Ten days after the Ascension the Apostles were gathered together awaiting the Spirit Who would teach them and reveal to them all that Our Blessed Lord had taught them. During His public life He told them that He would take on a new Body. It would not be physical like the one He took from Mary. That Body is now glorified at the right hand of the Father. Nor would it be a moral body like a social club which derives its unity from the will of men. Rather, it would be His new social Body that would be bound to Him by His Heavenly Spirit which He would send on leaving this earth. He spoke of His new Body sometimes as a Kingdom though Saint Paul would speak of it as a Body which the Gentiles could understand more readily. He told the Apostles the nature of this new Body. It would assume seven main features:

1. He told them that to be a member of His new Body men would have to be born into it. But it would not be through a human birth for that made sons of Adam; to be a member of His new Body one would have to be reborn through the Spirit in the waters of baptism which would make adopted sons of God.

2. The unity between this new Body and Him would not be through singing hymns to Him nor having social teas in His name nor listening to broadcasts but through sharing His life:

Dwell in me as I in you...I am the vine and you the branches. - John 15:5 -

3. His new Body would be like all living things small at first - even as He said, "like a mustard seed" but it will grow from simplicity to complexity until the consummation of the world. As He put it:

First the blade then the ear then full grown corn in the ear. - Mark 4:28 -

4. A house expands from the outside in by the addition of bricks to brick; t human organisations grow by the addition of man to man i.e. from the circumference to the center. His Body, He said, would be formed from the inside out as a living embryo is formed in the human body. As He received life from the Father the faithful would receive life from Him. As He put it:

May they all be one: as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee so also may they be in us. - John 17:21 -

5. Our Lord said that He would have only one Body. It would be a spiritual monstrosity for Him to have many bodies or a dozen heads. To keep it one it would have one shepherd whom He appointed to feed His lambs and His sheep.

There will then be one flock, one shepherd. - John 10:16 -

6. He said that His new Body would not manifest itself before men until the day of Pentecost when he would send His truth giving Spirit.

If I do not go, your Advocate will not come. - John 16:7 -

Anything that would start, therefore, even twenty-four hours after Pentecost or twenty-four hours ago would be an organisation; it might have the human spirit but it would not have the Divine Spirit.

7. The most interesting observation He made about His Body was that it would be hated by the world as He was. Anything worldly the world loves. But what is Divine, the world hates.

Because I have chosen you out of the world for that reason the world hates you. - John 15:20 -

The nucleus of this new Mystical Body was His Apostles. they were to be the raw material into which He would send His Spirit to quicken them into His prolonged Self. They would represent Him when He was gone. The privilege of evangelizing the world was reserved to them. This new Body of which they were the embryo was to be His posthumous Self and His prolonged Personality through the centuries.

Until Our Lord sent His Spirit on them fifty days after His Resurrection the Apostles were like the elements in a chemical laboratory. Science knows up to 100% the chemicals which enter into the constitution of a human body; but it cannot make a human being because of its inability to provide the unifying principle, the soul. The Apostles could not give the Church Divine life anymore than chemicals could make human life. they needed God's invisible Divine Spirit to unify their visible human natures.

Accordingly, ten days after the Ascension the glorified Saviour in Heaven sent upon them His Spirit not in the form of a book but as tongues of living fire. As cells in a body form a new human life when God breathes a soul into the embryo so the Apostles appeared as the visible Body of Christ when the Holy Spirit came to make them one. This Mystical Body or the Church is called in tradition and Scripture the "whole Christ" or "the fullness of Christ".

The new Body of Christ then appeared publicly before men. Just as the Son of God took upon Himself a human nature from the womb of Mary, overshadowed by the Holy Spirit so on Pentecost He took a Mystical Body from the womb of humanity, overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. Just as He once taught, governed and sanctified through His human nature so now He would continue to teach, to govern and to sanctify through other human natures united in His Body or Church.

Because this Body is not physical like a man nor moral like a bridge club but heavenly and spiritual because of the Spirit which made up of millions and millions of cells and yet is one because vivified by one soul, presided over by one visible head and governed by an invisible mind so this Body of Christ though made up millions and millions of persons who are incorporated into Christ by baptism is one because vivified by the Holy Spirit of God and presided over by one visible head and governed by one invisible Mind or Head Who is the Risen Christ.

The Mystical Body is Christ's prolonged Self..............

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -