Mystical Body

MYSTICAL BODY. - The doctrine of the Mystical Body constitutes one of the central points, if not indeed the central point, of Christianity. It is found sketched in the Scripture of the Old Testament, later revealed by Jesus in the Gospel, set forth by St. Paul and St. John in their Epistles, and applied by the Fathers to the various sectors of dogma and of Christian life. St. Thomas and the other scholastics gave a theological explanation of it. From the authors of the Bérullian school of the 17th century down to the present day, with a fervor never before known, it was studied, preached and lived.

I. CONCEPT OF THE MYSTICAL BODY

The encyclical of Pius XII of 29 June 1943 begins: "The M. B. of Christ, which is the Church," that is, it makes the M. B. coincide with the Church of Christ. In a strict sense it is understood of the Church militant, which lives and struggles on earth. In a broader sense, however, like the word Church itself, it also includes the souls in purgatory (the Church suffering) and the blessed in heaven (the Church triumphant). The assertion that the M. B. also includes those who are not part of the Church but who are nevertheless in some way spiritually united to Christ is not without dangers, because it would suggest that the Church is not the only way of salvation for the whole body of the redeemed. According to the doctrine of Jesus there is "one fold" (Jn 21:15-17), and whoever does not listen to the pastors of Christ's flock is declared "a Gentile and a tax collector" (Mt 18:17). Pius XII says explicitly that: "those who are divided among themselves for reasons of faith or of government (heretics and schismatics) cannot live in the unity of that Body." There remains, however, the possibility for one who in good faith is outside the Church to be part of it by desire and thus also to be a member of the M. B., sharing in that way, as it were from outside, in the graces of the Redeemer.

The M. B. of Christ can therefore be defined as that "supernatural society, visible and spiritual at once, organic and living, founded by Christ, by virtue of his Redemption, in which all the faithful, united to Jesus and among themselves by manifold bonds of grace, faith, charity and juridical ties, live, as members, the life of the mystical Head Jesus Christ, and are moved by the same Holy Spirit, the soul of the total Christ, who will reach the fullness of his age at the end of the ages in the glory of heaven."

One must immediately underscore the import of the two words: society visible and spiritual, which cause two opposite errors to be avoided: that which claims to see in the M. B. the invisible union in Christ of all who believe in him, though separated by contradictory beliefs; and that which fails to recognize the intimate life of the Church and limits itself to considering its social organization and its external juridical aspect. The M. B., on the contrary, after the likeness of the Incarnate Word, possesses a profound spiritual life together with an organic and social cohesion.

II. THE DOCTRINE OF THE MYSTICAL BODY IN THE GOSPEL

This social and spiritual unity of the M. B. is already outlined in some way in the Old Testament, where the children of Abraham are united among themselves and with Yahweh, forming a single people which, as a mystical spouse, is joined to God by the bond of a special predilection (cf. E. Mersch, I, ch. 1). Already in the divine sentence of Eden, the semen mulieris foretold not only the Messiah, but Christ with all the redeemed, the Head with the members, the total Christ.

It was reserved, however, to Jesus to make clear to us this mystery of a vital union between him and his faithful. The Kingdom of God, as described by Jesus in the Synoptics, reveals the unity that joins all its members together; while the various parables that illustrate its nature: the grain of mustard seed, the seed cast into the field, the leaven that makes the dough rise, reveal a mysterious life, a hidden energy that pervades that whole spiritual organism. The most perfect expression, however, of this vital union is found in the allegory of the vine: « I am the true vine - says the Lord - and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit, he will take away, and every one that bears fruit, he will prune so that it may bear more fruit... Abide in me, and I in you... I am the vine and you the branches; he who abides in me, and I in him, this one bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing » (Jn. 15, 1-2, 4-5). In these words lies the substance of the whole doctrine of the M. B. The vine of which Jesus speaks is a living organism, of which all the parts, united among themselves, are animated by one and the same divine sap: sap that flows from the trunk into the branches, from Christ into the faithful, and makes them produce abundant fruits of virtue.

This union of ours with Jesus has as its model the union of Jesus himself with his divine Father. In the so-called priestly prayer, on the eve of the Passion, Jesus, having lifted up his eyes to heaven, said: « That they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you; that they also may be one in us » (Jn. 17, 21). Jesus, Son of God, forming one single thing with the Father (Jn. 10, 30), becomes, through his Humanity, the divine bond that links us to the Father.

