The Story of the Church Textbook

From Pentecost to Modern Times

Phillip Campbell

• Publisher: TAN Books
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781505113204
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

No nation, institution, empire or dynasty has helped shape the world more than the Catholic Church. Armies have marched upon one another. Kings have risen and fallen. Ideological and political movements have taken hold of entire continents. Diseases and plagues have ravished millions.

And through it all, Holy Mother Church has endured, standing as the one source of light in a world so often covered by shadows.

In this thrilling narrative, Phillip Campbell, author of the best-selling Story of Civilization series, takes children on a journey through Church history, beginning at Pentecost when Peter and the other apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and preached in the streets of Jerusalem, all the way through the pontificate of John Paul II and into modern times. Campbell's storybook style brings the narrative to life for young readers, taking them back in time and awakening a love and appreciation for history.

Children will discover:

• The triumphs and struggles of the early Church
• The heroic stories of the martyrs
• An army of saints who witnessed to Christ, including Benedict, Augustine, Francis, Dominic, Elizabeth of Hungary, Catherine of Siena, Thomas More, The Little Flower, Maximilian Kolbe, and more.
• Popes who helped shape Church teaching through encyclicals and councils, including Leo XIII, Pius IX, and John Paul II
• Crusaders who fought for Christendom Marian apparitions like Guadalupe, Lourdes, and Fatima
• How events like the Protestant Reformation, the Avignon Papacy, and the Second Vatican Council affected the Church and the world.

Through it all, young readers will see how the Church remained in the world but not of it, surviving wars, heresies, and the rule of tyrants, and keeping her arms spread ever open to welcome wounded souls into the Body of Christ.

CHAPTER 1

Christ and the Apostles

Searching for Hidden Meaning

Everywhere we look, life is full of meaning. Think of something like a birthday cake. On the surface, it looks very simple. It’s a soft, sweet food made from a mixture of flour, eggs, sugar, and other ingredients, baked and often decorated with candles. But, of course, there’s much more to a birthday cake than what it’s made of. A birthday cake calls to mind a person’s life and their achievements and celebrates their presence with us. It conjures up all sorts of emotions.

Our whole world is like this. Familiar places, people, a beautiful sunset, a lovely flower—anything can be meaningful in one way or another. Part of what it means to be human is to find meaning in things. Sometimes the meaning comes from our own experiences with things, like a toy that’s special because you’ve had it for a long time. Other times, something is meaningful because of a hidden value or quality it has, like a simple rock that looks plain on the outside but contains a gold nugget within.

In short, things are often more than what they seem. And to be human is to seek and discover the truth and meaning behind things.

This book is about the history of the Catholic Church, an institution that is definitely more than what it seems. On the outside, the Church looks like any other human organization, with all its buildings and property and people who run things. And like other religions, it has sacred books, candles, vestments, ministers, altars, and all sorts of rituals. But the Catholic Church is not like other human institutions. It is much, much more. Why?

Because it comes from God.

In this way, the Church resembles its founder, Jesus Christ. Imagine standing in the stable of Bethlehem on the first Christmas morning and looking at the child Jesus. What would we see? We’d see a little baby, not much different than any other baby boy. But there is so much more to Jesus than we can see with just our eyes! He is God who became flesh, the fullness of divinity dwelling in bodily form, as the Bible says. In that little baby are all the treasures of grace available to mankind.

The Church is called the Body of Christ. Just as the divine and human natures come together in the person of Christ, so Christ is present in the Church through the Holy Spirit, whom Pope Leo XIII called the “soul of the Church.” Like Jesus, the Church is both human and divine.

Pentecost

With this background, let’s dive into the actual story of the Church.

After the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, our Lord commanded his disciples to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem, after which they would be empowered to go out and preach the Gospel to the world. The beginning of the Catholic Church goes back to the building in Jerusalem where the disciples faithfully carried out the will of Jesus, waiting in expectant prayer for the promised Holy Spirit.

Let’s pause for a moment to enter that room to see what this historic moment was like:

________

The large upper room was crowded with men and women huddled in prayer. Numbering about one hundred and twenty in all, this room full of people was all that remained of the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, who had been crucified a little over a month ago. But that same Jesus had risen from the dead and appeared triumphantly, urging his followers to wait for the coming of the Spirit in Jerusalem.

The people stood, heads lifted and arms held aloft, for such was the ancient posture of prayer. Some recited the psalms, some prayed the prophecies of the Old Testament, others called out to God in their own words from the depths of their heart.

At the center of this gathering were the apostles of Christ, those men chosen to be special witnesses of his resurrection and lead the Christian community. The word apostle means “one who is sent”; the leaders of the disciples were called the apostles because they had been sent by Christ to preach and to teach. Joining the apostles were also the Blessed Virgin Mary and other women.

