Chapter V. The Love of God and the Mystical Body of Christ

The Church our Lord founded is an external, visible, hierarchical society, in which the supreme authority is vested in the successor of Peter. It is a society commissioned to preserve and propagate the evangelical doctrine and to sanctify the faithful by the administration of the sacraments, the oblation of the Holy Sacrifice, and the direction of souls. Protestants, who are unwilling to admit the visible hierarchy of the Church, ignore Christ's words: "And I say to thee: that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."¹ "But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not ; and diou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren." 2 After the resurrection Peter was told : "Feed My lambs. . . . Feed My sheep." 8 He was thus constituted the supreme pastor, the vicar of Jesus Christ; and the divine words, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," were said for him and for his successors until the end of time.

Although visible in its external aspect, the Church is a spiritual society essentially ordered to the life of eternity; as St. Paul says, it is a mystical body, whose members are united by supernatural life to die Holy Ghost, the soul of the body, and to Christ, its head, in communion with the souls in purgatory and the saints in heaven. This is one of the most fundamental and sublime doctrines of our holy religion. Let us try to make it more understandable by seeing: (1) what the mystical body of Christ is; (2) how the faithful are incorporated in Christ, what relationship exists between members and head; (3) the nature of the communion of saints, the relationship of the members to one another, and the way all things work together in this body for the advancement of the love of God.

Nature of the mystical body of Christ

The mystical body of Christ, often referred to by St. Paul, shows the resemblance of the Church to our physical body and to a moral body, like the family or nation. 4

Our physical body is a group of organs and members animated by one and the same principle, the soul, the highest functions of which are exercised in the head, which sees, hears, directs the members, and transmits neural impulses to the whole organism. The organs really form but one body because they are vivified by the same soul and vitally united with the head. When in old age the organism wears out, we make up for its losses by artificial devices which do not form a part of man's body for they receive no vital influx from it.

In a moral body, like the family or nation, there are also members; they are animated by the same family or national spirit and are banded together under the direction of a leader or head. In a family the father, mother, and children form a whole, all the parts of which are united by ties of blood, affection, common interest, honor, ancestry, name, and re-

semblance. These ties act as a vital principle animating the whole. The family truly forms a moral body in which each lives upon the same affection, devotion, and memories — everything that unites them all. Like ties should bind us to our country, for we are its debtors because of its goodness and the benefits of all kinds we have received from it. "Consequently man is debtor chiefly to his parents and his country, after God." 5 True patriotism is the moral virtue of filial piety, which, in the light of supernatural faith and Christian prudence, is, as found in St. Louis and St. Joan of Arc, an infused virtue perfectly subordinated to the love of God and of all men in Him.

The Church forms a still higher body uniting men and nations to bring them into the kingdom of God. This higher body is called the mystical body. Why ? Because in the Church the principle that animates die whole is essentially mysterious, infinitely superior to, and infinitely more unitive than the soul of our body or the spirit of either a family or a nation. The soul of the mystical body is the Sanctifier, the Holy Ghost, who dwells in all just souls but exercises His highest functions through the humanity of Christ. The Holy Ghost is the source of grace ; He pours charity into our hearts, but always through the soul of our Savior, as an intermediary, for our Savior is indeed the head of the mystical body. The fullness of sanctifying grace received by Christ was ordered, in fact, to the sanctification of all mankind. We enter into this body by baptism, which, by applying the merits of the Savior to us, remits original sin and makes us children of God. 0 s Ha Hae, q. 101, B.X.

8 St. Thomas frequently says: "Chrislus et Ecclesia est una persona mystica." Cf. in Episl. ad Coloss., I, lect. 6; Summa, Ilia, q. 19, a.4; q.48, a.i, a.2, ad ium; •q.49, a. 1; q.69, a.2. For the mystical application of this doctrine, sec Chardon, op. cit., I" entreden, chaps. 1-6.

