I love a challenge!!! It makes me pray, research, and think! Since I've prayed all day for this forum, and I am too tired to think, I'll just throw some thoughts around off the top of my head.
Acts 1:6 Are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Isreal? What a loaded question. Jesus basically says, "None of your business". I think Jesus meant that in his capacity as the Son of Man, He couldn't say the time of His return, but in his Oneness with the Father as the Son of God, He knows. OR He knew that the Apostles did not have the capacity to comprehend what would take place for the next X thousands of years.
No man knows the state of the Church at the time of His return. It's difficult enough trying to explain the state the Church is in now. 500 years ago everybody was throwing anathemas all over the place. Since then the Church has matured and no longer uses that kind of language. 142 years ago the Church had the maturity (audacity to some die hards) to invite Protestant delegates to observe the proceedings of Vatican 1. At Vatican II, Protestant observers actually showed up. It was the first council to use telephones. It was the first council to include women. More extraordinary than that, the Church broadened the definition of herself to include all baptized believers, and that separation was a matter of degree.
816 "The sole Church of Christ [is that] which our Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. . . . This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in (
subsistit in) the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him."[sup]267[/sup]
The Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism explains: "For it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, that we believe that our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ into which all those should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the People of God."[sup]268[/sup] (don't get your backs up. You have to follow the footnotes to know what "People of God" means)
Wounds to unity
817 In fact, "in this one and only Church of God from its very beginnings there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly censures as damnable. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame."[sup]269[/sup] The ruptures that wound the unity of Christ's Body - here we must distinguish heresy, apostasy, and schism[sup]270[/sup] - do not occur without human sin:
Where there are sins, there are also divisions, schisms, heresies, and disputes. Where there is virtue, however, there also are harmony and unity, from which arise the one heart and one soul of all believers.[sup]271[/sup] (it doesn't say one heart and one soul of Catholics)
818 "However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers . . . . All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church."[sup]272[/sup]
819 "Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth"[sup]273[/sup] are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: "the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements."[sup]274[/sup]
Christ's Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church.
All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him,[sup]275[/sup] and are in themselves calls to "Catholic unity."[sup]276[/sup]
<a name="820">Toward unity
820 "Christ bestowed unity on his Church from the beginning. This unity, we believe, subsists in the Catholic Church as something she can never lose, and we hope that it will continue to increase until the end of time."[sup]277[/sup] Christ always gives his Church the gift of unity, but the Church must always pray and work to maintain, reinforce, and perfect the unity that Christ wills for her. This is why Jesus himself prayed at the hour of his Passion, and does not cease praying to his Father, for the unity of his disciples: "That they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us, . . . so that the world may know that you have sent me."[sup]278[/sup]
The desire to recover the unity of all Christians is a gift of Christ and a call of the Holy Spirit.[sup]279[/sup]
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a9p3.htm
2. No one is unaware of the challenge which all this poses to believers. They cannot fail to meet this challenge. Indeed, how could they refuse to do everything possible, with God's help, to break down the walls of division and distrust, to overcome obstacles and prejudices which thwart the proclamation of the Gospel of salvation in the Cross of Jesus, the one Redeemer of man, of every individual?
I thank the Lord that he has led us to make progress along the path of unity and communion between Christians, a path difficult but so full of joy. Interconfessional dialogues at the theological level have produced positive and tangible results: this encourages us to move forward.
Nevertheless, besides the doctrinal differences needing to be resolved, Christians cannot underestimate the burden of
long-standing misgivings inherited from the past, and of mutual
misunderstandings and
prejudices. Complacency, indifference and
insufficient knowledge of one another often make this situation worse. Consequently, the commitment to ecumenism
must be based upon the conversion of hearts and upon prayer, which will also lead to the
necessary purification of past memories. With the grace of the Holy Spirit, the Lord's disciples, inspired by love, by the power of the truth and by a sincere desire for mutual forgiveness and reconciliation, are called to
re-examine together their painful past and the hurt which that past regrettably continues to provoke even today. All together, they are invited by the ever fresh power of the Gospel to acknowledge with sincere and total objectivity the mistakes made and the contingent factors at work at the origins of their deplorable divisions.
What is needed is a calm, clear-sighted and truthful vision of things, a vision enlivened by divine mercy and capable of freeing people's minds and of inspiring in everyone a renewed willingness, precisely with a view to proclaiming the Gospel to the men and women of every people and nation.
3. At the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church committed herself
irrevocably to following the path of the ecumenical venture, thus heeding the Spirit of the Lord, who teaches people to interpret carefully the "signs of the times" . The experiences of these years have made the Church even more profoundly aware of her identity and her mission in history. The Catholic Church acknowledges and confesses
the weaknesses of her members, conscious that their sins are so many betrayals of and obstacles to the accomplishment of the Saviour's plan. Because she feels herself constantly called to be renewed in the spirit of the Gospel, she does not cease to do penance. At the same time,
she acknowledges and exalts still more the power of the Lord, who fills her with the gift of holiness, leads her forward, and conforms her to his Passion and Resurrection.
Ut Unum Sint
It begs the question:
What is Christ's Church?