The privileged means that realizes our union with Christ is the bread of life: « I am the bread of life, which has come down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever... My flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him » (Jn. 6, 51-52, 56-57). Reciprocal permanence of Jesus in us and of us in Jesus, which again is the whole mystery of the spiritual union of the faithful with Christ. The consequence of such a union is that Jesus will regard as done to himself whatever good or evil we do to our neighbor, that is, to his members; thus he will say at the last judgment: « I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, ... naked, ... sick, ... in prison, ... (and you assisted me). Every time you did such a thing to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me » (Mt. 25, 35-40). Such is the teaching of the Master.

III. THE DOCTRINE OF ST. PAUL

At the very moment of his conversion, the Lord revealed this mystery to Paul: "Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?" In the person of the disciples Saul was striking the Master. "Who art thou, Lord? - I am Jesus whom thou persecutest" (Acts 9, 4-5). This initial grace matured in the soul of St. Paul; in his Epistles he outlines the manifold aspects of the mystical organism of Christ. The salient points of his doctrine can be grouped under two headings: dogma and morals.

1. The dogma of the mystical body: 1) The faithful form with Jesus a single body: they are its members, Christ the Head. "As the body is one, and hath many members, which however, though numerous, form a single body, so also Christ... You are the body of Christ and members each in his own part" (1 Cor. 12, 12, 27). And to the Ephesians: "God hath made him head over all the Church, which is his body and his fullness" (1, 22 ff.). 2) Incorporation into Jesus Christ is brought about in Baptism, in which with Christ we die to sin and rise to new life. To the Romans (6, 3-5) the Apostle writes: "Know you not that all we who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in his death? For we are buried together with him by baptism into death, that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life." 3) As members of his Body, we are animated, with him, by the same Holy Spirit: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his... But if the Spirit of him that raised up

Jesus Christ from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Rom. 8, 9-11). 4) The member of Christ is made a partaker of his divine sonship as an adopted son: thus he writes to the Galatians (3, 26-27): "For you are all the children of God, by faith in Christ Jesus. For [this is the reason for such sonship] as many of you as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ." And to the Romans (8, 14): "For whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." 5) The principle of unity in the total Christ is first of all the Eucharistic bread: "For we, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one bread" (I Cor. 10, 17).

2. The morals of the mystical body: 1) The Apostle's fundamental affirmation on this point is that the life of the Christian is the very life of Jesus: "Christus vita vestra" (Col. 3, 4). It is Jesus who lives in us, who speaks in us, who suffers in us: "With Christ I am nailed to the cross. And I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2, 19). "In me speaketh Christ" (II Cor. 13, 3). "I fill up in my flesh those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, for his body, which is the church" (Col. 1, 24). 2) Hence the necessity of dying to all that savors of the corrupted nature, of the first Adam, of the old man, as opposed to Jesus, the new Adam, as St. Paul expresses it several times: "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new" (Col. 3, 5, 10; cf. I Cor. 15, 45). 3) Renewed in this way, the Christian will manifest all the virtues that are a consequence of the life of Jesus within him: sincerity, which shrinks from falsehood: "Wherefore putting away lying, speak ye the truth every man with his neighbor, for we are members one of another" (Eph. 4, 25); purity: "Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot?" (I Cor. 6, 15); and above all fraternal charity: "It hath been signified to me... that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith: I indeed am of Paul! - And I am of Apollo! - And I of Cephas! - And I of Christ! - Is Christ divided?" asks the Apostle with a shudder of indignation (I Cor. 1, 11-13).

IV. THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY FATHERS

The doctrine on this mystery is developed by the Fathers, by the Doctors of the Church, by the great theologians. Irenaeus and Cyprian, Athanasius and Hilary, Gregory of Nazianzus and Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom and Augustine treat at length of the mystery of our union with Christ in one single Body. In the Sacrament of the altar St. John Chrysostom sees to such a degree the cause of our unity in Christ, that the very word body must be understood, in him, now in the sense of the physical body of Christ, now in that of the mystical body, the one being the principle of the other. "And why do we still speak of communion? We are that body itself. For what is the bread? the body of Christ. What do the communicants become? the body of Christ; no longer many bodies, but one single body" (In I Cor. hom., 24: PG 61, 200). St. Augustine everywhere has recourse to the dogma of the mystical unity of the faithful in Christ. In it he finds the sole reason for the immense love with which the Eternal Father loves us all: "God cannot but love the members of his Son, he who loves the Son. Nor has he any reason to love his members, except that he loves him himself" (In Io. tr., 110, 5: PL 35, 123). But one can scarcely do more here than hint at the inexhaustible wealth that the Holy Fathers offer us on this doctrine (cf. E. Mersch, the whole of vol. I and part of vol. II).