In the mystical body there is great diversity but profound unity: a true harmony. It has the diversity of very different nations and races gathered together by baptism under one Spirit and under one head; St. Paul says: "For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free; and in one Spirit we have all been made to drink. For the body also is not one member, but many." 7 At Pentecost, the apostles miraculously spoke many unknown languages to make it evident that the Gospel was to be preached to all nations in spite of differences of race, customs, manners, and institutions.

It also has diversity of function. St. Paul describes the details of this mysterious body by telling 8 us about the subordinated functions of eyes, hands, and feet. These last symbolize those who, in the vine of the Savior, are dedicated to the active life. The ear cannot say: "Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body." The hand should not wish to perform the function of the eyes. No body can live without diversity of function. If all the members of the human body had the dignity of the eye, the eye itself could not exist.

In this diversity a wonderful unity rules, and ought to become increasingly predominant. All Christians are kinsfolk, brodiers, members of the same body. These members are or ought to be united much more closely than those in a human family. Among them there ought to be, as is commonly taught, unity of faith, unity of obedience to the hierarchy, unity of worship, especially through the Mass, unity in the common fare of Communion, and unity of life, since each ought to be nourished by Jesus Christ; unity of sentiments, of

affection, of interests that are great and eternal, unity of hope and of charity. Since here all live by grace and later all will live in glory, diey have unity of wealth, the merits of Christ, and. unity of heritage, eternal life.

As our members form a physical body, so do the faithful united in faith, hope, and charity form the mystical body of our Lord; they are His members; more than that, they are members of one another, too, 9 and help one another like the fingers of one hand.

How incorporation into Christ is effected

Christ said: "I am the vine; you the branches. He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit." 10 Before the Passion He prayed to His Father, saying: "That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee. . . . And the glory which Thou hast given Me, I have given to diem; that they may be one, as We also are one." 11

St. Paul, 12 too, said that incorporation into Christ is effected by a kind of engrafting union in which two lives are so intimately mingled that they are lost in each other. In this union the life of the grafted branch is absorbed into the life of the trunk. "If the root be holy, so are the branches. And if . . . thou, being a wild olive, art ingrafted in them, and art made partaker of the root and of the fatness of the olive tree . . . thou bearest not the root; but the root thee." 13

Christians live a new life; Christ lives in them through faith. He ought to be the principle of their dioughts, of their words,

of their acts. Let us see how Christ exercises His functions as head of the Church and how the members of His body are more and more animated by Him.

First of all, Christ exercised His functions as head of the Church by meriting and satisfying for us. The merits of the Savior have an infinite value because He is the Word made flesh; and He has been able to communicate these merits to us in strict justice, because He is constituted head of mankind. As Adam, the constituted head of mankind, could lose the life of grace for us by his sin, so could Christ pour His justice, His sanctity, into our hearts and give us back supernatural life. The substitution of the dying Christ for us is clearly explained in the light of the revealed doctrine that our Savior received capital grace. This constituted Him the head of mankind and was meant to flow out from Him into His members. "And of His fullness we have all received." 14 God, says St. Paul, "hath made Him head over all the Church, which is His body." 15

Christ still really exercises His function as head or leader of the Church, by interceding for us and by communicating to us the graces He merited for us on the cross. As a living instrument ever united to the divinity, the source of all grace, He communicates His grace to us, just as our head communicates to our bodily members the vital influx that has its principle in the soul. To understand this well, we must distinguish between our Lord's divinity and His humanity.

As the Word, Christ lives in the depth of our soul in the same way as the Father and die Holy Ghost. Closer to the soul than the soul's own self, He preserves its natural and super-

"John V.16. "Eph. isaat natural life; and by operating grace excites it to wonderful hidden acts far beyond its own powers. 16

The Savior's humanity is, as St. Thomas says, 17 an instrument ever united to the divinity, through which all graces are communicated to us. The sacraments, too, the water of baptism and the sacramental form, for example, are the instrumental physical cause of sacramental grace in the sense that God makes use of the water and the form, communicating to them a divine transitory virtue in order to produce grace: 18 so the humanity of the Savior, especially the acts of His holy soul, are the instrumental physical cause of all the graces we receive, eidier in the sacraments or outside of them.

A great artist like Beethoven uses an instrument in order to transmit his musical thought to us; a great thinker has his own particular style, a special language that he chooses as a means of self-expression. God, too, has His instruments for the production of effects that are properly divine and can come only from Him. The Savior's humanity is a conscious and free instrument united to the divinity in the production of any and every supernatural effect. The graces Christ merited for us on the cross, He communicates to us. Every illumination of the intellect, every grace of attraction, of consolation, and of strength is transmitted to us by the soul of our Savior. His influence is continual, extending to every salutary act we make, so all-incompassing that a mother's loving influence on her child bears only a dim analogy to it. The beating of die Sacred Heart, the thoughts and desires of Christ's soul, transmit supernatural life to us daily. And as new graces are continually being accorded to souls, Christ's activity never ceases.

Our Savior transmits to unbelievers the light of faith, to sinners justifying contrition, to die just persevering charity, to the souls in purgatory the indulgence that is dieir deliverance, and to saints in heaven the glory that is the fulfillment of grace. Throughout the ages Christ has been the light and life of all who live supernaturally, the spiritual sun of souls, shining the same on every generation. He exercises His influence especially through the Sacrifice of the Mass, in which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated in substance until the end of time. It is a unique sacrifice, not exactly renewed, but continued in substance {idem nunc offerens), perpetuated in a way diat transcends time and applied to all generations. He is like an inexhaustible source of living water, to which all can and must come to quench their thirst.

But the Savior's influence is not restricted to the Sacrifice of the Mass and the sacraments; it extends to people who do not yet know of the Eucharist, of baptism, of absolution. Not one of them is entirely removed from the influence of the Word made flesh. From Christ even the most degraded people receive supernatural lights and actual graces that are ordered to salvation. 19 Christ indeed, as head, exercises an unbroken influence on His whole body.

Because the Blessed Virgin as coredemptrix merited for us with meritum de congruo, all diat Christ obtained for us in strict justice, she transmits to us all the graces we receive; she is like the virginal neck uniting head and members, or, as the Fathers called her, the aqueduct of grace. Blessed Grignon de Montfort has given an especially clear elucidation of this doctrine.

Through die influence of Jesus and Mary on the mystical

body, its members receive life by progressive sanctification. Baptism gives them the life of grace and blots out original sin by remitting the chief punishment due to sin. Whoever dies immediately after baptism goes directly to heaven; there the soul enjoys supreme beatitude while waiting for the resurrection and glorification of the body. If after baptism the soul falls back into sin, it must acknowledge and repent of its fault to obtain pardon; and if its contrition has intense charity, even the remission of all punishment can be obtained by the appropriation, through love and sorrow for sin, of the merits and satisfactions of Christ Jesus.

The Eucharist, especially, makes us attain to conformity with the will of our Savior. But deliverance from sin, in order to be perfect, and incorporation into Christ, in order to be complete, must follow the three phases of the purgative, illuminative, and unitive life. Before communicating His glorified life to us, Christ first communicates to us the life of grace as He lived it in a world of strife.

We must first, St. Paul says, die more and more to the earthly man and crucify our old self that we may no longer be slaves of sin. 20 "And be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and the acceptable and the perfect will of God." 21 "And they that are Christ's have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." 22 In the exercise of their ministry, the apostles were persecuted, "always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may

be made manifest in our bodies." 23 These ideas, repeated in very different ways by St. Paul, comprise one of the fundamental points of spiritual doctrine, and a commentary on the Master's: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground, die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world keepedi it unto life eternal." 24

Thus purified, the Christian must put on the new man 25 and be ever enlightened and renewed according to the image of his Creator. "Put ye on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, the bowels of mercy, benignity, humility, modesty, patience; bearing with one another, if any have a complaint against another. Even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so do you also. But above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection." We must imitate Christ and those who resemble Him; we must have His sentiments, assume the spirit of His mysteries, His passion, crucifixion, death, burial, and ascension. So it was that St. Paul suffered the pangs of labor until Christ should be formed in the souls of the faithful, until their souls should be enlightened by the true light of life.

