THE MYSTICAL BODY
Taken From THE FULLNESS OF CHRIST,
Addresses Delivered on the Catholic Hour by the Very Rev.  Fulton J. Sheen,
published by Keep the Faith.

[Address delivered on January 6, 1935]

Last Sunday the burden of my discourse was that our Blessed Savior prolongs Himself through space and time and unto this very hour, not only by His doctrine, not only by His example, but principally by His Life. Today, with your kind indulgence, I should like to set before you how Our Lord continues to live amongst us, just as really and truly as He lived in Galilee and Judea nineteen hundred years ago.

     You will recall that when Our Lord brought Divine Life to this earth these nineteen centuries ago, He assumed a human nature from His Blessed Mother, a human nature like unto ours in all things save sin, so that He was in the most exact sense of the words true God and true man. Through the instrumentality of His human nature He did many things, just as we do many things with our arms. In fact St. John tells us that if all the things our Lord did and said were set down "the world itself . . . would not be able to contain the books that should be written." But this beautiful variety of actions is all reducible to three, for He filled a triple role or office. He was Teacher: He was King: He was Priest. And it was thanks to the body which He assumed from the womb of His Blessed Mother that He was able to make His teaching, His power, and His sanctification visible to men, for the whole plan of the Incarnation was based upon the communication of the Divine through the human, the invisible through the visible, and the eternal through the temporal.

   But Our Lord's earthly life was not long, as we reckon a human life. He completed His Father's business while still in His early thirties. He knew that His footprints would soon fade away from the sands of the seashore and the dust of Jerusalem's streets. He knew furthermore that the Peters and Johns of the twentieth century would stand in just as much need of His teaching, His power, and His sanctification, as the Peters and Johns of His Own Day. Knowing all this, He would therefore not be an architect who lays a foundation and then disappears.

He vowed His life to all men at all times and all laces, to be their Teacher, their King, and their rest unto "the consummation of the world."

But how could He be with us as Teacher, King, and Priest to the consummation of the world? He told us how. He said He would be with us in a new body which He would take from humanity as He took His physical body from His Blessed Mother. The new body would not be a physical body, which He was taking to Heaven, but rather a social body, like a kingdom or a spiritual corporation.

He went so far as to describe the details of this new body, and He outlined the following characteristics:

Firstly, it would be a living body or organism united to Him as branches are united to the vine,
 that His Divine life would flow through it as Divine life flowed through His physical body. Anyone therefore that would do harm to it would do harm Him. Secondly, this living body would grow like a seed cast into the earth, and although small at first, like the mustard seed, it would grow until it filled the earth.

Thirdly, it would be imperfect in some of the individuals which made it up. There would be good and bad fish, sheep and goats. foolish and wise virgins in it until the final reckoning when the good would be eternally sealed in His body and the wicked rejected.

Fourthly, even though there would be scandals within this body and persecution without, the body would never die, for it was founded on a rock and not even the gates of Hell would prevail against
   it.

Fifthly, membership in that body could be obtained only by being born into it. A man is made a citizen of natural society by being born into it; in like manner a man is made a member of this new spiritual society by being born of the Baptismal waters of the Holy Ghost.

Finally, this body in order to be united to Him as branches to vine or as body to head must have a unifying soul or spirit. And so on the night before He died He said to His Apostles that as He and the Father were one, because united by the bond of love, the Holy Spirit, so the new body and He would be one because united by that same Spirit of Love, which He and the Father would send unto it.

Such was the nature of the new body Our Lord said He would assume. And He assumed it on Pentecost when He sent the Holy Spirit upon His Apostles. They were the nucleus or germ of His new body, for they had been told that they were to represent Him when He was gone; to stand before princes and governors and speak the truths His Spirit would give them to speak. They were to evangelize the world, because they are His posthumous Self, His prolonged Personality, the scattered reapers of His harvest, the lights kindled as His great Light, the broken syllables of Him Who is the Word.

Ten days after His Ascension these frail, weak creatures, as yet full of their individual doubts and ambitions, were lifted into higher unity by the gift of the Holy Ghost, made the branches of Him the Eternal Vine, the living kingdom of Him the Heavenly King, and the new body of Him the Glorified Christ. In a word, Pentecost was the birthday of the new Body of Christ.

