Chapter 23: Life in the Body

1. Life Processes of the Body
   • The Life Flows from the Head to the Body
     • In the previous chapter we considered the Mystical Body from the perspective of Christ living in the Church. The present chapter will consider the Mystical Body from the perspective of the Christian living in Christ.
     • The life-giving operation of Christ in the members of the Body consists of the theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity), the moral virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude), and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, fear of the Lord) (327-1).
     • This vital operation of Christ is the life of God flowing from the Head to the Body (327-1).
     • We receive this divine life according to the level of our capacity to receive it. “It does not make the finite [i.e., the members of the body] infinite, but it is hard to find any limit short of that to what it can do: if we will let it” (327-1).
     • Even as members of the Mystical Body, our wills remain free to receive the Life or to reject it (327-2).
       • The will is solicited by actual grace, but not coerced (327-2).
       • Growing to maturity in the Body is not a matter of the destruction of our free will; rather, it requires our free choice for union with God, and this is not a simple matter that can be accomplished in “one swift stride” (327-2).
     • By Baptism we become “cells” in Christ’s Mystical Body and, as a result, are in His life-stream of sanctifying grace (327-2).
   • The Necessity of Our Receptivity
     • However, the stream of grace will flow into us only to the degree that we are open to receiving it. There are three options (327-2):
       • “If we will to open our being [completely], then the Life flows into it and vivifies it wholly” and we will be totally alive, as are the saints.
         • “But those that were sown upon the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold” (Mk 4:20).
       • “If we will to open our being [in a partial way] . . . reserving this or that small element ungiven to God . . . the life will still flow to us . . . [but the part of us that we hold back for ourselves] will remain unvivified” and we will fail to mature (327-2):
         • “And as for [the seed that] fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and they do not mature” (Lk 8:14).
       • If we set ourselves firmly against God’s will by the free choice of mortal sin, we destroy the life-secret (i.e., charity) in our souls and “we close our being to the life flow.” We still remain a part of the body, but as dead cells with respect to the supernatural life to which we have been called.
         • “And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown; when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word which is sown in them” (Mk 4:15).
         • No baptized person can be completely cut off from the Body: “Although public apostates and heretics, schismatics and “excommunicati vitandi” (as opposed to “excommunicati tolerati”) are outside the legal organization of the Church, still their relationship to the Church is essentially different from that of the unbaptized” (Ott, 311) who are not members of the Mystical Body.
       • “While we remain in this life upon earth, it is always possible for the dead cell that we have become [through mortal sin] to be reopened and made alive by true sorrow for sin and the sacrament of Penance” (328-1).
   • Growth in the Body
     • Growth in the body means, first, growing into likeness to Christ by “growing away from all that is unlike [Christ, and] then growing in likeness [to Him]” (328-2).
       • “My little children, with whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed (i.e., fully formed) in you!” (Gal 4:19).
       • “Let it then be our chief study to meditate on the life of Jesus Christ” (IOC, I, 1, 1).
       • “He who would fully and feelingly understand the words of Christ, must study to make his whole life conformable to that of Christ” (IOC, I, 1, 1).
     • We may feel “that the saints are overdoing their anguish at their own imperfections. We are so much more imperfect, so much less agonized” (328-2)
       • For example, St. John Vianney, during a grave illness when he was fifty-eight, said: “I should like to live longer in order to weep for my sins” (Trochu, “The Cure D’Ars,” p. 347).
     • Similarly, we are inclined to think that a pianists dismay over a performance we would be proud of must be insincere; however, “the pianist is comparing himself not with us but with Rachmaninoff [one of the finest pianists of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s]” (328-2).
     • Like the saints, we too should be consumed with striving to be perfectly made in the image of Christ; this is the purpose for which He gives His gifts of Truth and Life (328-2):
       • “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10).
       • “His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me” (Jn 2:17, Ps 119:139).
     • St. Paul speaks at length of growth in the Body in Ephesians 4:11-15:
       • “His gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love” (Eph 4:11-15).
   • A Variety of Functions in the Body
     • We see from this verse that the Body is not simply an “undifferentiated mass of human cells, all alike and all functioning alike” (329-2).
     • Rather, the Body is a structured organism in which all of the parts function differently for the perfection of the whole Body (329-2).
     • There is not a differentiation of likenesses, one each for popes, bishops, priests, and laity. There is not a special likeness reserved for those “destined” to be saints (329-2).
     • All of the members of the Body are called to be saints, clergy and the laity alike, and we are all called to the same likeness of Christ. But each member is called to that likeness according to his function in the Body (329-2).
       • “Therefore in the Church, everyone whether belonging to the hierarchy, or being cared for by it, is called to holiness, according to the saying of the Apostle: ‘For this is the will of God, your sanctification’” (“Lumen Gentium,” #39; 1 Thes 4:3; Eph 1:4).
