Catechism Corner | Why Catholic?

What does Catholic mean?Catholic means universal.Catholic comes from the Greek word "katholikos," which means "according to the whole."To be Catholic means that we have the whole Bible and we go out to the whole world. To be Catholic means that we have the fullness God revealed in Jesus Christ. The Bible says in Christ Jesus, the fullness of God dwells in bodily form. In Jesus, God himself dwells in our body. In Jesus is established His Church, his community gathered to worship God.

Jesus gave us everything –when Jesus was on the cross, when Jesus gave the Eucharist at the last supper. He give you and me the fullness of truth, the fullness of revelation. He handed that down through the apostles, and through his apostles and the other disciples, he gave us the whole the sacred scripture. Not only that, but in Matthew 28: 19, Jesus said: "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations."

Very, very early in the history of the church, a man named Ignatius of Antioch was captured by the Romans. He was in chains as a prisoner on the way to Rome, to be ground by the teeth of lions. To be killed for the faith. On his way he wrote letters to different churches or Christian communities. One of those letters was to the Christian community in Smyrna. He said: "Where Christ Jesus is there, there is the Catholic Church." People of Smyrna knew what he was talking about. So we know that the term Catholic Church was used for the church at least before 107 AD and led through the prayer of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, we can live in communion with Jesus.We want to not just take bits and pieces of the faith.We don't just want pick and choose the thing in the Bible that we like and throw out parts that we don't, but we want to be close to God.We know the whole thing, the genuine thing, and we want to go out to the whole world.