Page - 61 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Volume 2:1

61 | www.limina-graz.eu ity requires engagement with all sectors of humanity, especially those not experiencing or deprived of the dignity they are due as God’s creatures. It also is a critique of a kind of monistic individualism that fails to recognize our profound interdependence. It reminds us, too, that catholicity is more than some ideal picture of a future; it is about action that puts a vision into action, much as the actions of the missio Dei. Struggles for dignity, for recognition, and for justice are constitutive of a genuine catholicity. The second approach to catholicity emphasizes rather the fullness of faith as the starting point for effecting catholicity in a World Church. Here, the point of departure is an awareness of the Church as bearing the full revela- tion of God in Jesus Christ. The Church must bring that revelation to a world that, in its fallenness, cannot of itself find its true meaning and dignity. The Church engages this world by offering itself as a sacrament of the world, an alternate view of the world as a redeemed possibility in God’s reconcil- ing plan for all creation. This discourse of catholicity starts with the whole (God’s revelation in Christ), embodied in the pilgrim Church, to engage each particular situation of a multi-faceted world. The Church does this in its practices of contemplating the beauty of Christ, of dwelling in the Truth revealed by Christ, and of celebrating the liturgy that focuses, in its beauty, on the transcendence of God as the way to the fullness of catholicity. Contemplating beauty reveals the deepest meaning of creation. Dwelling in Truth reveals a spirituality of movement toward a reconciled wholeness. Celebrating the liturgy re-enacts the Paschal mystery that is key to em- bracing the meaning and destiny of the world within the transcendence of the Triune God. The practices of the first discourse of extension throughout the world seek to engage the particularity of the world in respectful dialogue and en- gagement. The practices of the second discourse seek to assure a strong and faithful identity to a world that cannot find its true form on its own. The first discourse can become too optimistic about the world; the second discourse struggles with how deep pluralism can go without endanger- robert J. schreiter | Globalization and Plural theologies The second discourse: emphasizing the fullness of faith in contemplating beauty, and dwelling in Truth. Both discourses may provide a framework for dealing with the consequences of a globalized world.