     • “In this [the various functions in the Body], we see that the Body has an order and a proportion and a complexity of elements working together” (329-2). We also see it in the sacraments, “the principal means by which the energizing of the Holy Spirit flows to us from Christ” (329-2).
       • “Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life” (CCC 2010).
       • “A just man merits for himself through each good work an increase of sanctifying grace, eternal life (if he dies in a state of grace) and an increase of heavenly glory” (Ott, 267).
2. The Life Stream
   • Extraordinary Means of Obtaining Sanctifying Grace
     • In addition to the principal means of obtaining sanctifying grace, extraordinary means are possible (notes from chapter 13):
       • “The state of grace is possible outside the visible Church. It is realized by men who, with the help of actual grace, do what is in their power and thus come to love God efficaciously more than themselves with a love of esteem if not a love of sentiment. ‘To anyone doing what in him lies [with the help of actual grace], God does not refuse [habitual] grace’” (Garrigou-Lagrange, “Our Savior and His Love for Us,” p. 378, quoting the Summa Ia IIae, q. 109, a. 6; q. 112, a. 3).
       • The possibility of the reception of sanctifying grace in an extraordinary manner rests on 1 Tim 2:4: “[God] desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
       • Doctrines admitting extraordinary means of grace:
         • “[Perfect] contrition remits venial sins; it also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to sacramental confession as soon as possible” (CCC 1452).
         • “God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but He Himself is not bound by his sacraments” (CCC 1257).
   • The Silent Flow of the Life-Stream
     • In our own bodies, live-giving blood flows silently to every part of the body through a variety of channels. Similarly, sanctifying grace flows silently to each of the members of the Mystical Body through a multiplicity of channels (329-2).
     • “As in the individual soul, so in the Mystical Body, the Kingdom of God is like a leaven working secretly” (329-2)
       • “He told them another parable. ‘The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened’” (Mt 13:33).
       • Perhaps Sheed refers to the virtue of charity as the life-secret because it works secretly, that is, out of sight, in the Mystical Body and in us, similar to the way a seed grows:
         • “And he said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how (i.e., secretly). The earth produces of itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear” (Mk 4:26-28).
   • Food for the Body
     • When discussing the sacraments in chapter 21 (“Dispensing the Gifts”) we spoke of Baptism as the means by which we enter into the life of the Body or, better still, the means by which the life of the Body enters into us (329-3).
     • As is the case with all animate bodies, the Mystical Body needs food to sustain the life it has received. Because “this new life of sanctifying grace is Christ Himself living in us, the only food that could feed a life which is Christ must itself be Christ” (330-1).
       • This is not intuitive, but we know it as a fact from Scripture: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me” (Jn 6:56-57).
       • In other words, this verse tells us that life in the Mystical Body, which is Christ living in the members and the members living in Him, is sustained by the Holy Eucharist through which He abides in the members and the members abide in Him.
     • By receiving Him in the Holy Eucharist “we are in the profoundest sense one with Him, and this is the great thing; but also we are one with all, in all ages, who by receiving Him have become likewise one with Him” (330-2).
     • The Holy Eucharist serves the spiritual growth of the individual members of the Body, but it also serves the unity of the Body as a whole, “drawing the whole more profoundly into oneness with Christ” (330-2).
       • “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor 10:17).
3. The Mass
   • The Means of Union with God:
     • On the part of God, the channels of grace (the sacraments) are the means of union between Him and us (330-3).
     • On the part of man, the means of union of is prayer (330-3).
     • Considered in its broadest sense, prayer is “the direction of life to God” (330-3).
     • Considered in its specific sense, prayer is “the converse of the soul with God” (330-3).
   • Prayer of the Individual
     • Scripture speaks of a need for individual prayer. This is especially the prayer of Christian meditation that eventually leads into contemplation:
       • “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt 6:6).
     • This involves the soul’s uttering itself to God and receiving His utterance in return, and the will being given to Him in love (330-3).
       • Note that this does not imply that in prayer there should be a lot of speaking on our part. Consider the Virgin Mary (Lk 2:19, 51).
     • From the writings and lives of the saints we have some idea of how far this converse can go. In the highest stages of prayer the soul can be brought to an awareness of God as being immediately present, even to the point of having “an awareness of the Triplicity of the Persons in the Godhead” (331-1).
     • Fr. Dubay, citing Teresa of Avila, speaks of an intellectual vision of the Trinity as being the normal mode of entry into seventh mansions, the transforming union:
       • “[The soul] sees these three Persons, individually, and yet, by a wonderful kind of knowledge which is given to it, the soul realizes that most certainly and truly all these three Persons are one Substance and one Power and one Knowledge and one God alone . . . although nothing is seen by the eyes, either of the body or of the soul, for it is no ordinary vision” (FW 104-2).
