Jun 7 Sat
How are we connected to Jesus in his Church?
The Church is not merely a human society, but a supernatural mystery. Thus, we need faith to understand the nature of the Church. The Church is present in the world and transcends it.
“Proceeding from the love of the eternal Father, the Church was founded by Christ in time and gathered into one by the Holy Spirit.”
On the day of Pentecost, Christ the Lord sent the Holy Spirit. The missions of Christ and the Holy Spirit comprise one joint, inseparable mission. It is accomplished in the Church, which is the body of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Through this joint mission, Christ associates us with the Father through the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit prepares us to receive Christ, manifests us the risen Christ, and makes the mystery of Christ present—especially in the Eucharist—to lead us to communion with God, so that we may bear “much fruit” (Jn 15:5). Thus, the Holy Spirit builds, gives life, and sanctifies the Church. The mission of the Church is not added to that of Christ and the Holy Spirit—it is the sacrament (symbol and manifestation) of the communion of the Blessed Trinity with us.
Depending on which aspect we want to emphasize, we say that the Church is at the same time visible and invisible, interior and exterior, or mystical and institutional.
When we emphasize the institutional aspect, we say that the Church is an organic and hierarchical society, structured and governed by the pope and the bishops under the supreme authority of the Roman pontiff, who is also head of the episcopal college. All her members, without exception, have an active role to play.
When we refer to the mystical aspect, we say that the Church is a Trinitarian mystery. that enables us to share in the divine life of God’s Son, “for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph 2:18). In the Church, we can see (though in a veiled way) the mystery of the divine life of the Blessed Trinity, a mystery that one must accept on faith.
Just as the head and body of a man form one single man, Jesus and we, chosen to be his members, form a single mystical body. Christ is both head and body; since all the members form one body, with its head, the Son of God, the one God.
According to this well-known reading of Scripture, neither the body without the head, nor the head without the body, nor the head and body without God make the whole Christ. When we are all united with God, we become divinized, one in God.
What Christ is by his nature, we are as his partners; what He is of Himself in all fullness, we are as participants. Finally, what the Son of God is by generation, his members are by adoption, according to the text: As sons you have received the Spirit of adoption, enabling you to cry, Abba, Father.
Through his Spirit, He gave us the power to become sons of God, so that all those He has chosen may say: Our Father, who are in heaven. Again, He says: I ascend to my Father and to your Father.
By the Spirit, from the womb of the Virgin, He was born, our head, the Son of Man. By the same Spirit, in the waters of baptism, we were reborn as his body and as sons of God. And just as He was born without any sin, so we are reborn in the forgiveness of all our sins.