless Lamb, whom Christ ‘loved and for whom he delivered himself up that he might sanctify her’ (Eph 5:26), whom he unites to himself by an unbreakable covenant, and whom, once purified, he willed to be cleansed and joined to himself, subject to him in love and fidelity (cf. Eph 5:24), and whom, finally, he filled with heavenly gifts for all eternity, in order that we may know the love of God and of Christ for us, a love which surpasses all knowledge” (cf. Eph 3:19) (LG, 6). While on earth, the Church “journeys in a foreign land” (cf. 2 Cor 5:6).

“By communicating his Spirit, Christ made his brothers…mystically the components of his own body….Through Baptism, we are formed in the likeness of Christ: ‘For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body’ (1 Cor 12:13). In this sacred rite a oneness with Christ’s death and resurrection is both symbolized and brought about: ‘For we were buried with him by means of Baptism into death,’ and if ‘we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be so in the likeness of his resurrection also’” (Rm 6:4-5) (LG, 7). It is precisely in the partaking of the Eucharist that we are united with both Christ and with each other: “‘Because the bread is one, we though many, are one body, all of us who partake of the one bread’” (1 Cor 10:17) (LG, 7). Thus, we are truly members of the one Mystical Body of Christ, with each individual having his own unique role, mission and charism. “From all this it follows that if one member endures anything, all the members coendure it, and if one member is honored, all the members together rejoice (cf. 1 Cor 12:26) (LG, 7).
Chapter one continues on to speak of the Holy Spirit as the principle of unification which binds Christ, the head, to his Mystical Body, the Church. Thus, the Spirit can be compared to the human soul, or the “life-principle” in man, which unites the diverse members and simultaneously acts as the animating principle.
The document proceeds to explain the intrinsic unity of

(1) the earthly, hierarchical Church, “the community of faith, hope and charity, as an entity with visible delineation through which [Christ] communicates truth and grace to all” and

(2) the invisible, Mystical Body of the Church that transcends both space and time. These two radically inter-connected realities “are not to be considered as two realities, nor are the visible assembly and the spiritual community, nor the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly things; rather they form one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and human element. The document uses the analogy of the Hypostasis in Christ, whereby Christ’s perfect humanity and his perfect divinity are truly, inseparably united in a hypostatic union in the one Divine Person of Christ. Thus, the Church, like Christ, is simultaneously human and divine, earthly and heavenly.”
Chapter One concludes with the above articulated clarification, and summarizes the Church’s nature and essence thusly: “This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Savior, after his resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd (Jn 21:17), and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority (cf. Mt. 28:18), which he erected for all ages as ‘the pillar and mainstay of the truth’ (1 Tm 3:15). This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the Successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity” (LG, 8).

CHAPTER TWO - “ON THE PEOPLE OF GOD”

Chapter Two of Lumen Gentium begins with an explanation of the communal nature of God’s call to

and work of holiness and salvation; specifically, how God chooses to sanctify and save us as a “people.” We read that “God…does not make men holy and save them merely as individuals, without bond or link between one another. Rather has it pleased him to bring men together as one people, a people who acknowledges him in truth and serves him in holiness” (LG, 9). Thus, God elected and brought together his chosen people, the Israelites, revealing both Himself and His will to them, and establishing covenant relationships with them. God’s dealings with His chosen people, as recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, or the Old Testament, were, however, a prelude, preparation and a figure of