It was still morning when suddenly a great wind rushed through the room! The people cried out, not in fear, but in ecstasy, for it felt as if their very hearts had been filled with a kind of holy fire. Any lingering fears or doubts they may have still had melted away as their spirits were strengthened in faith, hope, and love. Joy welled up and overflowed. Many began laughing or weeping. This, however, soon turned to awe as little flares of light appeared over people’s heads.

“They look like … little tongues,” someone said. “Tongues of fire!”

It was a marvelous sight as the very air seemed saturated with the glory of God. Praise welled up in the hearts of these men and women, and they began to open their mouths to call forth God’s glory. But to their astonishment, it was not their everyday speech that came forth but strange and unknown words. The apostles cried out their praise to God in languages never taught to them.

The ruckus in the room was so loud that Jews throughout the streets of Jerusalem began to gather about the house. It was the solemn festival of Pentecost, and the city was crowded with devout Jews from all over the world, Jews who all spoke different languages.

“Strange,” a Parthian traveler said, “they are speaking my language. I didn’t think anyone spoke Parthian here.”

“What do you mean?” another asked incredulously.

“It’s obvious they’re speaking Coptic.”

“I hear them speaking Latin,” said another.

Those who had gathered around went on arguing over what language was being spoken. Finally, an elderly man, a rabbi, calmed the crowd and said, “All those people up there are Galileans. But how is it that each of us hears them in our own language? We are from all over the earth—Parthians, Medes, Greeks, Cretans, Arabs, Judeans, and more—and yet, we all hear them in our own tongue, praising the mighty works of God. What can this mean?”

A grizzled old Jew scoffed, “Bah! I’ll tell you what it means. It means they’re all drunk!”

Upon hearing the discussion and the accusation of drunkenness, Peter came to the window and called out, “You people of Jerusalem, listen, for these men are not drunk! It’s only nine o’clock in the morning. Rather, they are speaking that which was foretold by the prophet Joel, who said, ‘In the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath. And it shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”

Some of the onlookers scoffed at Peter’s words, but his fiery conviction and the passion in his voice had caused many to take pause and be attentive. Some of the pilgrims well versed in the Scriptures nodded at Peter’s citation of Joel.

“It does say so in Scripture,” they said. “The Lord will pour out his Spirit on all flesh.”

“Don’t pay him any heed,” another man said. “He is one of the followers of that Jesus of Nazareth.”

“Yes!” cried Peter. “I do speak of Jesus, and I will speak of him boldly. Men of Israel, hear me: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst—this Jesus you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.”

“How are we all hearing and understanding this man in our own languages?” the people cried.

Many others had come to listen to Peter, to hear the man who was somehow speaking to everyone in their own tongue simultaneously.

“A miracle!” they began to call out. “God is working a great miracle through these people. Speak God’s words to us!”

The crowd had swelled to thousands.

“You want the word of God?” asked Peter. “It is this: Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

A murmur swept over the crowd. Many were deeply moved by Peter’s words. Those who lived in Jerusalem wept at the memory of the recent crucifixion of Jesus.

“What shall we do?” they called to Peter.

Peter cried out, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

________

The miracle of tongues and the preaching of St. Peter brought three thousand souls into the Church that day. The miracle of tongues was a sign of the coming of the Holy Spirit.

And do you remember the story of the Tower of Babel from the Old Testament, when men, in their pride, sought to build a tower that reached the heavens? As a punishment, God scattered mankind into many tribes, and suddenly, they were each speaking different tongues, or languages. What was done at the Tower of Babel was undone on Pentecost. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God had brought the human family back together; at Pentecost, the grace of God called men of many tribes and tongues together into the unity of the Church, which is the true structure that leads us to heaven.

After the day of Pentecost, the apostles were emboldened in the Holy Spirit to preach the Gospel of Jesus fearlessly. Miracles accompanied their preaching, and everywhere the apostles went, great wonders were done. St. Peter and St. John cured a lame man in the temple; St. Philip worked miracles in Samaria; people were even healed by the shadow of St. Peter crossing them.

The Church began to grow. In fact, it grew so fast the apostles needed to ordain more men to help them in their ministry. The New Testament book of Acts tells us that the office of deacon was created to help minister to the needs of the sick and poor. The apostles would also ordain other men known as presbyters—sometimes called “elders” in the Bible—to help them in their sacramental ministry. These presbyters would become the first priests. With apostles (the first bishops), along with their presbyters and deacons, we see the basic structure of the Catholic Church was already in place

Paul

But the early Church suffered persecution from the hands of the Jews. The same Jewish priests and elders who had rejected Christ took offense at the preaching of the apostles. The Sadducees once threw the apostles into prison, but an angel opened the doors and let them escape.