   • Prayer of the Mystical Body
     • Scripture also speaks of a need for communal prayer:
       • “I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:19-20).
     • A man’s relationship to God is not only a one-to-one relationship. As a member of the Mystical Body, there is necessarily a many-to-one relationship between the members of the Mystical Body as a society and God (331-2).
     • Hence, in addition to that aspect of prayer that is proper for the individual, there is necessarily a social aspect of prayer. That is, members of the Body must come together for prayer (331-2).
       • Even in the case of individual prayer there is still an intrinsic social aspect, for the Christian always prays from his place in the Body (331-2).
       • But this intrinsic solidarity with the Body reaches a new depth when the Mystical Body is united in prayer (331-2).
     • In order to facilitate this social aspect of prayer, there is a divinely given prayer of the Mystical Body, “a prayer that Christ as the Head of the Body makes His own and offers as His own” (331-2).
     • The prayer of the individual Christian as himself and the Mystical Body as itself are essential for the growth of both the individual and the Body (331-2).
     • The high point of the Mystical Body’s prayer is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (331-3).
     • We have already noted the parallelism between the life of Christ on earth and the life of the Mystical Body in the previous chapter (see 318f).
       • What He did when He lived on earth He continues to do through His Mystical Body: teaching the Truth, forgiving sins, healing the sick, etc. (332-1).
       • “But, underlying all these actions of His upon earth was the [principal] thing He came to do – to offer Himself as a sacrifice for the redemption of men; and this too He continues to do: that is the precise meaning of the Mass” (332-1).
   • A Re-Presentation of Calvary
     • Once the bread and wine have been consecrated, we have on the altar Christ Himself, who was once slain on Calvary (332-2).
     • “The bread and wine are changed into the Victim of our salvation” whom the priest offers to the Father so as to apply to men’s souls the merits Christ won in His Passion and Death (332-2).
     • “The key to all this is that the priest gives himself to be used by Christ as an instrument, so that Christ is the real offerer, the priest taking the role of Christ, acting in the person of Christ” (332-2).
     • Only if we see Christ as both Victim and Priest in the Mass do we see the Mass correctly (332-2).
     • On Calvary, Christ was the Victim and Priest; in the Mass Christ is both Victim and Priest. Hence, the Mass is a re-presentation (NOT representation) of the eternal sacrifice on Calvary (322-2).
     • In the Mass, Christ is not sacrificed anew. It is not a new sacrifice for two reasons (332-2):
       • First: “We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him” (Rom 6:9; 332-2).
       • Second: If, in the Mass, the Priest slew the Victim, something new would be introduced into the Mass that was not present on Calvary, for Jesus did not slay Himself; rather, He offered Himself but was slain by His enemies (332-2).
     • It should be noted that in the Eucharist we have both a reality and a symbol.
       • The bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the wine becomes the Blood of Christ. Thus it is Christ who is present on the altar of sacrifice, and this is the reality.
       • However, because His Body and Blood are separated, they are present on the altar in a manner that symbolizes His death.
         • Note that what is symbolized here is His death on Calvary 2000 years ago, not His body and blood. Rather, the body and blood of Christ are truly present, but they are separated from one another. It is in this separation that we have a symbol of His death, for a man dies when His body and blood are separated. His death can only be symbolized, “for we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him” (Rom 6:9).
   • Intercession before the Father
     • “The Mass is Calvary, as Christ now offers it [i.e., the Mass, His eternal sacrifice] to His Father” (332-2); hence, we see that He continues on earth what He is doing in Heaven:
       • “He holds his priesthood permanently, because He continues forever. . . . He always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb 7:24-25).
       • “For Christ has entered . . . into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Heb 9:24).
     • That intercession is the continuing presence before the Father of Jesus, the Lamb who was slain (333-1):
       • “And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a Lamb standing, [looking] as though it had been slain” (Rev 5:6, 12; 13:8).
         • Translations of the last phrase typically fail to capture the reality:
           • “A Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered,” “a Lamb that seemed to have been slain,” “a Lamb standing as it were slain.”
     • In some way, the marks of His Passion remain with Him adding to His glory, for they witness to His Passion through which He was glorified (333-1).
       • “He lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you” (Jn 17:1).
       • These marks were instrumental in convincing Thomas, and perhaps others, of His Resurrection:
         • “He said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing’” (Jn 20:27).
     • Christ’s sacrifice, which took place on Calvary, is eternally present to the Father; in the Mass the eternal sacrifice becomes temporally present to us.
   • Our Part in Offering the Sacrifice
     • In heaven, He makes His eternal offering through His sacred humanity; on earth He makes this same offering through His Mystical Body (333-2).