What is this new body which He assumed, and with which He is one because the Spirit makes of Him in Heaven and it on earth one living whole? If I told you it was the Church you would not believe me------not perhaps because you distrust me, but because the truth is so overwhelming. I shall therefore let St. Paul tell you clearly and unmistakably: "His body . . . is the Church" [Col. 1:24].

Naturally the Church is not His physical body, for that is already in Heaven with the Father. Nor is it a moral body like a nation, or an organization, or a club, because the unity which binds members together in these is merely their corporate will to achieve a common ideal. The unity which binds together the members of the Body of Christ, which is made up of all born into it by Baptism, is not their wills, but a superior principle of unity, namely the third Person of God or the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Charity and Love. In order to express that transcendent unearthly unity by which we are all one in Christ, tradition has applied the term mystical, so that the Church is in the proper sense of the term the "Mystical Body of Christ." As the human body is made up of millions of cells and hundreds of organs; as one cell is not another cell, and yet all constitute one body, because governed by one head and unified by one soul; so in the Mystical Body of Christ there are millions and millions of members, and hundreds of officers; and in it the layman is not the priest, as the foot is not the hand, and the Cardinal is not the missionary, as one organ is not another; yet they all coalesce into one living body, because governed by the invisible head, Christ, and vivified by the one soul which is the Holy Spirit of God.

The Church then is the Body of Christ. But what does He do with this new Body? Our Lord in Heaven does the same three things with it that He did with His individual human nature taken from Mary; namely, through its instrumentality, He teaches because He is its Teacher, He governs because He is its King, He sanctifies because He is its Priest. He was teacher, but He gave the power to His new Body: "As the Father hath sent me, I also send you," "Going therefore teach ye all nations," and "He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me." Certainly, if these words mean anything, they mean that just as He once taught through His visible form as man, so now He continues to teach through His new body, the Church, the truth forever being not the Church's but His, and therefore infallible.

He was King with power in Heaven and earth. This office He gave to His new Body: "All power is given to me in Heaven and in earth." My power I give unto you: "Whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in Heaven: and whatever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed in Heaven." These words mean that He, as He was formerly King in His individual, physical manhood, so now He is King through His new manhood the Church, the Power being not the Church's but His, and therefore Divine.

   He was Priest, Who came to give His life for the redemption of many. This office He gave to His new body: "Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." "Do this for a commemoration of Me." "Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." Again the meaning is unmistakable------as He had sanctified souls and offered His Own Body and Blood to His Heavenly Father, so now He was communicating that power to His Mystical Body, the sanctification forever being not the Church's but His, and therefore Divine.

Is this a new and strange doctrine that Christ living today in His Church as really and truly as He lived in His physical nature nineteen hundred years ago? For those who might doubt it let them recall the conversion of Saint Paul. This fiery Hebrew of the Hebrews grew up with an unholy hatred Christ and things Christian. His first appearance in that role of hatred when as Saul, he holds the garments of those who stoned Stephen the first Christian Martyr. Saul was not just a bigot. He was a learned man, trained under Gamaliel, and so powerful a disputant that the early Christians must often have wondered who they could get to refute him. In the providence of God it was reserved that  a journey for Damascus, authorized by letters to seize the Christians of that city, bind them, and bring them back to Jerusalem. Breathing out hatred against the Lord He sets out to persecute the infant Church of Damascus. The time is only a few years after the Resurrection and Ascension of our Divine Savior. While on this journey, suddenly a great light shines about him, he falls to the ground, and a voice arouses him like a bursting sea, saying: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" The heat of the oriental sun gave him strength enough to speak, and nothingness dared ask the name of Omnipotence: "Who art thou, Lord?" And he answered: "I am Jesus Whom thou persecutest."

Saul was striking the Church in the city of Damascus in exactly the same way that the government of Mexico persecutes the Church of Mexico------and the Voice from Heaven says: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" Christ and the Church------are they one and the same? Precisely------the Church is Christ.

The risen Christ, only four or five years after He left this earth, breaks open Heaven in order to declare to Saul and the world that the Church is His Body; that in striking that body, Saul struck its  Head, Christ; that He and the Church were one Person; that just as the tongue speaks when the foot is stepped on, so when His Body, the Church, is persecuted it is the Head, Christ, Who arises to speak.