A soul so enlightened and configured to Christ must live in continual union with our Lord. "Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Mind the things diat are above, not the things that are upon the earth. For you are dead ; and your life is hid with Christ in God." 28 "And let

the peace of Christ rejoice in your hearts; wherein also you are called in one body. And be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you abundantly: in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing in grace in your hearts to God. All whatsoever you do in word or in work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him." 27 "When Christ shall appear, who is your life, then you also shall appear with Him in glory." 28 Thus, each member of Christ should receive supernatural life progressively, advancing in sanctification until he reaches full and perfect maturity.

The communion of saints

One of the principal qualities of a living body is the union and solidarity of its parts. In the human body, each member or organ profits from the activity of the others. The heart could not make the blood circulate if the blood were not renewed by the respiration of the lungs; and respiration itself would be impossible if the heart stopped beating. If one organ functions well, the others, well nourished in their turn, exercise their functions all the better; but if, on the contrary, one member or organ is sick, all the others are affected.

In a moral body we find the same phenomenon verified. Let one member of a family disgrace himself, and the whole family is shamed. On the other hand, a family is overjoyed when one of its own covers himself with glory. This solidarity is straiter in die mystical body of Christ than anywhere else. The communion of saints is a mysterious community of life

and of interests in virtue of which whatever one member of the Church has and does reflects on all the others.

The principal part of this mysterious communion is the divine intercourse between God and souls through Christ. The Blessed Trinity is the source of all supernatural life, which, like a stream of living water, descends through Christ to all the blessed in heaven, to the souls in purgatory, and to all Christians on earth, making its influence felt even in unbelievers. Then this stream of divine life reascends toward Christ and the Blessed Trinity in the form of prayer, merit, adoration, and thanksgiving.

From the point of view of expiation as well, the sins we have committed have been transferred to our Savior's head, and the full value of His merits has become our property. Each time a sin is pardoned us or a grace is accorded to us, it is done in virtue of our communion with the Saint of saints.

The members have communion with one another, too : they share one another's goods. The saints in heaven intercede for us, and through our veneration receive an accidental glory that is like an added ray in their aureole. We gain indulgences, have Masses said, and offer sacrifices for the souls in purgatory; in return we shall be rewarded for our charity. The deceased father and mother are helped by their children still living in the world, and the Lord blesses this assistance. Lastly, all the members of the Church militant who journey toward eternity together can be of help to one another. The virtues and prayers of one draws the divine mercy upon the other — the tears of a St. Monica obtain the conversion of a St. Augustine.

It must also be recognized that the crimes of the wicked sometimes bring down the effects of divine vengeance upon the just. An atheistic school prevents a child's mind from opening up to the things of God, provides him with the means of becoming perverted, makes vice easy and virtue difficult for him. For the impiety that promotes and results from such conditions, reparation must be made.

Besides, evil is not found merely in the enemies of the Church; it seeks to penetrate within. The Church is not only, as certain heretics have believed, a spiritual society of predestined just; it includes sinners even among its ministers. Their sins and the sins of die faithful mar the external features of the Spouse of Christ, as St. Catherine of Siena was told, 29 but the light and grace the Church gives are nonetheless divine for all that. 30 "For the evil of My ministers can neither spoil nor defile My blood nor lessen its grace and virtue." 31 "And since the mystery of the sacrament cannot be diminished or divided by their sins, the reverence due to the treasure of My blood, and not to them personally, should not be less because of them." 32 However, it remains true, as our Lord said to the Virgin of Siena: "I have laid upon you the charge of working for the salvation of your soul and the souls of your neighbors in the mystical body of Holy Church, by example, by doctrine, by continual prayer. . . . Cease not to cast up before Me the incense of prayer for the salvation of souls, for I would have mercy on the world. With your prayers and sweat and tears will I wash the face of My spouse, Holy Church." 33

The Lord permits evil, as St. Augustine says, 34 only because

29 Dialogue, chaps. 13, 14, 86. 80 Ibid., chap. 11. tx lbid., chaps. 14, 120. **lbid., chap. 118. 88 Ibid., chaps. 15, 17, 86. ** Enchiridion, chap. II.