V. THE THEOLOGY OF THE MYSTICAL BODY

Once the mystery of the M. B., of the Christus totus, as St. Augustine often calls it (v., e.g.: In Ps., 90, Sermo 2: PL 37, 1159), is known, it is necessary to explain adequately the sublime affirmations of St. Paul and St. Augustine: "You are the Body of Christ" (1 Cor. 12, 27); "All men in Christ make one man alone" (In Ps. 29, Enarr. 2a: PL 36, 219): one man alone, one single Christ. In order not to fall into a kind of panentheism or panchristism, according to the error of those whom Pius XII condemned, who "cause the divine Savior and the members of the Church to be united and fused into one same physical person" (encyclical cited), it is necessary to determine the nature of this union of us all in Christ. Every union is either purely moral, like that of the members of one same family, or it is physical and ontological.

1. The constitutive elements of the M. B

a) The Head: "He (Christ), says St. Paul, is the Head of the Body of the Church" (Col. 1, 18). The Incarnation placed Christ at the head of humanity; the Son of God made man became by absolute necessity "the Firstborn of all creation" (Col. 1, 15), "the recapitulation of things heavenly and earthly" (Eph. 1, 10), "the Mediator between God and men" (1 Tim. 2, 5). The eternal Word, "in whom was life" (John 1, 4), assumed our nature into the unity of his divine Person and filled it with that Grace, a participation in the divine life, which he willed afterwards to pour out into all the descendants of sinful Adam. This function of Head of the M. B., which belongs to the Incarnate Word, implies, according to St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 8, a. 1) and according to the encyclical Mystici Corporis, a threefold pre-eminence over the members: 1) pre-eminence of order or dignity: "By reason of his nearness to God, the grace of Christ is higher and prior (to that of all)" (Sum. Theol., loc. cit.); 2) pre-eminence of perfection: like the head which, in the human body, contains all the external and internal senses, Christ possesses in his Humanity the fullness of all graces. "The virtues, the gifts, the charisms that are in Christian society - says Pius XII (loc. cit.) - all shine forth most perfectly in its Head, Christ: 'In him it pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell' (Col. 1, 19); 3) above all, pre-eminence of influence. As the head moves and governs the entire body, so Jesus Christ exercises upon his Church a continuous directing and life-giving action. According to Pius XII, this influence is exercised by Jesus Christ in two ways: first, inasmuch as he moves his Body by way of government, directing the members of the Church to the sublime end of eternal life, whether directly through the hidden means of his internal inspirations, or through the hierarchy instituted by him (the Roman Pontiff, his Vicar on earth, and the bishops in the individual dioceses); second, inasmuch as he moves his Body spiritually by way of vital influence, diffusing into every cell of it grace, light and manifold virtues (encyclical cited).

b) The Members. Members of the M. B. are: 1) first of all those who were here below incorporated into him through Baptism and were not separated from him by heresy, schism, excommunication, or by dying in mortal sin. Sinners are not excluded from the structure of the M. B., who, though deprived of the spiritual life of this Body, still adhere to Christ and to the Church by the faith they profess, and who, through various influences of the divine Head, are to be recalled to the communion of life. 2) The souls in purgatory who, having left this life in the peace of Christ, remain united to him forever, although they must still purify themselves before enjoying the blessed union. 3) Finally, in a perfect manner, the blessed in heaven, to whom Christ communicates the fullness of his life in glory; the Angels are not excluded from these, who, although not resembling Jesus by nature, resemble him by grace and receive manifold influences from him. However, among the members of the M. B. a pre-eminent place belongs to the Most Holy Virgin. Mother of the Head according to the flesh, she became "according to the spirit Mother of the members," as St. Augustine already said (De Virginitate, chap. 6: PL 40, 399) and as St. Louis de Montfort insistently repeats (v. Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, n. 32). A doctrine approved by Pius X in the encyclical Ad diem illum (1904): "In the most chaste womb of the Virgin, where Jesus took mortal flesh, there he united to himself a spiritual body, formed of all those who were to believe in him, and it may be said that, bearing Jesus in her womb, Mary bore there also all those whose life was enclosed in the life of the Savior." Mediatrix of grace in the closest dependence on Jesus the Redeemer, Mary, by way of efficacious intercession, transmits to all that divine life which has its original source in the Incarnate Word.

