The term 'Church' comes to us from the Gospel and from the very word used by Christ.

When Jesus, in response to Peter's confession of faith, announced the establishment of "his Church" [Mt 16,18]), he employed a term whose common usage allows us to discover its semantic value.

This word ekklesia was used in the Greek translation of the Bible to translate the Hebrew qahal and the corresponding Aramaic qahala, which was probably used by Jesus in his response to Simon Peter.

Both the Hebrew qahal and the Greek ekklesia mean "gathering, assembly" (related to the Greek verb kalein, which means "to call") and were used in the Old Testgament to designate the "community" of the chosen people, particularly in the desert (cf. Dt 4,10; Acts 7,38)

Jesus uses the term to speak of "his" messianic community, that new assembly called together through the covenant in his blood, the covenant proclaimed in the Upper Room (cf. Mt 26,28).

In both Semitic and Greek usage, the assembly received its character from the will of the one who convoked it and the purpose for which he called it, even of a profane nature (political, military or professional), as well religious and liturgical.

When the Old Testament speaks of the community of the chosen people it emphasizes the religious and even theocratic nature of the chosen people who have been called together, by explicitly proclaiming their belonging to the one God.

For this reason, it considers the entire people of Israel to be the qahal of Yahweh, precisely because they are Yahweh's "special possession, dearer than all other people" (Ex 19,5).

It is an altogether special belonging to and relationship with God, based on the covenant made with him and on acceptance of the Commandments given to them at the moment of their call, which Sacred Scripture designates precisely as "the day of the assembly" ("yom haqqahal", Dt 9,10, 10,4).

This covenant with God, the result of his own choice, gives a religious character to the entire people of Israel and a transcendent purpose to their whole history.

The writers of the New Testament call the new People of God (the new Israel) "ekklesia", just as they refer the Church to God. St. Paul frequently speaks of the "Church of God" (cf. 1 Cor 1,2; 10,32; 15,9; 2 Cor 1,1; Gal 1,13), or the "Churches of God" (cf. 1 Cor 11,16; 1 Thes 2,14; 2 Thes 1,4).

By this usage he emphasizes the continuity of the Old and New Testaments, even to the point of calling Christ's Church "the Israel of God" (Gal 6,16).

The progressive development in language assures us that in the first Christian communities the newness of Christ's words ("I will build my Church" [Mt 16,16]) gradually becomes clearer.

The Church is the new community of individuals, instituted by Christ as a "calling together" of all those called to be part of the new Israel in order to live the divine life, according to the graces and demands of the covenant established by the sacrifice of the cross.

The purpose of this calling together is to be introduced into divine communion (cf 1 Jn 1,3). The first step in achieving this goal consists in listening to the Word of God.