Church

"Henn believes that the Church is a uniquely distinctive grouping of people because its origins and aims fundamentally concern the relationship of human beings with God, now made possible through Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit. Because this relationship is initiated by God, the Church is rightly understood as the result of his redeeming activity. It is best described by the essential activities which qualify this relationship: believing, celebrating and serving." "Henn argues that the encounter with Christ which gave birth to the Church in the first place is as necessary as ever today, two thousand years later. Today the Church needs to be a community in which people once again can meet the living, risen Jesus. All those who know Christ should be brothers and sisters to one another and are meant to share the eucharist, which Jesus gave the Church the evening before his death. The ecumenical movement during the past century is serving as a basis for realistic steps towards greater communion, which hopefully will one day make such eucharistic sharing more possible."--BOOK JACKET.

William Henn is Professor of Ecclesiology at the Gregorian University in Rome.