The Joy of becoming a Catholic(2025-10-12)

Dear faithful,

Today's Mass readings speak to us about the Church and the graces we receive in the Church. Very often, the Church is a source of concern or controversy for us: problems with bishops, worries about maintaining tradition in the Church. All these concerns are legitimate, but they should not make us forget that belonging to the Church, beyond the difficulties of the present time, is fundamentally a source of joy for a Catholic. Being part of the holy, Catholic, apostolic, and Roman Church is a great grace, a source of the deepest joy. But what is this joy? In this sermon, I want to explain what makes us joyful to be members of the Church, to be Catholic. To do so, I will refer to the psalm that serves as the introit for our Mass, Psalm 121 (122 in the modern Bibles).

I/ On pilgrimage to the triumphant Church

The introit takes up the first verse of the psalm: “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’” We must put ourselves in the context of this psalm: it was recited by Jewish pilgrims in the Old Testament who, three times a year, were commanded to go to Jerusalem, to the temple, for the three most important feasts of the year. It was a journey that was usually made on foot, and one must imagine the Jew coming from his small village and arriving in Jerusalem: it was an extraordinary sight. Jerusalem is surrounded by mountains and only appears at the last moment, as you descend the mountainside; you cannot see it from afar. But when you finally see it, what joy! This city contained one of the most extraordinary monuments of all time: the temple. At the time of Our Lord, it was most likely the largest building in the world. What an extraordinary sight for someone coming from a small village in Galilee... For this reason, the pilgrim proclaims his joy at going to such a place: “What joy when they told me.” 

Dear faithful, I have taken the liberty of spending some time discussing this bygone era of the Old Testament because this situation of pilgrimage is still our situation in this world. As Catholics, we are paroikoi in this world, to use the Greek expression employed by the Apostle St. Peter in his epistle. That is to say, “sojourner”: we have a country that we love, but our permanent home is not on this earth; we are on our way to the heavenly Jerusalem; the goal of our life is to reach the heavenly Jerusalem, that is, the triumphant Church, the Church of the saints in heaven. To be Catholic is to always keep the desire for heaven in the depths of one's heart. If we lose this desire, then we will stop along the way, like the pilgrims of the New Testament era who had to keep the desire to return to the walls of the holy city in order to endure the fatigue of the journey. 

This is the first joy of the Catholic: his existence has a purpose, he is journeying towards the heavenly Jerusalem, towards heaven, towards the triumphant Church. Our existence is not limited to enriching ourselves in this world, building houses, etc. No, it has a much more motivating purpose: to gain heaven and eternal joy. This should shed light on the difficulties of daily life.

II/ The Militant Church

The introit only repeats the first verse of the psalm, but let us continue reading. I encourage you to read and meditate on the entire psalm. Let us move on to the second verse: “Our feet are standing within your gates, Jerusalem.” 

This may seem a little strange: how can one stand within a gate? We need to refer to the historical context: in the Near East, cities were fortified, and many of these fortifications had a particular type of gate that archaeologists call a “chambered gate.” The gate is elongated, like a small tunnel, which makes it much more difficult to take; it is not enough to simply walk through it, one must fight fiercely. These city gates were therefore like buildings and, in times of peace, they served as markets and meeting places, courthouses, etc. The psalmist ends his journey at this place, not at the temple or in the city itself, but at the gate, a place of bargaining, human affairs, and sometimes even war. It is there that his feet stand firm.

  This gate of the city where the psalmist stands represents the Church militant, of which we are a part. The city of Jerusalem, with its temple, represents the triumphant Church, the Church of heaven, but the gate itself represents the Church militant. As members of the Church militant we have not yet arrived in heaven, the Church militant is the Church of Jesus Christ in the midst of the tribulations of this world, symbolized by this city gate where human activities took place. Being a member of the Church Militant through baptism is a great joy. Of course, this Church is not perfect. As it is located in the midst of the world's activities, it is influenced by them, and its members sometimes allow themselves to be taken in by the spirit of the world, as we often see in our time, but this should not take away from the joy of being a member.

Indeed, despite this fragility, the militant Church remains steadfast, as the psalm says, its feet are firmly planted, so that our feet can be firmly planted too, without risk of faltering. This is the promise made by Our Lord Jesus Christ that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church. This means that the Church will never disappear from the face of the earth. We know that our countries, our civilizations, our cultures, all of these things can disappear, but the Church cannot disappear, because Our Lord promised that He would protect it. This is why sedevacantism is a very serious error, because those who claim that there is currently no true pope or true bishops admit, without saying so, that the Church has failed, that it has disappeared, in its legal structures, from the face of the earth. 

The Church militant, even if it is sometimes temporarily disfigured by modernism, is stable and will remain on this earth until the end of time, which is not guaranteed by any other human reality. This gives stability and security to our lives.

III/ The communion of saints

Finally, there is a third joy that comes from belonging to the Church, which is the joy of the communion of saints. Let us turn to the third verse of the psalm: “Jerusalem, you are built as a city where everything holds together.” There is a connection between all the elements of this city; it is not just a collection of houses placed next to each other, there is an urban plan! From a spiritual point of view, this can be interpreted as the communion of saints.

The communion of saints is the communion of all those who are in state of grace, communion between the members of the Church militant, but not only that, it also connects us to the members of the Church glorious. If we are in the communion of saints in this life, then when we die we will enter the heavenly Jerusalem, after possibly a time of purification in purgatory. What connects all these souls is the bond of charity. The state of grace is therefore not a purely individual reality; it is a bond that connects us to the saints in heaven and to all souls in a state of grace who live on this earth.

The militant Church is well symbolized by this gate of the heavenly city, which was built by Our Lord to give us access to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the glory of heaven. As members of the militant Church, we firmly hope for our salvation, but we are not assured of it. It is only at our death, after passing particular judgment, that we may eventually pass through the gate and enter the heavenly Jerusalem, the glorious Church. For this reason, it is essential that we remain in communion with the saints by maintaining our souls in the state of grace. What a joy it is to be in the state of grace! Although we are still in this world, through the state of grace we are already members of the heavenly Jerusalem, of the glorious Church, of the city where “everything holds together.”

 Dear faithful, Psalm 121, which serves as the introit for our Mass, should strengthen our joy as Catholics. We are indeed on a pilgrimage to the most beautiful of destinations, the heavenly Jerusalem; we are members of the most stable institution there is, guaranteed by the promises of Our Lord; and we can, through the state of grace, already be in communion with all the saints in heaven.

fr. Fillebeen