his ultimate self-revelation and New Covenant in Christ Jesus. This New Covenant, or New Testament, was and is established in the Blood of Christ, the price of our salvation. Thus, “for those who believe in Christ, who are reborn…through the word of the living God, not from the flesh but from water and the Holy Spirit, are finally established as ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people…who in times past were not a people, but are now the people of God’” (1 Pt 2:9-10) (LG, 9). Christ himself is the “head” of this “messianic” people, in whom the Holy Spirit dwells as in a temple, who are to abide by the new commandment to love as Christ loves. The end, or goal, is the kingdom of God, which Christ began on earth and which will be brought to perfection at the end of time, when Christ shall come again and return all of creation to the perfect glorification of the Father. Moreover, like the Israelites of old, who wandered in exile through the desert in search of their promised land, and were already called the Church of God; so too, the new Israel, “while in this present age goes in search of a future and abiding city, is called the Church of Christ” (LG, 9).
Christ, the High Priest of the new and eternal covenant, has established his people as “a kingdom and priests to God the Father” (cf. Rv 1:6; cf. 5:9-10). The document goes on to explain that “the baptized, by regeneration and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are consecrated as a spiritual house and a holy priesthood, in order that through all those works which are those of the Christian man they may offer spiritual sacrifices and proclaim the power of him who has called them out of darkness into his marvelous light” (cf. 1 Pt 2:4-10) (LG, 10). Thus, the document makes clear the fact that as the Christian People of God, having been incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ through Baptism, even the very least in rank amongst the laity have thereby been made participants and sharers in Christ’s Priestly, Prophetic and Kingly office. And it is primarily through our participation in the Eucharistic Liturgy that we, the Priestly People, exercise our common, royal priesthood by offering ourselves through, with and in Christ to the perfect glorification of the Eternal Father as “living sacrifice[s], holy and pleasing to God” (cf. Rm 12:1) (LG, 10). While the document emphasizes the exalted Priestly status of all the Baptized, it does not neglect to distinguish between the different types of participation in the one Priesthood of Christ. While it is true that the ministerial priesthood of those who have received the sacrament of Orders is interrelated with the common, royal priesthood of all the Baptized, it is additionally true that these two types of participation differ in both essence and in degree. “The ministerial priest, by the sacred powers he enjoys, teaches and rules the priestly people; acting in the person of Christ, he makes present the Eucharistic sacrifice, and offers it to God in the name of all the people. But the faithful, in virtue of their royal priesthood, join in the offering of the Eucharist. They likewise exercise that priesthood in receiving the sacraments, in prayer and thanksgiving, in the witness of a holy life, and by self-denial and active charity” (LG, 10).

Elaborating on the role played by the laity, the document goes on to state the following: “Taking part in the Eucharistic sacrifice, which is the fount and apex of the whole Christian life, they offer the divine victim to God, and offer themselves along with It. Thus both by reason of the offering and through Holy Communion all take part in this liturgical service, not indeed, all in the same way but each in that way which is proper to himself. Strengthened in Holy Communion by the Body of Christ, they then manifest in a concrete way that unity of the People of God which is suitably signified and wondrously brought about by this most august sacrament” (LG, 11). Surrounding and leading to the Holy Eucharistic Liturgy, the “source and summit” of all the Church’s activity and that heavenly banquet which truly unites heaven and earth, there exist each of the remaining sacraments of the Church, which collectively constitute the fullness of the means of sanctification and, ultimately, the divinization of man, who is called to become by grace what Christ is by nature.
Paragraph 12 of Lumen Gentium addresses the Prophetic role of the People of God. Speaking on the Sensusfidelium, which literally translated means, ”sense of the faithful,” the document has this to say: “The holy People of God shares also in Christ’s prophetic office; it spreads abroad a living witness to him, especially by means of a life of faith and charity and by offering to God a sacrifice of praise, the tribute of lips which give praise to his name (cf. Heb 13:15). The entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One (cf. Jn 2:20, 27), cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole people’s supernatural discernment in matters of faith when ’from the bishops down to the last of the lay faithful’ they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals. That discernment in matters of faith is aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth. It is exercised under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority, in faithful and respectful obedience to which the People of God accepts that which is not just the word of men but truly the Word of God” (cf. Thes 2:13) (LG, 12).

Unfortunately, this reality of the Sensusfidelium has, on not a few occasions, been mis-applied, misunderstood and misused by small factions of dissenters within the Church in an effort to effect changes in official Church teaching on fundamental issues of faith and morality which constitute the Sacred Deposit of Faith. Thus, it becomes essential to distinguish mere theological opinion, even if this latter is widely held, from those essential teachings of the faith that do, indeed, comprise the Sacred Deposit of Faith; truths which can never be “changed” or “altered” in any way due to the fact that they are not man-made but are, in fact, divinely revealed truths. The magisterium has no authority to change or alter any of the truths of the faith; rather, its function as the official teaching body of the Church is to preserve, safeguard and articulate these truths which God Himself has revealed, He who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
In addition to the sacraments and the ministries within the Church by which God sanctifies His People, the Spirit additionally imparts certain special “charisms” “among the faithful of every rank” (LG, 12). The Church understands that the Spirit of God blows wherever the Spirit wills, and that ”By these gifts he makes [the faithful] fit and ready to undertake the various tasks and offices which contribute towards the renewal and building up of the Church” (LG, 12). Said charisms are to be submitted to the judgment and competence of the hierarchy, whose duty it is to “not…extinguish the Spirit, but to test all things and hold fast to that which is good” (cf. 1 Thes 5:12; 19-21) (LG, 12).