One of the most ardent persecutors of the Church was a Pharisee named Saul. When a group of Sadducees captured and condemned the deacon St. Stephen to death, Saul looked on with approval as Stephen was stoned to death. He even was given letters from the Sanhedrin (the Jewish high council) of Jerusalem to travel to Damascus and arrest Christians there.

Yet on the way, Jesus appeared to Saul in a blaze of glory and asked him, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

“Who are you, Lord?” replied a terrified Saul.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

This truth must have overwhelmed Saul. He had not believed what Christians said about Jesus. But now he was encountering the risen Christ on the road to Damascus!

Saul left the encounter blind, but Jesus commanded him to visit the house of a Christian in Damascus and he would be healed. It happened just as Jesus had said. Saul received his sight back, accepted baptism, and took the Christian name Paul. For the rest of his life, St. Paul would work tirelessly to bring people all over the Roman world to Christ. We will talk a little bit more about St. Paul’s journeys in our next chapter.

While the apostles had initially preached only to the Jews, St. Paul brought the Gospel to the Gentiles. In the Bible, a Gentile refers to a non-Jewish person. The first converts to Christianity were all Jewish, but what happened when a Gentile wanted to join the Church? Did they have to also accept the customs of Judaism? Or were they free from having to observe things like the Sabbath, the Jewish dietary law, and circumcision?

This became such a heated debate in the early Church that the apostles summoned a council in the city of Jerusalem. The Council of Jerusalem met around AD 48 and addressed the question of whether Gentile converts had to keep any Jewish observances. All the apostles spoke their mind, and St. Paul told of his experiences preaching to the Gentiles. The apostles agreed that Christians did not need to observe the Jewish law.

The Martyrdom of the Apostles

It is beyond the scope of this chapter to document all the journeys and deeds of the apostles. They spent the better part of the first century traversing the Roman world preaching, teaching, and working wonders in the name of Christ. By the middle of the first century, there were Christian communities all over the Roman world, from Mesopotamia in the east to Spain and Britain in the remote west.

Since Christ had made St. Peter the chief of the apostles, the churches founded by Peter would always hold a special aura of authority. St. Peter was the first bishop of Antioch, in Syria, and it was here, the Bible tells us, that followers of Jesus were first called Christians. Antioch would be one of the most important Christian Churches in the coming centuries.

However, it is not Antioch, but Rome, that is forever connected with the name of St. Peter. He founded the Church in the city of Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire. He would labor there as its bishop, building up a community renowned for its great faith. “Your faith is proclaimed through all the world!” St. Paul wrote to the Christians of Rome. We will speak more about St. Peter and Rome in the coming chapters.

Though we do not know everything about the apostles’ lives, we do know how some of them died. For example, the book of Acts tells us that St. James the Greater was slain by King Herod Agrippa. The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that St. James the Less was killed by the priests of Jerusalem—thrown from the temple and beaten to death.

While we do not know for certain about the rest, tradition tells us that St. Matthew preached in Judea and was martyred there, and St. Andrew pre...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Christ and the Apostles
• Chapter 2: The Apostolic Age
• Chapter 3: The Apologists
• Chapter 4: Roman Persecutions
• Chapter 5: Dissent and Heresy
• Chapter 6: Christian Monasticism
• Chapter 7: The Triumph of the Church
• Chapter 8: The Benedictines
• Chapter 9: A Time of Missionaries
• Chapter 10: Rome and the Byzantines
• Chapter 11: The Carolingians
• Chapter 12: Dark Days for the Papacy
• Chapter 13: The Struggle Against Lay Authority
• Chapter 14: The Crusading Ideal
• Chapter 15: Monastic Reform Movements
• Chapter 16: The Mendicant Orders
• Chapter 17: Scholasticism
• Chapter 18: Kings Versus Popes
• Chapter 19: The Babylonian Captivity
• Chapter 20: The Great Western Schism
• Chapter 21: Late Medieval Mysticism
• Chapter 22: The Outbreak of Protestantism
• Chapter 23: Trent and the Counter-Reformation
• Chapter 24: The Jesuits
• Chapter 25: Missions Abroad
• Chapter 26: Jansenism and Gallicanism
• Chapter 27: The Age of Revolution
• Chapter 28: After the Revolution
• Chapter 29: The Age of Pius IX
• Chapter 30: A New Century With New Challenges
• Chapter 31: Under Fascism and Communism
• Chapter 32: The Church in the Second World War
• Chapter 33: The Second Vatican Council
• Chapter 34: Hopes and Fears
• Chapter 35: The Pontificate of Pope St. John Paul II
• Chapter 36: The Church in the Twenty-First Century
• Index