I.5. The Church, the Mystical Body of Christ

Summary. — The mystery of the Church inseparable from the Mystery of Christ: they form only one mystery. — I, The Church, the society founded on the Apostles; the doctrine and authority of Jesus are deposited with the Church; she dispenses His Sacraments and continues His work of religion. We only come to Christ through the Church. — II. The truth which places the special character of the Church’s visibility in relief: God wills to guide us through the ministry of men: importance of this supernatural economy resulting from the Incarnation; it glorifies Jesus and exercises our faith. Our duties towards the Church. Il. The Church, Christ’s mystical body of which He is the Head because He has all primacy. Far-reaching consequences of this union: ” We are Christ”, all are ” one in Christ”. To remain united to one another and to Jesus by charity.

N the preceding conferences I have tried to show how

Our Lord is our All. He has been chosen by His

Father to be the one Model of all holiness, in His state of Son of God, and in His virtues. He has merited, by His Life, Passion, and Death, to be for ever the universal dispenser of all grace. It is from Him that all grace proceeds, and all Divine life flows into our souls. St. Paul tells-us that God “hath subjected all things under His feet, and hath made Him head over all the Church, which is His body and the fulness of Him Who is filled all in all”: Omnia subjecit sub pedibus ejus (Christi), et ipsum dedit caput supra omnem Ecclesiam, quae est corpus ipsius et plenitudo ejus +.

By these words, in which he speaks of the Church, the Apostle completes the description of the economy of the mystery of Christ; we shall well understand this mystery only if we follow St. Paul in his exposition.¹

According to the beautiful words of St. Augustine, we cannot have a full conception of Christ considered apart from the Church: Totus Christus caput et corpus est: caput Unigenitus Dei Filius, et corpus ejus Ecclesia’. Jesus has the glory of His Father in view, as the foundation of all His life, of all His acts, but the masterpiece by which He is to procure this glory is the Church. Christ comes on earth to-create and constitute the Church ; it is the work to which all His existence converges, and He confirms it by His Passion and Death. His love for His Father led Jesus Christ to the mountain of Calvary, but it was there to form the Church, and make of her, by purifying her in His Divine Blood, a spotless and immaculate Bride: Dilexit Ecclesiam et seipsum tradidit pro ea ut illam sanctificaret *.

This is what St. Paul tells us. Let us then see what this Church is, of which the name occurs so often under the great Apostle’s pen as to be inseparable from that of Christ.

We may consider the Church in two ways: first as a visible, hierarchical society, founded by Christ to continue His sanctifying mission here below; she appears thus, as a living organism. But this point of view is not the only one ; to have a complete idea of the Church, we must regard her as the holy and invisible society of the souls that share by grace in Christ’s Divine Sonship, and form the Kingdom He won by His Blood. That is what St. Paul calls the body of Christ, not of course, His physical Body, but His mystical body. It is on this second point of view we shall principally dwell: we must not, however, pass over the first in silence.

It is true thet the invisible Church, or the soul of the Church, is more important than the visible Church, but, in the normal economy of Christianity, it is only by union with the visible society that souls have participation in the possessions and privileges of the invisible kingdom of Christ.

II

I have referred above to the testimony Peter gave, in the name of the other disciples, to the Divinity of Jesus: ” Thou 1. De Unitate Eccles. 4. No one has exposed this doctrine better than art Christ, the Son of the living God”. ” Blessed art thou ”, says Jesus to him, ” because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father Who is in heaven. 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. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven? ”.²

You will notice that it is as yet only a promise which rewards the apostle for the homage rendered to the Divinity of his Master. After the Resurrection ?, Jesus, being again in the midst of His disciples, says to Peter: ” Lovest thou Me?” ”Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee.” And Our Lord says to him: ” Feed My lambs”. Then He repeats the question three times, and at each of Peter’s protestations, Our Lord invests him as the visible Head of all His flock, both sheep and lambs. This investiture only took place after Peter had effaced his triple denial by a triple act of love. Thus Christ claimed a testimony of His Divinity from His Apostle before fulfilling the promise He had made of founding His Church upon him.

It is not necessary for me to explain how this society, established by Christ on Peter and the Apostles, so as to maintain the supernatural life in souls, has been organised and developed and spread throughout the world.

What we have to remember is, that here on earth, she continues the mission of Jesus by her doctrine and jurisdiction, by her Sacraments and worship.

