SHARING DIVINE LIFE
If the notion of sanctifying grace as the supernatural life of the soul is now clear, we are in a position to understand another idea which is part and parcel of that "mature Catholicism" described in the previous chapter. This is the idea of the "Mystical Body of Christ". We must understand that it is only through the Mystical Body that we acquire our personal share in the divine life; and that it is within the Mystical Body that our personal activities in the supernatural order can come to fruition.
We saw that grace is a share in the divine life; and that we are given it by God. The question we now examine is: how does God give us a share in His own kind of life? Does He give it to each of us directly? No! That is not His way. God gives life (of any kind) directly only in circumstances which are quite exceptional. For instance, when He created Adam. Adam's life came from no creature but direct from God. The life of all other men, however, comes only indirectly from God, for it originates directly from each one's parents. That is normal among living things; trees get their life from pre-existing trees, horses from pre-existing horses, and men from pre-existing men (although, in the last-named race, the individual soul is, of course, created by God). Though all life comes ultimately from God, any individual life comes from some being endowed by God with the power to impart life.
But that, it would seem, proves nothing about the way in which we get the life of grace. For the examples quoted do not involve any change in the level or plane of life. The resulting trees, horses or men have a type of life no higher than the trees, horses or men from which their lives were derived. Whereas acquiring the life of grace involves a change of level - from the merely human life, upwards, to a share in divine life.
True enough; but we have also in nature instances which are analogous; we have processes whereby there is a conferring of life which does involve a change in the level or plane of existence.
I presume you know that famous old Yorkshire song called "On Ilkley Moor ba t'at!" It is quite amusing and yet, at the same time, instructive. The words "ba t'at" are Yorkshire dialect meaning "without a hat"; and the first verse relates how a young man went courting his girl on the cold and windswept moor near Ilkley, and was seen by his friends hastening to his tryst without any hat. Wherefore, in the second verse, his friends solemnly warn him,
Now we can see how God goes about giving to us a new sort of life. We are to be given a share of divine life. Therefore we are to become part of an organism already living with divine life. God does not give grace to each of us directly; instead He has constituted (through the work of Christ Our Lord) a grace-filled organism with power to absorb into itself human beings who, by their own nature, have but a lower form of life. This is the organism which we attempt to study in this chapter. Just as something which lives merely by animal life (such as a duck) can be absorbed into a human body and thus be given a share in human life, so also something living merely by human life (such as a man) can be absorbed by this divine organism and thus be given a share in the divine life.
As this last paragraph is a bit complicated, I beg of readers to go over it again two or three times till they are quite satisfied that they have seen the point. For it is the point of the whole chapter. In fact it is a cardinal point for the entire understanding of liturgy.
The point, then, is that there exists an organism which, by making us part of itself, endows us with a share in its own life; that this life is above our natural life, is supernatural life - is, in fact, the same sort of life which God has. This is the way in which we acquire a share in divine life. Not by direct, individual, and personal donation to each of us by God, but by becoming part of this pre-existing and divinely-living organism.
So far I have stated the existence of this supernatural organism. But can its existence be proved? Most certainly it can - from the words of Our Lord and from St. Paul.
Our Lord said to His Apostles: "I am the true vine, and it is my Father who tends it . . . the branch that does not live on in the vine can yield no fruit of itself; no more can you, if you do not live on in me. I am the vine, you are its branches! If a man lives on in me, and I in him, then he will yield abundant fruit; separated from me, you have no power to do anything" (John xv, i-6).
He is there stating, in various ways, that the relationship which exists between Himself and His followers is the same as that which exists between a vine and its branches. It is a vital relationship, not merely one of contiguity. Branches are not stuck onto a vine like arms onto a sign-post; the branches belong - they are living. Moreover, they are living with the same life as the vine, deriving that life from the fact that they are part of the organism of the vine. It is the vine's life that is their life. Our Lord's reference to fruit-bearing shows that it is this vital relationship that He means. just as the life by which the branches live is none other than the life of the vine itself, so - He indicates - the life by which His followers live is none other than His own life. He and they form one organism.
St. Paul explains precisely the same point, though in different terms, when he wrote to the Corinthians (I Cor. xii, 12ff) that "a man's body is all one, though it has a number of different organs; all this multitude of organs goes to make up one body". Together they are, says he equivalently, one organism. "And so it is with Christ . . . you are Christ's body, members of it, depending on one another!" That is: you and Christ form but one organism. He says the same thing to the Romans (xii, 4). "Each of us has one body, with many different parts . . . just so we, though many in number, form one body in Christ." St. Paul is very fond of this "body"-simile, and makes frequent use of it to indicate the manner after which we are united to Christ and share with Him one life which is His life.
What sort of life is it that we thus share with Him? Is it His human life? He was a man, and we are men, and so we share one kind of life. . . is that it? Certainly not. Because at that rate all human beings, by the mere fact of being human, would be sharing in Christ's life. Moreover that sort of sharing does not involve any organic relationship like that of members to body or branches to vine.
To have such a relationship there must be but one single life-principle, one source of vital energy which is at the same time in Christ and in us - something which we share with Him and which we derive from Him. Our physical lives do not come from Him - they come from our parents. The life we share with Christ is that other sort of life we discussed in the second chapter - the supernatural life called grace. That is divine life. He has it by rights for He is God. We have it only by privilege for we are but human. But seeing that we are part of one organism with Our Lord, like branches of a vine or members of a body, then, though only human, we do share His divine life.
About the name of this organism - it is St. Paul's terminology which has been taken into use (though a distinguishing adjective has become attached to it). "You are Christ's body," says St. Paul. But what is a body? What is it for? It is an organism through which a person can express himself and work upon his environment; an organism which a person needs to use if his actions are to have an effect beyond, or outside of, himself.
For example: I am a human person, possessing human nature, body and soul. I am trying to express myself to you readers at this moment. And I need to use my body to do it. I have to make my fingers actuate the keys of a typewriter in a manner decided by my understanding and reproduced in muscular action by the help of my memory (which are powers of my soul). Your eyes, parts of your living body, will (I trust) abstract meaning from them and store the meanings away in your memory. Thus my person acts on your person: through my soul-actuated body, by means of material things (typewriter, printing press, etc.) to your soul-actuated body, to your person. That is the human way. My body is thus the medium through which I express myself and act upon you; and it consists of the fingers which work these keys, of nerves, muscles, eyes, brain . . . and all these things are living with the one physical life of my soul. All these things together make up a body for me.
Now once upon a time the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity desired to work among - to act upon - men. So, by the Incarnation, He took to Himself a human body and soul like ours, and used them to do His work among men. The most important of all His works was the offering of sacrifice on Calvary. As a result of this His body and soul became separated in death. But He joined them together again in the resurrection, and took them to heaven in the ascension. Then that body of His left the earth and was no more active among men.
So if He intended, after the ascension, to do any more work among men, He must either bring that body back again (as He will do when He comes to judge men) or else He must use some other body. And, until the last Judgment, He has chosen to do the latter, i.e., to make use of some other body. This time it is not a physical body like the one born of Our Lady. It is, instead, that organism we have been discussing above - the one which St. Paul likens to a body. It is the organism which consists of all those human beings who have been raised to a share in that divine life which belongs to Christ.
They are very rightly called a body because, like a human body, they all live as one organism vivified by one soul; and the resulting organism is the instrument of a person in expressing himself. This time the person is divine - the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. (Incidentally the soul also is divine and is the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity - but that is not the point I am at present trying to make.) But this organism does for Him just what my body does for me. I am living in all these various organs which share my life; I act through them and they make up a body for me. So also Christ is living in all those men who share His life; He acts through them and they make up a body for Him. They are Christ's body.
They are not, of course, a physical body, animated by a human soul. Nor are they merely a moral body united only by a common purpose, such as "the governing body" of a school. It is a sort of body which has no exact parallel in the natural order. So it ought to have some other name, to show it is neither a physical nor a moral body.
For about eight centuries Christian writers could not think of any name suitable for such a unique organism as this one in which Christ now lives and works among men. They just had to call it "the Body of Christ" and leave it to the context to make it clear whether they were talking about this unique body or about the physical body which had gone to heaven. But finally a writer called Ratramnus in the ninth century used the phrase "Mystical Body" to indicate the mysteriousness of this marvellous supernatural organism. And his phrase somehow stuck, and is in general use to this day.
Let us take another look at this organism - the Mystical Body, as I shall henceforth call it. Let us see what it means for us. It means that, quite apart from the Blessed Sacrament (in which Our Lord's physical body - and blood and soul and divinity - are present though not in "usable" form), Christ is still with us. He "descended from heaven" in order to save and sanctify mankind. In Palestine, and by means of His physical body, He taught men and healed their ills; He adored His Father in prayer, and gave Him supreme glory in the sacrifice of Calvary. And now He continues those same activities, but He uses His Mystical Body instead. Hence He is no longer limited to Palestine and to the years 4 B.C. till A.D. 30 (or whatever the correct dates may have been). He teaches and sanctifies men and prays and sacrifices to His Father throughout all places and all time.