c) The Soul of the M. B. Like every human or animal being, the M. B. has a first principle of life and of unity in the diversity of the members, which is called the soul. Such a principle, in the total Christ, is nothing other than the Holy Spirit himself, several times called in Scripture "the Spirit of Jesus" or "the Spirit of the Son" (Acts 16, 7; Gal. 4, 6). He is therefore, as Pius XII teaches, "this divine principle of life and virtue given by Christ, inasmuch as he constitutes the very source of every gift and created grace... It is the Spirit of Christ who has made us sons of God, and puts into our hearts that sense of filial love with which we cry: Father! Our Father! in imitation of the Only-begotten" (Rom. 8, 14-17). He is also that principle of unity which, of the various members animated by his breath, makes a harmoniously ordered whole. "To this Spirit of Christ, as to an invisible principle, must be attributed the union of all the parts of the Body among themselves and with the exalted Head, since he resides wholly in the Head, wholly in the Body, wholly in the individual members" (encyclical cited).

2. Nature of the unity proper to the M. B

"Father, that they may all be one thing in us" (John 17, 21). Thus Jesus prayed on Holy Thursday after the Eucharistic banquet. Certainly this unity (Pius XII recalls it) does not result from a hypostatic, that is personal, union, which would make of us with Christ one single physical person, as happens in the Incarnate Word. Nor does it imply a substantial union, such as prevails in us between body and soul to compose one same nature and substance. Our union with Christ in the M. B. must be understood in the accidental order of Grace, which, comprising diverse realities, physical, moral and juridical, has as its purpose and effect to communicate to all the faithful one same divine life, infused by Christ into all as a participation in his life of Grace, and, ultimately, in dependence on his divine filiation.

At the root, or rather at the center, of this mystical union stands the life-giving influence of Christ and of his Divine Spirit. This influence, which manifests itself in many ways, is brought about above all through the Sacraments, among which a preeminent place belongs to Baptism, by which we are incorporated into Christ, and to the Eucharist, the Sacrament proper to the mystical body, which is the final effect (the res tantum) of the Eucharist (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 73, a. 1, obj. 2), as St. Thomas teaches, and as does his master St. Albert the Great (v. the work, cited in the bibl., by A. Piolanti). From this efficacious influence of the Head upon the members there results a likeness of life and of grace, a conformity of virtue and of holiness, of which Jesus is the exemplary cause for all the redeemed. To the intimate union thus established between us and Christ by the efficient causality of a physical, ontological order, other bonds of a moral and juridical order are added. A most intimate moral union is that generated "by those three theological virtues with which we unite ourselves to God (and to all our brethren) in the most intimate way" (encyclical Mystici Corporis): union of minds in adherence to the common revealed truth; union of wills in the yearning toward the attainment of the one Supreme Good; union of hearts in the ardent love that unites us to Jesus and to one another. A juridical and social union, constituted by those bonds which in the visible Body of Christ link together, by way of reciprocal obligations and rights, the members of the ecclesiastical society, which first of all make us subjects of Christ the Redeemer, since He has acquired, by means of his Incarnation and Passion, an incontestable right over us all. And finally, all those converging principles of unity culminate in the common end of the eternal kingdom, to which we are predestined by the decree of the heavenly Father, to the glory of his Only-Begotten, who will finally be omnia in omnibus (Col. 3:11). To sum up, there are seven principles of unity in the mystical body: 1st the vital influence of the Head; 2nd the proper action of the Sacraments, and especially of the Eucharist; 3rd the Holy Spirit as the soul of the mystical body; 4th exemplary causality; 5th moral union; 6th juridical bonds; 7th the influence of the final cause. We shall dwell, however, on what we called the fundamental principle of the unity of the mystical body: the life-giving influence of Christ the Head.