By her doctrine, which she guards intact and integral in a living and uninterrupted tradition; by her jurisdiction, in vittue of which she has authority to direct us in the name of Christ; by the Sacraments whereby she enables ts to draw from the sources of grace which her Divine Founder has created; by the worship which she herself organises so as to render all glory and honour to Jesus Christ, and to His Father.

How does the Church continue Christ by her doctrine and jurisdiction ?

When Christ came into this world, the only means of going to the Father was to submit oneself entireiy to His Son,³

Jesus : Hic est Filius meus dilectus, ipsum audite. In the beginning of the public life of the Saviour, the Eternal Father showed His Son to the Jews, and said to them: Hear Him because He is My Only Son ; I send Him to reveal to you the secrets of My Divine life and My will, Jpse enarravit... ipsum audite.

But since His Ascension Christ has left His Church on earth, and this Church is like the extension of the Incarnation amongst us. The Church — that is to say, the Sovereign Pontiff, and the Bishops, with the pastors who are subject to them — speaks to us with all the infallible authority of Jesus Christ Himself.

While He was upon earth, Christ contained infallibility in Himself: Ego sum veritas. "I am the truth; I am the life; he that followeth Me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” Before leaving us, He confided these powers to His Church: Sicut misit Me Pater, et ego mitto vos. " As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you 2; he that heareth you heareth Me, and he that despiseth you, despiseth Him that sent Me.” Qui vos audit, Me audit: et qui vos spermt, Me spermt. Qui autem Me spernit, spernit eum qui msit Me*. "In the same way that I hold My doctrine from My Father, so the doctrine that you teach, you hold from Me ; whosoever receives this doctrine, receives My doctrine, which is that of My Father; whosoever despises it, in whatever degree or measure it may be, despises My doctrine, despises Me, and despises My Father”.

See then this Church, possessing all the power, all the infallible authority of Christ, and understand that the absolute submission to the Church of all your being, intelligence, will, and energies is the only means of going to the Father. Christianity in its true expression, only exists by means of this absolute submission to the doctrine and laws of the Church.

Properly speaking, this submission to the Church distinguishes the Catholic from the Protestant. For example, the latter may believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, but if he believes in it, it is because he has found this doctrine in the scriptures and tradition, by his own efforts and personal lights; the Catholic believes it because the Church, which holds the place of Christ, teaches him this doctrine. Both hold the same truth, but the manner of holding it is different. The Protestant does not submit to any authority; he depends only on himself; the Catholic receives Christ with all that He has taught and founded. Christianity is, in practice, submission to Christ in the person of the Sovereign Pontiff and the pastors united to him: submission of the intelligence to their teaching, submission of the will to their commandments. This way is safe, for Our Lord is with His Apostles until the consummation of the world, and He has prayed for Peter and his successors that their faith should not fail 1.⁴

The Church is also the living continuation of Christ’s mediation. It is true, as I have said, that Christ, after His death, can no longer merit”. But He is always living to make intercession for us with His Father. I have said, too, that it was above all in instituting the Sacraments that Christ willed to establish the means by which, after His Ascension, His merits would be applied to us, and His grace given to us. But where are these Sacraments to be found ? Tn the Church to which Our Lord committed them. ” Go”, He said to His Apostles (and their successors), when He was about to ascend into heaven, ” Teach ye all nations, baptising them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of The Holy Ghost ?.” He communicated to them the power of forgiving or retaining sins. ” Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained*+.” He gave them the mission of renewing in His Name and in commemoration of Him, the Sacrifice of His Body and Blood.

Do you wish to enter into the family of God, to be admitted among His children, to be incorporated with Christ ? Go to the Church; her Baptism is the door through which you must pass. In the same way, to obtain the pardon of your sins, it is the Church to whom you must have recourse *. If we wish to receive the food of our souls, we must look for it from the priests, who, by the Sacrament of

1. Luc. xxm, 32. — 2. P. 59 sq. — 3. Matth. xxvii, 19. — 4. Joan. xx, 23; Luc. xn, 19. — 5. Saving, of course, the case of material impossibility, when perfect contrition suffices. We are speaking of the rule, and not of exceptions, however numerous they might be. Moreover, perfect contrition includes, at least implicitly, the resolution and desire to have recourse to the Church. go CHRIST, THE LIFE OF THE SOUL.

