By DON FIER
As we considered “People of God” as an image of the Church last week, an important and underlying principle inherent to its biblical symbolism emerged: God wills to make us holy and save us not as separated, isolated individuals, but as a people. He wills to sanctify and redeem mankind “by making them into one people gathered together by the unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 153).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) lists seven basic ways that indicate how the Church is the “People of God.” As summarized by Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ, they are: 1) those called by God to belong are to be “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9); 2) her members are born of water and the Spirit; 3) her head is Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God; 4) her people have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them as in a temple of God; 5) her law is the New Law, the new commandment of love, as given by our Lord; 6) her mission is to be the “salt of the earth” (Matt. 5:13) and the “light of the world” (Matt. 5:14); and 7) her final destiny is the Kingdom of God, already begun here on earth (cf. The Faith, p. 87).
Moreover, as we also saw last week, the people of God share in Jesus’ threefold office as priest, prophet, and king.
They “participate in Christ’s priestly office insofar as the baptized are consecrated by the Holy Spirit to offer spiritual sacrifices. They share in Christ’s prophetic office when with a supernatural sense of faith they adhere willingly to that faith and deepen their understanding and witness to it. The people of God share in his kingly office by means of service, imitating Christ who as King of the universe made himself the servant of all, especially the poor and the suffering” (Compendium, n. 155).
Just as the Son of man “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28; Mark 10:45), we are able to join in His royalty of the cross by willfully accepting suffering in loving service to those in need.
The Catechism now changes its focus so as to devote ten paragraphs to another fundamental image of the Church, the “Body of Christ.” As explained by Pope St. John Paul II, “while the concept of the ‘People of God’ . . . belongs to the Old Testament and is taken up again and enriched in the New Testament, the image of the body of Christ, which Vatican II also used in speaking about the Church, has no precedents in the Old Testament” (general audience, November 20, 1991).
This new imagery is especially prevalent in the Pauline letters, which speak metaphorically of the human body in comparison to the Church as the Body of Christ. “Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body,” says the Apostle to the Gentiles, “so it is with Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12).
Before probing more deeply into the symbolism of the “Body of Christ,” it would be good to briefly examine the history of the concept’s development in the patristic and theological tradition of the Church. Although the Church today is commonly referred to as the “Mystical Body of Christ,” it should be noted that the adjective “mystical” does not appear directly in the Pauline letters.
However, as pointed out by Fr. Hardon, it is implicit in the writings of Saints Peter and Paul. In his Letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul urges his listeners to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace . . . one body and one Spirit” (Eph. 3:3-4). And St. Peter likens the members of the Church to “living stones…built into a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5).
Fr. Hardon goes on to relate that “Clement of Alexandria in the early third century spoke of ‘the spiritual Body which is the holy Church,’ and Tertullian clearly distinguished between ‘the spiritual Body of Christ’ and the Church, and the ‘carnal body of Christ’ as a man” (The Catholic Faith [volume. 3, n. 4], p. 5).
It was in the fifth century that Pope Leo I crystallized the “mystery-concept” of the Church. And it wasn’t until the Middle Ages that the three elements of spirit, mystery, and the Body of Christ were combined into a single term by William of Auxerre (d. 1231), a French philosopher-theologian who served as an envoy and councilor to Pope Gregory IX.
In 1302 Pope Boniface VIII solemnly defined the Church as “one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God” in his bull, Unam Sanctum. It was ultimately Pope Pius XII in his 1943 encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi (MCC) who took the concept of the “Mystical Body of Christ” to its highest theological point of development (cf. ibid., p. 6).
The Catechism begins its treatment of the Church as the “Body of Christ” with a subheading declaring that “the Church is communion with Jesus” to emphasize how intimate the union between our Lord and His Church is. To reinforce the closeness of this bond, it then recalls the well-known metaphor of the vine and branches: “Abide in me, and I in you….I am the vine, you are the branches” (John 15:4-5). It is from Christ that the people of God get their very life.
Vatican Council II’s Constitution on the Church teaches, “By communicating His Spirit [after His visible presence was taken from us], Christ made His brothers, called together from all nations, mystically the components of His own Body” (Lumen Gentium, n. 7 § 1). “Not only is she gathered around him,” states the Catechism, “she is united in him, in his body” (CCC, n. 789).
The Catechism now goes on to specifically treat three aspects of the Church as the Body of Christ that are crucial for gaining an appreciation for this great mystery of our faith: “The unity of all her members with each other as a result of their union with Christ; Christ as head of the Body; and the Church as bride of Christ” (CCC, n. 789).
The verse cited earlier from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (v. 12:12) can be seen to underscore both the multiplicity and unity that is proper to the Church. The image of the “People of God” might be said to highlight the multiplicity of her members, but it is the concept of the “Body of Christ” that “emphasizes the unity within this multiplicity, pointing out especially the principle and source of this unity: Christ” (John Paul II, ibid.).
St. Paul admirably expresses this in his Letter to the Romans: “For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Romans 12:4-5).
Mutual Collaboration
Pope Pius XII comments beautifully on the centrality of the notions of multiplicity and unity in the Church:
“A body calls…for a multiplicity of members, which are linked together in such a way as to help one another. And as in the body when one member suffers, all the other members share its pain, and the healthy members come to the assistance of the ailing, so in the Church the individual members do not live for themselves alone, but also help their fellows, and all work in mutual collaboration for the common comfort and for the more perfect building up of the whole Body” (MCC, n. 7).
However, “the body’s unity does not do away with the diversity of its members” (CCC, n. 791). For, as the Vatican II fathers state, “in the building up of Christ’s Body various members and functions have their part to play. There is only one Spirit who, according to His own richness and the needs of the ministries, gives His different gifts for the welfare of the Church (cf. 1 Cor. 12:1-11)” (LG, n. 7 § 3).
In other words, just as in the human body there are a diversity of organs and functions, all coalescing and working together in unison in a healthy organism, so it is with the Church. The Holy Spirit distributes gifts and charisms to the members of the Church so that they may be shared and used for the building up of the whole Body of Christ.
As stated elsewhere in the Catechism: “These differences belong to God’s plan, who wills that each receive what he needs from others, and that those endowed with particular ‘talents’ share the benefits with those who need them. These differences encourage and often oblige persons to practice generosity, kindness, and sharing of goods; they foster the mutual enrichment of cultures” (CCC, n. 1937).
Just as there exists the “need for ‘biological’ harmony in the human organism…[so too] the necessity of solidarity among all members of the Church community” (St. John Paul, ibid.).
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(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is doing research for writing a definitive biography of Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)
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