The mystical body of Christ reveals itself first of all as a communion of supernatural life, which finds in Jesus its origin. The Humanity of Christ, hypostatically united to the Word of God, receives in itself a virtue that enables it to infuse into us the life of Grace. This life of Grace is a participation in the divine nature: "We are made partakers of the divine nature" (1 Pt. 1:4); "He has given us the power to become children of God" (Jn. 1:12). Divine sonship, fellowship in the divine nature, are gifts that surpass every human concept or desire and every capacity of a created cause. To the question whether Jesus as man can sanctify us and communicate Grace to us, it must be answered that to sanctify means to divinize; now, as St. Thomas says, to divinize belongs only to one who possesses divinity as his own, that is, to God alone (Sum. theol., 1a-2a, q. 112, a. 1). Such an influence cannot therefore belong to the humanity of Jesus. However, the Angelic Doctor adds: the influence of the divine life or Grace can be attributed only to God as to the principal cause; the humanity of Christ, however, can become its instrumental cause (ibid., ad 1). Just as the Sacraments are pervaded by the power of God which elevates them to the point of making them truly operative causes of Grace, so a fortiori the human nature of Jesus is made the vehicle of the sanctifying action of the Word, as St. Thomas says: "The humanity of Christ causes Grace by virtue of the Divinity united to it" (ibid., loc. cit. and passim). This is what St. Cyril of Alexandria already taught: "The flesh (of Christ)... can give life, although of itself the flesh profits nothing. Since it is united to the life-giving Word, it is made wholly life-giving, raised to the power of the Word" (In Io. 4: PG 73, 601). The humanity of Jesus is like the fundamental Sacrament of Grace, of which the seven Sacraments are, as it were, the prolongation. All of them communicate to us the divinizing influence of the humanity of Jesus.

That influence, however, comes to us in a special way through the Sacrament of the altar, since it contains not only the operative virtue of Christ, but Christ himself. It is par excellence the Sacrament of union and of incorporation into Christ. Baptism itself, as St. Thomas teaches, does not make us members of Christ except by votum or desire of the Eucharist, of which it transmits to us the influence and the proper effect (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 73, a. 3; q. 79, a. 1, ad 1 (v. COMUNIONE EUCARISTICA). In that contact with the life-giving flesh of Christ through Communion, man is transformed, body and soul, and made like unto Jesus: thus Card. Mendoza: "We, with body and soul united to Christ, put on the qualities of his body" (De naturali cum Christo unitate, p. 209). And explaining further the manner of this transformation, the same author adds: "Since Christ is truly, with his substance, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, and through the Sacrament in man himself, a virtue that emanates from the very substance of Christ pervades the whole man and every part of him" (op. cit., p. 218).

But our vision of the present mystery is still further broadened by a fundamental datum: the sanctifying virtue of the humanity of Christ belongs likewise to every action of his, even the least. This is what St. Thomas teaches us, who, speaking of the Passion of Jesus, sets forth this fundamental principle: "All the actions and sufferings of Christ work instrumentally, by virtue of the Divinity, for human salvation" (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 48, a. 6). This principle explains how all the mysteries of Christ are a source of grace. To unite ourselves to these mysteries (and every action of the God-Man is a mystery), whether on the occasion of the liturgical celebrations, or by meditating on the Holy Rosary, or in any other manner, every day and at every moment, is truly to appropriate to ourselves the treasures of grace contained in them. Every mystery, moreover, every action of the Incarnate Word has its own proper Grace, as the "French" school of spirituality excellently explained in the 17th century, following Card. de Bérulle: the humility of Christ is imprinted in us when we unite ourselves to it in faith; his purity makes us pure, his meekness meek, his divine patience, with which he went to meet his Passion, makes us patient and strong. A true spiritual communion with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, this exploitation of the mysteries of Christ brings it about that Jesus lives in us and we live of him, verifying the word of the Apostle: vivo autem iam non ego, vivit vero in me Christus (Gal. 2:19). Pius XII likewise says this in the encyclical Mediator Dei (part 3) on the Liturgy: "In recalling these mysteries of Jesus Christ, the sacred Liturgy aims to make all the faithful participate in them, so that the divine Head of the mystical body may live in the fullness of his holiness in the individual members." There one perceives the spiritual richness of this dogma of the mystical body, which harmonizes both dogmatics and morals — a dogmatics that, thus understood in its practical repercussions, is already a morals, the principle and source of every Christian life, from the laborious asceticism of beginners to the highest heights of the mystical life, up to perfect union with God through Christ the Mediator.

Magistero ecel.); L. Marvulli, Maria madre del Cristo mistico, Roma 1948; A. Chavasse, Ordonnés au corps mystique, in Nouvelle revue théologique, 80 (1948), pp. 600-702; V. Morel, Le corps mystique du Christ et l'Église catholique romaine, ibid., 80 (1948), pp. 703-26; W. Goossens, L'Église corps du Christ d'après s. Paul. Etude de théologie biblique, Parizì 1949. - Ernesto Mura