Holy Order, have received the sacred power of dispensing the Bread of Life; and among those who are baptised the union between man and woman is culpable if the Church has not consecrated it by her blessing. So, then, the official means established by Jesus, those fountains of grace which He has caused to spring up for us, are in the keeping of the Church.

Lastly, Our Lord has confided to His Church, the mission of continuing here below His work of religion.

Jesus Christ, when upon earth, offered a perfect canticle of praise to His Father; His soul unceasingly contemplated the Divine perfections, and from this contemplation came forth His continual praise and adoration to the glory of His Father. By His Incarnation, Christ associated entire humanity, in principle, with this work of praise. When He left us, He gave to His Church the charge of perpetuating, in His Name, this praise due to His Father. Around the Mass, the centre of all our religion, the Church organises the worship she alone has the right to offer in the name of Christ her Spouse. She weaves a garland of prayers, formulas, and canticles which surround the Divine Sacrifice. Throughout the year she distributes the celebration of the mysteries of her Spouse so that each year her children may live these mysteries over again, render thanks for them to Jesus Christ and His Father, and draw from them the Divine life that these mysteries, first lived by Jesus, have merited for us. All her worship relates to Christ. It is in leaning upon the infinite merits of Jesus, upon His quality of universal and ever-living Mediator, that the Church ends all her supplications: Per Dominum Nostrum Jesum Christum qui tecum vivit et regnat; and in the same way, it is in passing through Christ that all the praise and adoration of the Church ascends to the Eternal Father and is accepted in the sanctuary of the Trinity: Per ipsum et cum ipso et in ipso, est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti in unitate Spiritus Sancti omnis honor et gloria’.

Such then is the manner in which the Church, founded by Jesus, continues His Divine work here below. The Church is the authentic depositary of the doctrine and law of Christ, and the distributor of His graces among men. Lastly, she

1. Ordinary of the Mass.

THE CHURCH, THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST. gI is the Bride who, in Christ’s name, offers perfect praise to God for ail her children.

And the Church is thus so much united to Christ, she possesses such an abundance of His riches, that it may be said that she is Christ living throughout the centuries. Christ came upon earth, not only for those who lived at that time in Palestine, but for men of all times. When He deprived men of His sensible presence, He gave them the Church with her doctrine, jurisdiction, Sacraments, and worship, to be as another Christ; it is in the Church that we can find Him. No one goes to the Father — and to go to the Father is all salvation and all sanctity — except through Christ: Nemo venit ad Patrem nisi per me*. But remember well this no less important truth : no one goes to Christ except through the Church ; we only belong to Christ if we belong in fact or in desire to the Church. It is only in the unity of the Church that we can live the life of Christ. by

As you know, the Church is visible.

Her hierarchy is composed of the Sovereign Pontiff the successor of St. Peter, the Bishops, and the pastors, who, united to the Vicar of Christ and the Bishops, exercise their jurisdiction over us in the name of Christ. For it is by the intermediary of man that Christ guides and sanctifies us.

There is a profound truth here, upon which we must dwell.

Since the Incarnation, God, in His relations with us, acts through men; I speak of the normal, regular economy, not of the exceptions by which God safeguards His supreme dominion here, as in all else. For example, God could reveal to us directly what we have to do to come to Him, but that is not His way; He sends us to a man, certainly infallible in the matter of faith, but still, a man like ourselves, from whom we must hold all doctrine. In the same way, if someone falls into sin, he may humble himself before God in bitter grief, and perform all sorts of penances. But without confession to a priest appointed by God as His minister, there is no forgiveness. The most ardent and deep contrition, the most terrible penances, do not suffice to blot out a single mortal sin, if one has not the intention of submitting to the humiliation of making known one’s sin to this man, who. fills the place of Christ.⁵

You see now in what the supernatural economy consists, namely, that from all eternity God beheld the Incarnation, and, since His Son united Himself to humanity and saved the world by becoming Incarnate, Ged wills that it should be through the intermediary of men similar to ourselves, weak, as we are, that grace should be poured out upon the world. This is a prolongation, an extension of the Incarnation. God has drawn near to us in the Person of His Son made man, and, since then, it is through the members of His Son that He continues to enter into communication with our souls. God wills by this, as it were, to exalt His Son by referring all to His Incarnation, in thus attaching to it in such a visible manner, and this till the end of time, the whole economy of our salvation and sanctification.

But He has likewise established this economy so as to make us live by faith. For there is a double element in the Church — a human and a Divine element.

