ST. AUGUSTINE: THE SHIP ON THE GALILEE SIGNIFIES THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, WHICH WILL ENDURE GREAT STORMS—ESPECIALLY NEAR THE END
As such, there will be times when it is tossed by the waves, and Jesus seems asleep—particularly as the Church enters the “end times.”
He also notes that the ship does not break apart—there is no room for any “branch theory” of the one Church invariably breaking apart into equally valid schisms in the writings of St. Augustine or any of the Fathers. The Church is one, and will remain one, until Christ’s return. There are splinter groups, there are schisms, there are heresies. But Christ’s Catholic Church remains fundamentally and essentially intact in its faith, worship, and government, until the end.
Ultimate victory will be won by all those who stay inside the ship, who do not lose faith in Christ and His providence, and do not presumptuously propose alternatives to the one Church.
“For that ship prefigured the Church, while He [Christ] is on high [in heaven]. For if we do not, in the first place, understand this thing which that ship suffered respecting the Church, those incidents were not significant, but simply transient. But if we see the real meaning of those signs expressed in the Church, it is manifest that the actions of Christ are a kind of speech…
As the end of the world approaches, errors increase, terrors multiply, iniquity increases, infidelity increases. The light, in short, which—by the Evangelist John himself, is fully and clearly shown to be charity [love], so much so that he says, ‘Whoso hates his brother is in darkness’ (1 John 2:11)—that light, I say, is very often extinguished.
This darkness of enmity between brethren increases, daily increases, and Jesus is not yet come.
How does it appear to increase? ‘Because iniquity will abound, and the love of many will begin to wax cold’ (Matt. 24:12). Darkness increases, and Jesus is not yet come. Darkness increasing, love waxing cold, iniquity abounding—these are the waves that agitate the ship [the Church]; the storms and the winds are the clamors of revilers [those who revile the Church]. Thence love waxes cold. Thence the waves do swell, and the ship [the Church] is tossed.
‘And a great wind blowing, the sea rose.’ Darkness was increasing, discernment was diminishing, iniquity was growing. ‘When therefore, they had rowed about twenty-five or thirty furloughs.’ Meanwhile, they struggled onward, kept advancing; nor did those winds and Stroms, and waves and darkness effect either that the ship [the Church] should not make way, or that it should break in pieces and founder; but amid all those evils it went on.
For, notwithstanding iniquity abounds, and the love of many waxes cold, and the waves do swell, the darkness grows and the wind rages, yet the chip is moving forward, ‘for he that perseveres to the end, the same shall be saved’ (Matt. 24:12).
St. Augustine, “Tractate 25 on the Gospel of St. John” (§§5-6)
Nemer Haddad
