Seven letters for everybody!

All Christians read the Catholic letters                  
 
While most of the letters in the New Testament are directed to either a community or a specific person, there are some that have no specific audience in mind. These seven letters inspired by God seem to be addressed to all the baptized in the Church. Since they are for all and have a universal application among the believers, they have been referred to as the Catholic letters.
 
The seven divinely inspired Catholic letters are: James; 1 and 2 Peter; 1, 2, and 3 John; and Jude. Here are some details on each one taken from the Catholic Bible Dictionary (Scott Hahn, General Editor).
 
James: The letter is an elegant teaching on Christian spirituality, justification by faith and works, confession and anointing of the sick. James focuses on the pressures and challenges faced by Christians as they spend their lives in a pagan world, and so writes as a spiritual father giving direction and encouragement in the faith. The discourse is concerned, then, with practical Christian living, admonitions and encouragement and is less preoccupied with matters of doctrine.
 
1 Peter: The letter is intended to encourage Christians in the young communities to persevere in the face of mounting hostility from the world. The foundation for this encouragement is the Resurrection: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”
 
2 Peter: The second letter of Peter begins as a letter with a salutation, “To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet 1:1), and an address and greeting (1:1–2), but the remainder of the text is more of a homily. The author encourages Christians to persevere in their faith and to live in the hope of Christ’s Second Coming, even if that Second Coming does not happen as soon as they might expect.
 
1 John: The First Letter of John was written to confront a dangerous situation: a breakaway group of false teachers (John calls them Antichrists, liars and deceivers) were leading the Christian believers into error. John was probably writing to members of the community in Ephesus, and he was probably acquainted personally with the recipients of the letter (1 John 2:1, 12–14; 3:11). Unlike the second and third letters of John, the First Letter of John is more like an address than a letter.
 
2 John: Its chief purpose is to encourage the faithful to practice perseverance in the face of false teachers. Such teachers are “men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John 1:7). Such is the author’s concern that he looks forward to visiting the recipients in person to discuss the problem. While short, the letter offers a threefold program of fraternal love, devotion to the faith and rejection of false teachers and their doctrines.
 
3 John: This letter is the shortest in the New Testament, but it gives us important information about certain features of the early Church. It shows especially how the Church addressed questions of jurisdiction and rivalry among its leaders, as demonstrated by the dispute between John, the shepherd and leader of communities in Asia Minor, and the local leader Diotrephes, who exercised his authority in a ruthless and reckless way.
 
Jude: The Letter of Jude is addressed to communities suffering from the plague of false teachers. He had intended to write a discourse on salvation, but the crisis of the false teachers forced him to change his plans. The letter does not designate its recipients precisely, but Jude views the members of the communities with great affection and has been well-informed as to their problems. Jude considers the refutation of error to be essential to sound discipleship. He urges believers to defend themselves, to pray, to be committed to the faith, and to reach out to those who have been deluded by deception. The heart of the letter is the condemnation of the wicked and the assurance that their downfall is inevitable.
 
God is continuing to give life to the Church through his divinely inspired word in these seven letters. I thank God for these seven Catholic letters. Amen.



When did “Catholic” begin to be used as a reference to the Church?
 
Our word “Catholic,” which comes from the Greek and is transliterated “katholikos” did not originally refer to the Catholic Church as it does today. “Catholic,” in the sense used when referencing these seven letters, means for everyone, universal or no one is excluded, which clearly applies to what it means to be a member of our Church. It isn’t a private club for a few chosen; everybody is called to be part of this family of faith.
 
It wasn’t until the year 107 that the word “Catholic” began to refer to the Church as we use it today. One of the first recorded uses of “Catholic” in the sense of the baptized members of the Body of Christ is thanks to Saint Ignatius of Antioch, the third Bishop of Antioch and a disciple of the apostle John.
 
During the reign of Emperor Trajan, while Ignatius was being taken to Rome to suffer his martyrdom, he wrote a letter to Saint Polycarp of Smyrna and said, “See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is administered either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there, let the multitude of the people also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”
 
So began the nearly 2,000-year tradition of referring to all Christians as Catholics.