The human element is the frailty of the men who hold the power of Christ in order to direct us. Consider how weak St. Peter was! At the words of a servant-maid, he denies his Master, on the very day of his priestly ordination. And yet Christ, well knowing this frailty, founds His Church upon him. Peter’s successors are frail: the infallibility which they possess in the matter of faith does not give them the privilege of not sinning. Could not Our Lord have conferred impeccability upon them ? Certainly He could: but He has not so willed; He has willed that our faith should be exercised. Why is this?

Through the human element, the faithful soul discerns the Divine element: the indefectibility of doctrine safeguarded during all the centuries and despite all the assaults of heresies and schisms; the unity of this same doctrine preserved by infallible teaching ; heroic and uninterrupted holiness manifested in so many ways; the continuous succession by which, link by link, the Church of our days can be traced back to the foundation established by the Apostles; the force of universal development which characterises her ;

’ these are so many certain signs by which we recognise that

Our Lord is with His Church ” even to the consummation of the world! ”.

Let us then have great confidence in this Church which Jesus has left to us. We have the happiness of belonging to Christ, in belonging to this society which is one, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman. We ought to rejoice greatly, and ever thank God for having ” translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of His love?”. Is it not an immense assurance to be able to draw grace and life at their authentic and official sources, through our incorporation with the Church?

Moreover, let us give to those who have jurisdiction over us, the obedience which Christ demands of us. This submission of our intelligence and wili must be given to God in the person of a man, otherwise God does not accept it. Let us give to those who govern us, above all to the Sovereign Pontiff, Vicar of Christ, to the Bishops who are in union with him, and who possess the lights of the Holy Spirit 3 to guide us, that inward submission, that filial reverence, that practical obedience which make of us true children of the Church.

The Church is the Bride of Christ, she is our Mother; we ought to love her because she brings us to Jesus and unites us to Him. We ought to love and revere her doctrine, because it is the doctrine of Jesus Christ; to love her prayer and associate ourselves with it because it is the prayer of the Bride of Christ, and there is none safer for us, none more pleasing to Our Lord. In a word, we ought to attach ourselves to the Church, to all that comes from her as we should have been attached to the very Person of Jesus and to all that came to us from Him, if it had been given us to follow Him during His earthly life.

Such is the Church as a visible society. St. Paul compares her to an edifice ” built upon the foundation of the Apostles, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone”. Jpso summo angulari lapide Christo Jesu*. We live in this house of God, ” no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the Saints ”. it,⁶

Another image occurs still more frequently under the pen of St. Paul, a more expressive image, for it is borrowed from life itself, above all because it gives us a more profound conception of the Church in showing the intimate relations existing between her and Christ. These relations are summed up in this phrase of the Apostle: the Church is a body, of which Christ is the Head *.

Why is Christ the Head, the Chief of the Church ? Because He has the primacy. First of all, a primacy of honour: Deus exaliavit illum et donavit illi nomen quod est super omne nomen, ” God... hath given Him a Name which is above all names: that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow?”. A primacy of authority: Data est mihi omnis potestas. ' All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth®””, But above all, a primacy of life, of interior influence: Deus omnia subjecit sub pedibus ejus et ipsum dedit caput supra omnem Ecclesiam. " He hath subjected all things under His feet, and hath made Him head over all the Church +”.

We are all called to live the life of Christ, but it is from Him that we must all receive it. Christ, as I have said >, won this primacy, this supreme power of giving grace to ” every man that cometh into this world”, by His death. He exercises a primacy of Divine influence by being, for every soul in a different degree, the one source of the grace by which they live®. ” Christ”, says St. Thomas, ” has received the fulness of grace, not only for Himself, but in His capacity as Head of the Church’?”.

Doubtless, Christ distributes the treasures of His grace to souls unequally; but, adds St. Thomas, it is in order that

1. Cor. xl, 12 sq. The Apostle also employs other expressions. He says we are joined to Christ as the branches to the trunk (Rom. v, 5.) as the materials that make up an edifice (Ephes. m, 21-22.) but he lays most stress on the idea of a body united to the head. — 2. Philip. 11, 9. — 3. Matth. xxvm, 18. — 4. Ephes. 1, 22. — 5. pp. 51-52. — 6. This divine and interior influence of Christ in the souls that form His mystical body distinguishes this union from the purely moral union existing between the supreme authority of a human society and the members of this society. In the latter case the influence of the authority is exterior, and only goes to coordinate and maintain the diverse energies of the members towards a common end; the action of Christ in the Church is more intimate, more penetrating, it touches the very life of souls, and this is one of the reasons why the mystical body is not a fiction of our reason, but a most profound reality. — 7. III, q. xLvmt, a. 1. from this same gradation, the beauty and perfection of the Church, His mystical body, may result!. That is the idea of St. Paul. After having said that grace has been granted to each ” according to the measure of the giving of Christ”: Secundum mensuram donationis Christi ?, the Apostle enumerates the different graces that adorn souls, and he concludes by saying that they are given” for the edifying of the body of Christ”. There is diversity among the members, but this very variety conduces to the harmony of unity.

The union between Christ and His members is such that it makes us only one with Him. To touch the Church, to touch those who by Baptism, and their life of grace are members of the Church, is to touch Christ Himself.

How well St. Paul understood this doctrine! With what force he has exposed it, and how expressive are his words! ” No man”, he says, ” ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the Church, because we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones*”. And it is because we are united so closely to Christ, forming with Him a single body, that Christ has willed that all His work should be ours.

This is a profound truth that we ought often to have before our eyes. Through Jesus, the Incarnate Word, all humanity regained the friendship of God. St. Thomas writes that in consequence of the identification established by Christ between Him and us from the moment of the Incarnation, the fact that Christ has suffered voluntarily in our place and in our name, constitutes so great a good that, for having found this good in human nature, God, being appeased, forgets all offences in those who unite themselves to Christ*. The satisfactions and merits of Christ have become ours °.

Since this moment we are indissolubly associated with Jesus Christ. In the thought of the Heavenly Father we are one with Him. ” God”, says St. Paul, ” is rich in mercy for... when we were dead in sins, (He) hath quickened us together in Christ... and hath raised us up together, and hath

1. I-II, q. cxtt, a. a. — 2. Ephes. tv, 7. —3. Ibid. v, 29-30. — 4. Ill, q. XLIX, a. 4. — 5. Caput et membra sunt quasi una persona mystica et ideo satisfactio Christi ad omnes fideles pertinet sicut ad sua membra. S. Thom. III, g. xiv, a. 2 ad 1. made us sit together in the heavenly places... that He might show in the ages to come the abundant riches of His grace... in Christ Jesus?”. In a word, He makes us live with Christ, in Christ: CONVIVIFICAVIT nos in Christo, in order to make us His joint-heirs. St. Thomas says that ” it is by one same eternal act of Divine Wisdom that Christ and ourselves have been predestinated ?”.

Oh ! if we had faith in these truths ! If we understood what it is for us to have entered, by Baptism, into the Church, to be, by grace, members of Christ’s mystical body! ”TLet us congratulate ourselves, let us break forth into thanksgiving”, exclaims St. Augustine*, ” we are become not only Christians, but Christ.” Do we understand, my brethren, the outpouring of God’s grace upon us? Let us wonder and thrill with gladness; we are become Christ; He the Head, we the members; the total man, He and ourselves. CHRISTUS facti SUMUS; si enim caput ille, nos membra; totus homo, ille et nos... Who is the Head, and who are the members? Christ andthe Church. The great doctor continues: ’” This would be a pretention of foolish pride, if Christ Himself had not deigned to promise us this glory when, by the mouth of His Apostle Paul, He said: You are the body of Christ and His members. ”

Yes, let us thank Jesus Christ for associating us so intimately with His life; all is common to us in Him: merits, interests, all the riches of grace, beatitude, glory. Let us henceforward be members who do not condemn ourselves, by sin, to become dead members. But rather, by the grace which comes from Him, by our virtues modelled upon His, by our holiness which is only a participation in His, let us be members full of supernatural life and beauty, members in whom Christ may be glorified.

And since ” we are all one in Christ”, since, under the same Head, we all live the same life of grace under the action of the same Spirit, although each member has a different function, let us remain united among ourselves, united also with those holy souls who, in Heaven as glorious

Tt. Mphes: Il, 4-75 cl. Rom: Vi, 4. Col, iiea2-135)— 12.) cee v Cum uno et eodem actu Deus praedestinaverit ipsum et nos. III, q. XXIV, a. 4. — 3. Tract. in Joan, xxi, 8-9. And in another place: Secum nos faciens unum hominem caput et corpus. — Enarrat. in Ps. LXxxv, c. 1. And again: Unus homo caput et corpus, unus homo Christus et Ecclesia, vir perfectus. — Enarrat. in Ps. xvi, c. 10. members and in Purgatory as suffering members, form with us but one body: Ut unum sint. This is the consoling dogma of the Communion of Saints.

