The Catholic Letters

After the long set of Paul’s letters, the New Testament gathers seven short letters bearing the names of James, Peter, John, and Jude. Since antiquity they have been called the catholic letters. They form a small treasure, often less read than Paul’s great letters, but where the faith of the first witnesses is expressed with a direct force. Each watches over Christian life, protects it from errors, and recalls it to its truth: to believe is never separated from to live.

Seven letters for the whole Church

The word catholic means universal. This name is given to these seven letters because they are addressed, not like Paul’s to a precise community (the Romans, the Corinthians), but to the whole body of believers, scattered in every place. Their recipient is the entire Church, of every time and every land. This is why they keep a tone of general exhortation, valid for each one: they speak of faith, of hope, of charity, of trial, of prayer, as to every Christian who will read them. Gathered little by little, recognized by the Church as the word of God, they complete the teaching of the apostles and form, with Paul’s letters, the body of writings that follow the Gospels.

The pillars of the Church

These letters bear the names of the greatest witnesses of the first Church. James, called the brother of the Lord, that is, his close kinsman, led the community of Jerusalem and enjoyed immense authority. Peter, the first of the apostles, writes to strengthen his brothers in trial, as Christ had asked of him. John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the last witness still living, hands on what he has seen and heard. Jude finally, another kinsman of the Lord, watches over the purity of the faith. Paul himself called James, Peter, and John the pillars of the Church. To read their letters is to hear the voice of those who knew Christ or lived very close to him, and who speak of faith not by theory, but by experience. Their authority comes from there: they are not masters reasoning from afar, but witnesses who have seen. Peter walked with Jesus on the roads of Galilee; John reclined on his breast at the last meal and stood at the foot of the Cross; James and Jude grew up in the close kinship of the Lord. In listening to them, the Church still hears the generation of the apostles, that living bond with Christ that tradition hands on from age to age. This is why these letters, even brief, weigh with a unique weight: they are the voice of the foundations.

Keeping the faith received

One same concern runs through these letters: to keep intact what has been handed on, against the false teachers who already distort the Gospel. Jude says it in a word that has remained famous, urging believers to “contend for the faith once for all handed down to the saints.” Jude 1:3 Faith is not an opinion each one shapes as he pleases; it is a deposit received from the apostles, to be kept faithfully and handed on without altering it. This conviction will run through the whole life of the Church: Christian truth is received before it is understood, and one is not master of the word of God, but its servant. Faced with seductive novelties, these letters recall the anchor: the faith of the origins, held once for all.

One same call to holiness

These seven letters meet finally in one same call: that faith be translated into life. They insist less on great doctrinal developments than on concrete conduct, love of neighbor, patience in trial, mastery of the tongue, care of the poor, prayer. James sums it up in a cutting phrase: “put the word into practice; do not merely listen to it.” James 1:22 All the wisdom of these letters holds there: faith that does not act is vain, and one truly knows Christ only by walking in his footsteps. This insistence does not set faith against works: it recalls that true faith is recognized by its fruits, as a tree by what it bears. This call is not new: it prolongs the voice of the prophets and the sages of Israel, who already demanded justice toward the poor more than sacrifices, and made the fear of God the beginning of wisdom. James above all, with his defense of the orphan and the widow, speaks like Amos or Isaiah; the others, with their call to purity and vigilance, prolong the Proverbs. Thus the catholic letters gather, in the light of Christ, all the moral wisdom of the Old Testament, and complete it with a very simple and ever-present reminder: to believe is to live differently.