Essay on the religious document ‘Lumen Gentium’
The most important document of the Vatican Council II is probably the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium on the Church, this document was worked through several schemes that presided over a certain rejection of the conciliar parents at first, and then they were working through the commissionTheological of the Council until reaching a scheme. We are going to give some small clues to be able to understand this important document well and that the Church’s life has marked so much after the council.
The document consists of eight chapters that could be paired by two by two to know two aspects of the mystery of the Church. This allows us to glimpse this supernatural reality that God has wanted to constitute through Jesus Christ as a universal sign of salvation and as a means of achieving unity of all human race. The first chapter speaks of the mystery of the Church, the Church was prefigured in revelation as a plan of salvation of God, with the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. Chapter two speaks of the people of God, belonging and participation of the Church of the different members of Humanity. The third chapter is the hierarchical constitution of the Church, including bishops as successors of the apostles, the episcopal school, presbyters and deacons.
Fourth chapter speaks of the laity, called to contribute to the apostolate transforming the world with its testimony. Chapter five is the vocation to holiness, where we are all called to be apostles in the mystical body of Christ. The sixth chapter speaks of the religious and the consecrated life that evangelical advice, as a lifestyle outside their hierarchical structure. Chapter seven speaks of the Church of Heaven Eschatology, trying to become an increasingly effective but imperfect sign than to reach its perfection only in heaven. Chapter Eight speaks of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a culmen model and model of the Church, which has already reached the perfection that the gift of the Immaculate Conception received, and of the Assumption and is already in the sky. She is our goal and lawyer, who interceives for us in the graces of being faithful of this gift that is the Catholic faith.
We can speak clearly of a before and after regarding the Catholic eschatological teaching of the Second Vatican Council, where there is a renewal in a more explicit and systematic way. Both the themes of the parousia, as well as the resurrection of the flesh, or renewal of the world had been limited to the death of the human being, falling into a dualism that remained importance to the resurrection of the flesh of soul’s salvation. The central approaches of the eschatological approach were very far from the Pascual and Trinity mystery. Thus remaining the eschatological reflection far removed for Christian living.
Pope San Juan XXIII, in his opening speech of the Second Vatican Council (11-X-1962), said:
The supreme interest of the ecumenical council is that the sacred deposit of the Christian doctrine be guarded and taught more and more effectively. Doctrine, which includes the entire man, composed of soul and body;And that, to us, pilgrims on this earth, he commands us to go to the celestial homeland. This demonstrates how our mortal life of luck that we fulfill our duties from citizens of the earth and heaven, and thus achieve the end established by God. This means that all men, considered both individually and socially, have the duty to tend without truce, throughout their lives, to the achievement of heavenly goods;and to use, take two for that purpose, all earthly goods, without their use serve as prejudice to eternal happiness.
This dogmatic constitution presents the Church as the theological mystery, a deep reality printed by God himself.
It was the father who from eternity offered men the possibility of participating in divine life, through the affiliation of the son. Creation will end in the new heavens and the new earth. The work of Christ until the end of the united times men to Him grow as a people gathered with the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
This penultimate chapter together with the eighth, were the origin of the preparatory phase of the council.
This chapter seven speaks of a pilgrim church in the face of the celestial church, wantsLa Trinidad and Los Angeles are the complete community of this Church. All members of the militant church and the purgative church are ordered by vocation and others by proximity to join the brothers who are already in the triumphant church.
It is the eschatology that unites the three states of the Church so that the people walk with Christ until the end of the times. It is therefore the Church a divine project that has not reached the consummation, both its laws and its sacraments are marked by an expiration that remember the definitive stadium that God has reserved for us. The Church has a germinal nature, from the mystery until the return of the Lord to consummate the kingdom. In this chapter seven there is more than salvation of a full communion with God and with the saints, which means that sanctifying itself is more important than simply saving.
In number 48 we find a definition of church where it is narrated that Christ raised on earth attracted everyone;Having resurrected from among the dead (RM 6,9), he sent about the disciples to his vivifier spirit, and for him he made his body, which is the Church, a universal sacrament of salvation;Being sitting to the right of the Father, he acts incessantly in the world to lead men to the Church and, through it, unite them more closely and make them participate in his glorious life by feeding them with his body and blood and blood. So the promised restoration we expect, already began in Christ, is driven with the mission of the Holy Spirit and continues in the Church ..
It means that being a church is being linked to Christ through the clite and being part of the body of the redeemed. We see that the Council give the target of mystery Ticia. Christ appears as the protos and the foundation and end of the Church. His death and resurrection renews humanity and the creation of his Easter and through the Church an energy arises that divinized all men transforming the course of history. We highlight that in LG 48 the answer is trinitarian and pascual. This eschatological argument does not intend to tell us when or how will the end of time be, simply to instruct ourselves in an adequate and deep way of how we should be prepared to receive the Lord.Logically this response must be free to take the divine invitation.
The number 49 to 51 of LG speaks of the unity of the three stages of the Church speaks of those who pilgrim, of the deceased, of which they purify themselves and also of those who already enjoy contemplating the same God one and triune.
At the same time the existence of the blessed always the hope of those who pilgrimage through the land in several ways:
- The blessed who interceives before God for two living (that is, the saints are as brothers we ask for help because they are already of Christ)
- That the saints already enjoy the celestial homeland, makes us think of eternal life as a final goal.Thanks to the saints we learn exemplary walking towards holiness
Finally there is talk of postmortal existence where death does not have the last word, because in addition to honoring them with memory we are strengthened by their prayers and we offer votes for those who need postmortem purification. This enters the theological picture of Church as a family or community in which the strange members linked to love. The relationship of these three stages that is a single body in Christ is unified by the Holy Spirit.
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