With St. Paul, the ” Saints” are those who belong to Christ, whether having received the crown, they already have their place in the eternal Kingdom, or whether they are still fighting here below. But all these members belong to a single body, for the Church is one. They have solidarity with one another, all is common among them. ”If one member suffer anything, all the members suffer with it; or if one member glory, all the members rejoice with it?”. The good of one member profits the entire body, and the glory of the body reflects on each of its members”. What a perspective this thought opens out upon our responsibilities!... What an ardent source of apostolate! Therefore St. Paul exhorts each of us to labour until we attain to the perfection of the mystical body: Donec occurramus omnes in virum perfectum, im mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi *.

For this it is necessary that we not only remain united to Christ Who is the Head, but also that we should be most careful ” to keep the unity of the Spirit (the Spirit of love) in the bond of peace.” Solliciti servare unitatem Spiritus in vinculo pacts *.

This was the supreme wish of Christ at the moment of achieving His mission here below: ” That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee... that they may be made perfect inone’”. ” For”, says St. Paul, ” you are all the children of God, by faith in Christ Jesus... there is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither bond nor free*”. We are all one in Christ. Unity in God, in Christ, and through Christ, that is the ultimate term: ” that God may Dealt anal 77"

St. Paul, who puts the union of Christ and His Church in such strong relief, could not fail to tell us something of the final glory of the mystical body of Jesus. He tells us &, that on the day fixed by the Divine decrees, when the

1. I Cor. xu, 26. — 2. Sicut in corpore naturali operatio unius membri cedit in bonum totius corporis, ita et in corpore spirituali sctlicet Ecclesia, quia omnes fideles sunt unum corpus, bonum unius altert communicatur. S. Thom. Opusc. vu. Expositio Symboli. c. xu; cf. I-II, q. xx, a. 3. — 3. Ephes. 1v, 13. — 4. Ephes. Iv, 3. — 5. Joan. xvi, 21-23. — 6. Gal. m, 26. — 7. I Cor. xv, 28. — 8. Ibid. 24-28.

Christ, the life of the soul. 7 mystical body will have arrived ” unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ”, then will dawn the triumph which is to consecrate for ever the union of the Church and of its Head. Associated until then so intimately with the life of Jesus, the Church now completed will be glorified with Him*. The Resurrection triumphs over death, the last enemy to be overcome; then the elect, being all at last united under their Divine Head, Christ, He will present to His Father this society, no longer imperfect, nor militant in the midst of miseries, temptations and struggles;no longer suffering the fire of expiation, but henceforth transfigured and glorious in ail its members.

What a grand sight it will be to see Jesus Christ offer to the Eternal Fathel these glorious and innumerable trophies, proclaiming the power of His grace, the kingdom won by His Blood shining with purest splendour, fruit of the Divine life which flows full and inebriating in each of the Saints!

We can well understand how, in the Apocalypse, St. John, having foreseen some of these marvels and these joys, compares them, after the example of Jesus Himself, to a marriage feast, ’ the marriage of the Lamb?”. We can well understand too, how, in order to bring to a fitting close this mysterious description of the heavenly Jerusalem, the same Apostle repeats the ardent aspiration that Christ and the Church, the Bridegroom and the Bride, ceaselessly repeat to each other while avaiting the hour of final consummation and perfect union: ” Come!” *

1.1] Tim. m, 12; Rom. vu, 17. — 2. Matth. xx, 2; Apoc. xIxX, 9. — 3. Apoc. XXII, 16-17.

Footnotes

1. 1. Ephes. 1, 22-23.
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2. St. Augustine ; the holy Doctor has developed it especially in the Enar. in Psalm. — 2. Ephes. v, 25-26. ↩

3. 1. Matth. xvi, 16-19. — 2. Joan. XxI, 15-17.
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4. 1. Joan. xIv, 6; vill, 12. — 2. Ibid. xx, 21. — 3. Luc. x, 16.
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5. 1. Joan. xiv, 6.
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6. 1, Matth. xxvii, 20. — 2. Col. 1, 13. — 3. Spiritus Sanctus posuit episcopos regere Ecclesiam Det. Act. xx, 28. — 4. Ephes. 0, 19-22. ↩