What´s Ecclesiology?

Ecclesiology is derived from two Greek words meaning “assembly” and “word” –when the two combine it means the study of the church. The church is the congregation of believers who are God’s people. Ecclesiology is crucial to understand God’s purpose for believers and the church in the world today (www.gotquestion.org)

Ecclesiology is the doctrine of the church: The study of its origin, nature, ordinances, constitution and activities (Bragg, Para 1).

VANIER’S THOUGHT IN LIGHT OF OUR SELF UNDERSTANDING AS CHRISTIANS

In 1950, at the age of twenty-two, Vanier chose to leave the Navy to respond to a gentle call of Jesus to leave and follow him (Vanier, 1994). He realized that it was the duration for him to change when he noticed he preferred spending more of his evenings walking the ship’s flight deck and praying his breviary than going into town with his fellow officers. With this act we see Vanier giving Christianity a priority, thus this is an encouragement to other people.

In 1963, around Christmas Vanier visited Pe`re Thomas Philipe in Trosly-Breuil. Pe`re Thomas had just begun to serve as chaplain at le Val fleuri (The valley of the flowers), this is a small institution for developmentally disabled men. Vanier described his encounter with Pe`re Thomas and the men of le Val fleuri as follows:

I was really impressed by the men who had become Fr. Thomas’s friends. He had sensed their spiritual openness together with their place in God’s heart. All of them had so much life, had suffered a lot and thirsted so deeply for friendship. Within each gesture and each word a question arose: “Will you visit us again?” “Do really you love me?” Their cry of pain and their thirst for love touched me greatly (Vanier, 1995, 15).

Vanier’s view on the...

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...curity and insecurity of trust that individuals always have; it is the struggle against all the powers of fear and self centeredness in us, as well as the resilient human need to control someone else. To some extent we go out of control in our own lives when we are open to other people. Communion makes us vulnerable to what is present in a community (Vanier, 1998).

Human beings always strive to move towards communion while avoiding brokenness in our communities.

COMPARISON OF VANIER’S THOUGHT AND VATICAN II ON HUMAN PERSON

Vatican II states that the freedom of human persons originates from the principle of human dignity, a dignity born of their being endowed with reason and free will and therefore bearing personal responsibility to seek the truth; this is specifically religious truth (Vatican II, 1998)

This is in contrast to Vanier who view human person as sacred.