He is powerful enough and good enough to draw a greater good from it; so manifesting both His mercy and His justice and showing the indefeasible rights of the Sovereign Good to be loved above all things.

Good can exist in this life only in a state of conflict, and that is why the Church on earth is called "militant" ; for she must fight without ceasing against the maxims of the world and the spirit of evil. But she has the promises of eternal life, and, if at times she must say harsh things to her children, they ought to answer her as Peter answered our Lord : "Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life." 35

We must conclude, then, that the sons of the Church cannot be united with one another unless they are united to their head. All coordination, St. Thomas says, 36 presupposes a subordination to the very principle of order. Soldiers can have coordination only through subjection to their leader. In the Church, despite diversity of peoples, institutions, and human interests, diere must be sincere and profound unity of faith, of hope, charity, and supernatural obedience.

Consequently children of the Church ought to be united by the mutual observance of true justice and true charity, real virtues altogether different from the word-of-mouth variety which robs die sublime words of their true meaning. Justice and charity ought to be practiced particularly in regard to the suffering. We should heed the words of St. Paul: "Bear ye one another's burdens; and so you shall fulfill the law of Christ. For if any man think himself to be something, whereas he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let everyone prove his own work. . . . For every one shall bear his own bur-

den." 37 The two chief services one Christian can render another in this life, are prayer and reparation. When the Blessed Virgin appeared at Lourdes, she recommended that we "pray and do penance."

When the good pray for the wicked, their prayer calls forth the pity and pardon of die Lord. If faithful Christians do penance, unfaithful Christians feel the good effects of it, and their offenses are more likely to be pardoned. Sometimes a just man is the savior of an impious man. Had there been ten just men in Sodom, Sodom would have been spared. Finally, not only can we pray and satisfy for our neighbor, but we can merit for him, too, if not in strict justice as our Savior did, at least with the merit of congruity founded on the bonds of charity uniting us to God and souls.

Why did Providence permit the terrible European war of some years back which stained almost a whole continent with blood just when its peoples were dreaming of universal peace? How can we escape seeing the chastisement of God in this ? Why should there be such chastisement? Because the word from heaven, "Pray and do penance," was not heeded. God punishes men through men. Why? Because Christians are often only half-Christians, the "practicing" are not virtuous, the good are not good enough, those consecrated to God are not really holy. More mortification and a return to the austerity of old, inspired by hatred of sin and love of God, would bring peace back to the world. In our own time the conversion of the good to a better life, is perhaps the most efficacious good to be accomplished; for, in the mystical body, supernatural life descends from above in order to reascend toward the Lord. Let the good join repentance of heart to

prayer and action, then in virtue of the communion of saints they will save many others in saving diemselves. To dam up the inflowing grace that Christ wills to communicate to other souls through us would be a terrible misfortune.

Charity is "the bond of perfection" in the mystical body uniting members to their head and members widi one another; this bond ought to keep on growing until in eternity the saints and the angels have become one and are, in a way, but one spirit with God. "But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit." 38

Such perfect union of mind and heart cannot be attained by regarding souls simply in the light of the senses or as deformed by prejudice; for, seen so, the diversity of temperaments, inclinations, characters, and human conceptions would revolt and disgust us. We need to realize that this diversity, when subordinated to a higher, supernatural, and truly divine principle, can contribute to the harmony and beauty of the whole.

We must see souls in the light of faith. Then, beneath a sometimes dull and rough exterior, we reach the supernatural being of souls — their nature, not as opposed to grace, but as capable of receiving it. And we end by discovering among their very real faults, the work of the Savior. Failing to see souls in this light, we will only too often keep in embittered hearts the memory of hard words said to us, sometimes even when they have been taken back by contrition and confession.

