Church - Michael G. Lawler

Theologians today take for granted that the principal achievement of the Second Vatican Council was its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium. The central core of this central document - its Vision of Church as communion - is also being taken for granted. But this Vision was hard won - or, rather, recovered - at the Council, and its significance should not be allowed to fade with time or familiarity.

The Church: A Spirited Communion emanates from the ecclesiology of Vatican II as a systematic treatment of this Vision of communion: graced, prophetic, sacramental, spiritual, and ministerial. It is about a Church in communion with the laity, the hierarchy, and with al the Churches. Since Church" is God in communion with the faithful, this book is primarily theo-logical and only secondarily ecclesio-logical. It is primarily about the God who is Triune, who calls the Church into existence, and who seeks in every age a people who adhere to "God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).