The Doctors of the Church are those men and women who have been recognized for their holiness of life and the profound nature of what they taught in their writings—whether they wrote many volumes or only a few works. They are both saints and teachers, reconciling both callings in a way that has enriched the Church for nearly two millennia. Their life with God informs their life of learning, and their study and teaching enrich their response to God in his Church. The late Cardinal Francis George, who had been the Archbishop of Chicago until a few months before his death in 2015, once commented that a series of questions have arisen in each era of the Church. Sometimes these questions were violently contested. Nevertheless these Doctors of the Church faithfully attended to questions that arose during the times in which they lived. Let me list the four questions that Cardinal George believes characterize the various eras of Christian history and how the Doctors who lived in that time frame dealt with those questions. Who is Christ? The question of who Christ is has dominated the intellectual inquiries of the Church since the moment of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It was a primary focus of the Doctors of the Church in the earliest centuries of Church history. It took many years and much argument to come to the formulation of the Council of Chalcedon (451): Christ is one divine person with two natures, divine and human. The earliest profession of faith, “Jesus is Lord” challenged the categories of rational understanding of ancient times. The early Church Fathers reworked philosophical concepts to help believers understand their faith more profoundly and keep at bay those who made Jesus something less than fully God and fully man. Perhaps the best known Doctors of this era would be St. Athanasius and St. Basil in the East and St. Ambrose and St. Jerome in the West. How do we know Christ? In order to answer the question of who Christ is also raised the question of how faith and reason work together in pursuit of truth. Doctors of the Church first considered this question in the context of a Christian philosophy that depended largely on Platonic sources. Scripture and Late Greek philosophy contributed to a synthesis of faith and reason that continued until the early Middle Ages and the introduction of Aristotle into European intellectual debate. A fresh recognition of the proper autonomy of reason then produced new distinctions between philosophy and theology that demanded a new synthesis of our knowledge about Christ. Saintly giants of learning in this era would be St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great at its beginning and the great Scholastic Doctors at its height. How do we act as Christ’s disciples? The medieval scholastic Doctors of the Church who were largely professors rather than bishops, had to distinguish between nature and grace. Teachers in the newly formed universities began to study nature on its own terms. This lead to a How do we act as Christ’s disciples? (continued) rethinking about the relation between God’s action and ours. Both nature and grace are sources of human activity, and both serve to explain how a Christian believer acts as a redeemed human creature. The distinction between them entered into a theological syntheses that showed how natural creatures were capable of attaining supernatural ends. Reflections on the moral life, on how we act rightly, intensified as Doctors examined how the goodness of God can be truly reflected in the goodness of human persons who act always to strengthen their relationship to Christ. St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas are noteworthy examples of individuals who successfully undertook these intellectual syntheses. How Are We in Christ? The Doctors of the Church of early modern times up to the nineteenth century wrote quite persuasively about Christian spiritual life and the life of prayer. The increasing awareness of human interiority and its inner dynamic built upon what the apostolic tradition tells the Church that God has done in Christ. The subjectivity introduced theologically into intellectual life four hundred years ago called for saintly teachers who would use their own inner experience to bring together what we know of God and what we know and make of ourselves. God raised up well-known masters of the spiritual life to help the Church develop various schools of prayer that have kept alive questions about how holiness, the goal of life in Christ, is sustained. Teachers and preachers, bishops, priests, and religious women all wrote of how personal prayer complements the worship of God in the Church’s liturgy. They also all showed how prayer is indispensable to the life of learning and holiness. St. Teresa of Ávila, St. John of the Cross, St. Francis de Sales, and St. Thérèse of Lisieux are probably the most recognizable among the Doctors of modern age. We are going to begin a series of columns starting next week in which we look at the thirty-seven women and men who have been named Doctors of the Church. . Until next week…….Fr. John