One Holy Thursday night when a soldier in the hall of the High Priest struck our Lord with a mailed fist He asked: "If I have spoken evil, give testimony of the the evil; but if well, why strikest thou me?" And now Christ in His glory, Who has incorporated unto Himself His new Body the Church, still cries out when that Body is struck: "Why persecutest thou me?" What does all this mean, but that Calvary may be prolonged even beyond Jerusalem's walls, and the life of Christ in His Church extended beyond the sands of a Galilean seashore and the memorial of an upper-room? No wonder the transformed Saul, Saint Paul, understood so well the nature of the Church. He knew Christ, too, as well as the other Apostles, for he too had touched His Body.

How far removed is this doctrine of the Church from those who would accuse the Church of standing between Christ and us. How often we hear it said: "I do not want an organization between Christ and me;" or, "True religion consists in union with Jesus of Nazareth without priest, or prelate, or Sacrament." Anyone who understands the Scriptures will see that the Church does not stand between Christ and me. The Church is Christ. It no more stands between Christ and me than His feet stood between Magdalene and His forgiveness, or His hand stood between the little children and His blessing, or His Breast stood between John and the secrets of the Sacred Heart. The Church no more stands between the Divine life of Christ and my soul than His physical body stands between me and His Divinity. It is through His human body that He comes to me in His individual life; it is through His Mystical Body that He comes to me in His corporate life. Christ is the Church. Her real, inner self, is His body permeated through and through with His redemptive life. We who are members of His Mystical Body are not merely imitators of Christ; we are not merely lovers of His doctrine------we are more. Why, we are the cells In that very Body which is Christ!

Any suggestion therefore of the Church being an obstacle to our union with Christ is based upon a misunderstanding of the meaning and beauty of the Incarnation of our Lord. For just as our Lord lived a physical life two thousand years ago in a body taken from Mary, so now He lives a mystical life in a Body drawn from the womb of humanity. To the eyes of every member of that Church the Eternal Galilean relives the events and crises of His life in Judea and Galilee. The written Gospel is the record of His historical life. The Church is the living Gospel and record of His present life . . .

 Were it not for His Mystical Body where would Christ find lips with which to say forgiveness to penitent thieves? If it were not for this Body where would He find hands to lay on little children, feet to receive the ointment of other Magdalenes, and a breast to receive the embrace of other Johns? Were it not for this Body where would Christ find a visible head to articulate His voice and draw all souls into the unity of one Lord, one faith, one Baptism?

How else could He as the Incarnate God console other widows than those of Naim, visit other friends than those of Bethany, attend other nuptials than those of Cana, call other apostles, convert other women than those of Samaria, and other men than the centurions of Calvary; how could He the God-man show meekness to other soldiers, patience to other timid disciples, love for other publicans, friendliness to other Judases, forgiveness to other malefactors, devotion to other Johns, affection to other Marys, wisdom to other Doctors of the Law------except through another Body with the feet of which He could step from Jerusalem to the world, with the lips of which He could speak to us who call ourselves modern? The Upper Room is in our cities, as with other hands we lift to His Father the chalice of His Blood shed for the redemption of many; Carpharnaum is at the border of all our waters as He calls to Himself other fishers of men; Nazareth is at Lourdes as Mary Immaculate mothers her new children, brothers of Christ and sons of the Heavenly Father. Rather, Christ is at our very door. If we do not see Christ, living in His Mystical Body the Church today, then we would not have believed Him Divine if we had seen Him in His Physical Body in Galilee. If we miss Him, it will be not because He is too far away, but because He is too close . . .

True Faith

THE ACTS 10

35. But in every nation, he that feareth Him and worketh justice is acceptable to him.
10:35. In every nation . . .

That is to say, not only Jews, but Gentiles also, of what nation soever, are acceptable to god, if they fear Him and work justice. But true faith is always to be presupposed, without which [saith St. paul, Heb. 11:6] it is impossible to please God. Beware then of the error of those who would infer from this passage, that men of all religions may be pleasing to God. For since none but the true religion can be from God, all other religions must be from the father of lies, and therefore, highly displeasing to the God of truth.