If you could travel back to the early days of the Church, would you recognize it? Would the Mass seem familiar? Could you go to confession? Would you feel supported if you made a case against abortion? And would those early Christians be puzzled if you suggested praying to the saints?
In Roots of the Faith, Mike Aquilina makes it clear that as far as the essentials are concerned, that time-travel trip would reveal a Church familiar to Catholics today. Just as an acorn grows into a tree and yet remains the same plant, so the Catholic Church is a living organism that has grown from the faith of the earliest Christians into the Body of Christ we know today.