     • Thus, “we are united with Christ in the act of offering as really as the priest is” (333-2).
       • “We, your servants and your holy people, offer to your glorious majesty from the gifts that you have given us, this pure victim, this holy victim, this spotless victim, the holy Bead of eternal life and the Chalice of everlasting salvation” (Eucharistic Prayer I, immediately following the Mystery of Faith).
     • The primary purpose of a priest is to offer sacrifice. Because we are members of a royal priesthood, we necessarily have a part in the offering of the sacrifice of the Mas.
       • “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” (1 Pt 2:9, 5; also see CCC 1268).
   • Our Part in the Sacrifice Itself
     • Further, “because we are cells in the Body of Christ, we are associated with Him not only as offerer but also as the Victim offered” (333-3).
       • “Christ also died once for our sins . . . that he might offer us to God” (1 Pt 3:18 DR).
     • “St. Gregory the Great urges us ‘who celebrate the mysteries of the Passion’ to ‘offer ourselves as victims’” (333-3).
     • “This is simply a most marvelous elevation to a new power of the plain truth that if we do not offer our own selves, God will not be moved by any other offering we may make” (333-3).
4. The Human Element
   • The Natural and Mystical Bodies: Two Distinct Realities:
     • We must take care to recognize that the Mystical Body of Christ is NOT the same thing as the natural body of Christ (334-1).
     • His natural body is that which was born of the Virgin Mary. It is that in which He lived in Palestine, was crucified, died and was buried, and then rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. It is the same body that we receive in the Holy Eucharist (334-1).
     • His Mystical Body, the Church, “we may think of as the successor to His natural body, or, perhaps better, [as a successor] to His human nature [i.e., body and soul] as a whole because in [His Mystical Body] He continues to operate among men as formerly in His human nature” (334-1).
     • The two, His natural body and His Mystical Body, should be seen as two “successive instruments by which He works among men” (334-1).
   • The Mystical Body: A Problem of Appearances
     • “Thus, the Church is in its deepest reality [the Person of] Christ Himself still living and operating on earth” (334-2).
     • However, we have a problem in that the Church often does not look as though it is Christ Himself still living and operating on earth (334-2).
     • Thus, we have the same problem with the Church that we have with the Holy Eucharist: neither the Church nor the Eucharist look like the Body of Christ (334-2).
       • Regarding the Holy Eucharist, we can say it looks like bread and wine and it does not look like the body and blood of Christ. Both statements are true, but appearances don’t settle the matter, for the substance of the reality is not present to our senses; it can only be known by Revelation.
     • In order to resolve the dilemma of the Church being the Mystical Body of Christ but not looking like the Mystical Body of Christ, we need to consider a further comparison between Our Lord’s two lives on earth, that is, His life in His natural body and His life in His Mystical Body, noticing His faithfulness to the logic of the means by which He has chosen to work among men (334-2).
     • Every human nature is necessarily limited. In choosing to come upon the earth by means of a human nature, He chose to take on the limitations proper to human nature (335-1).
       • As such, His human nature was bound to appear deficient when pressed against those limitations (335-1).
       • “Anyone looking at Christ in His mother’s arms could only have said, ‘It doesn’t look like God’” (335-1).
       • The same is true for other aspects of His life, especially His Passion and Death. In all of these aspects He remained faithful to His choice. The result is that He did not look like God at these points in His life, but He was God (335-1).
     • Just as human nature is limited, so every human society is limited, precisely because it is composed of limited human beings, each with his own free will, and a new element that contributes to the limitation: the possibility of sin (335-2).
       • But, again, Christ is faithful to His choice. He did not force His human nature beyond its natural limits, and He does not force His Mystical Body beyond its natural limits (335-2).
       • The result is that the appearance of Christ’s Mystical Body sometimes serves to conceal Him rather than to reveal Him (335-2).
       • “Assuredly He did not allow to His natural body a perfection that would have robbed His sacrifice of its meaning; nor does He confer upon the members of His Mystical Body an automatic perfection that would rob their life upon earth of its meaning” (335-2).
       • However, note that when His natural body was glorified, its natural limitations ceased; so too with the Mystical Body, for it will one day be glorified and all of its members will be sinless (335-2).
     • Having considered the limitations of the instruments with which he has chosen to work among men, we must recognize two things:
       • First: Whenever we think about our Lord, we must take care to separate His human nature from His divine nature.
       • Second: When we think about the Church, we must also distinguish between the human and the divine elements of the Mystical Body.
         • “The divine [element] being all that sphere where Christ guarantees that what is done shall be without defect because in actual fact He is doing it” (335-3).
         • “The human [element] being that sphere in which He leaves it to men and women to respond to what He offers them” (336-1).