When we see souls in the light of faith, we cannot help but love them and try to contribute to their sanctification. Let us remember our Lord's prayer: "That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee. . . . And the glory

which Thou hast given Me, I hare given to them; that they may be one, as We also are one." 88 Let us see one another in this light. Then divisions will begin to disappear. The heart will grow large with active, not merely verbal, charity. Justice according to the spirit rather than the letter of the law will be established, real and simple obedience, equally alien to servility and insubordination. This is more than the keeping of the law; it is true equity, 40 wholly penetrated with the spirit of Christ.

We should think of the great doctrine of the mystical body of our Lord while assisting at Mass, in which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated on the altar. Communion ought to be a participation in this sacrifice; by it our Lord desires to make our hearts like to His own heart of priest and victim; in continuing to offer Himself, He offers His mystical body, particularly those souls that pray and suffer supernaturally somewhat as He suffered.

St. Paul could say: "Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh for His body, which is the Church." 41 So, in a sense, in the mystical body, Christ is in agony until the end of the world. From this point of view, as stated many times by St. Paul, contemplation on the redeeming Passion and suffering supernaturally borne are as necessary for the mystical body as the light of the sun is for our bodily eyes. 42

Unfortunately, great sufferings, which could become purifying, only too often merely crush and exasperate souls not

open to the light diat would reach them from the crucifix and the tabernacle, if they would but pray and persevere in prayer. God's providence sends afflictions not only to individuals, but to groups of men, that they may come to know themselves better, to find out by experience their own limitations, to discover and correct their faults, to aspire to a higher good, and to enlist a more perfect help in reaching that end.

We sometimes believe a conflict of duty exists between subordinate obligations when opposing human passions have really upset their perfect balance. 43 To see their subordination, we must purify our hearts by prayer and love of God and neighbor; we must silence pride and listen to our Savior; we must be as kind and understanding with others as we need them to be with us. The gift of understanding will then illuminate our understanding, and we shall grasp in apparently complex and difficult cases the true meaning of our obligations, die right way to our last end or salvation. We shall discover how all truth and all human justice are subordinated to the "one thing necessary," the thing we must seek above all others. 44 Calmly, as Christians, we can then recall that, if we have a family and an earthly country to love and defend, we are also members of a great spiritual family founded by Christ, the mystical body of the Savior. We Christians belong to that Church which combats the spirit of guile and iniquity in this life, which suffers in purgatory, and which in heaven, our true homeland, is intimately associated with the life of God, with His infallible knowledge, sovereignly luminous with total and infinite Truth, in His immutable love of the unmixed Good, and with His eternal happiness that no dis-

order can trouble or decrease. Under the guidance of the Good Shepherd, who incorporates us with Himself, who assimilates us to Himself by giving us life, let us push on toward our true country, which is His and ours, too, since the life of grace is eternal life already begun.

Having spoken of God's love for us and the return He expects from us, of the love of God and the mystery of the cross in our Lord, and lastly, of the love of God and the mystical body of Christ, we are now about to consider our progress in love. The Christian grows in love by self-imposed mortification, by meritorious acts, by Holy Communion, by the crosses sent to purify senses and spirit and to make him work with and like Christ and His Blessed Mother, for his neighbor's salvation.

The doctrine as developed by St. Thomas and St. John of the Cross is what we shall follow. With the latter we shall see, as we have indicated in another work, 45 that "the passive purification of the senses is common, and occurs in the greater number of beginners" 46 in order to lead them into the illuminative way. We shall also see that the proficient or advanced find themselves in "the way of illumination or of infused contemplation wherewith God Himself feeds and nourishes the soul." 47 As to the passive purification of the spirit, it is, as we shall show, the door to the perfect unitive way, which in turn is a prelude to the life of heaven.

46 Christian Perfection and Contemplation, tr. Doyle, pp. 6, 7, 223. " The Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. 8. "Ibid., chap. 14.

Footnotes

1. Matt. 16: 18. 1 Luke 22: 32. •John 21: 15, 17. ↩