His Mystical Body (another name for which is the Catholic Church) is thus, in a certain manner, a prolongation of the Incarnation. The Church is Christ still living and working amongst us. "Christ is the Head," says St. Paul, "to which the whole Church is joined, so that the Church is His Body" (Eph. i, 22). The Church, of course, is also an organisation of Pope and bishops and clergy and laity. But we must see in it much more than that. The Church has a unity deeper than that of a school consisting of teachers and taught; or of an army consisting of commanders and commanded. Though the Church is indeed an organisation, the even more important truth is that it is an organism; it is that organism which lives with the one life of Christ; it is a body; it is the Mystical Body of Christ!
The present Holy Father, Pope Pius XII, has written a very beautiful encyclical about all this. Every reader of this book, if he really "means business" and truly intends to learn what he ought to learn, should get a copy of this encyclical and study it most carefully. Here I propose merely to quote and to comment on a few sentences of outstanding importance. (Numbers refer to paragraphs in the C.T.S. edition).
"The name 'Body of Christ' means more than that Christ is the Head of the Mystical Body; it means also that He, after a certain manner, so lives in the Church that she may be said to be another Christ" (n.51).
"It is Christ who baptises through the Church, He who teaches, governs, absolves, binds, offers, and makes sacrifice" (n.52).
"Our union with Christ in the Body of the Church is very close indeed; it is so intimate that a very ancient and constant tradition of the Fathers teaches that the Divine Redeemer, together with His social Body, constitutes one mystical person, or - as St. Augustine expresses it - 'the whole Christ' " (n.67).
"Christ, the mystical Head, and the Church, together constitute one new man, joining heaven and earth in the continuance of the saving work of the Cross. Christ, Head and Body, is the whole Christ" (n.77).
"No greater glory, no higher dignity, no honour more sublime can be conceived than that of belonging to the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, wherein we become members of this one venerable Body, are governed by one august Head, filled with the one divine Spirit, nourished during this earthly exile with one doctrine and one Bread of angels, until at last we come to enjoy in heaven one everlasting happiness" (n.90).
From all this we can see that the acts of the Church in glorifying God and sanctifying men are the acts of Christ - of the "whole Christ" of whom we are privileged to be members. It follows that in these acts He sacrifices, praises God and sanctifies men through us - for He uses us as instruments. Hence when we worship God in our social capacity as members of the Mystical Body we are doing something which far surpasses our individual powers; for the worship we thus offer is the worship of Christ, the God-man, our Head of whom we are members. Any worship we can offer to God of ourselves is inadequate. But by reason of our incorporation into Christ we can "through Him and with Him and in Him" give to God the Father "all honour and glory" (as the priest says in Mass).
This belonging in the Body of Christ (or "incorporation", as it is called) is the very basis of what we call "liturgy". The word itself we shall have occasion to discuss later. What I want to emphasise here is the fact that it is only because of "incorporation" that there is any such thing as "liturgy". And it is precisely because we are all so incorporated that liturgy does concern all of us (and not just the clergy). The "liturgical movement" and all that it stands for is but a development in action of this basic doctrine of the "Mystical Body of Christ".
Understand that, and you have the key to everything in the realm of liturgy. Be ignorant of that, and all that is liturgy will seem to you just a sort of pernickety pottering with various aesthetic fads for which sensible practical people just haven't got the time!
And so I beseech you to spare no time and trouble to get a vivid grasp of this wonderful doctrine. It is the basis, not only of liturgy, but even of Christianity. Master it, understand it, make it a part of your mental outlook, and you will be astonished how it will transform and ennoble and lift up and vivify and gladden your whole faith. "Let us thank God, through His Son, in the Holy Spirit," wrote St. Leo in a sermon quoted in the Christmas Office, "for He has made us alive with Christ, that we might be in Him as new creatures! . . . Be conscious, O Christian, of your dignity! You are now made a sharer in the divine nature, so do not degenerate to merely natural standards. Remember of whose Body you are a member!"
Finally, I want to add a caution. The Holy Father reminds us in his encyclical that in studying this doctrine "we are dealing with a hidden mystery which, during our exile on earth, can never be completely unveiled, never altogether understood, nor adequately expressed in human language" (n.78). Now he himself, in the course of some fifteen thousand words, had space in which he could express detailed qualifications of all sorts of statements which I, in a short chapter, can give in the barest outline only. Hence, if there be any doubt of the precise sense in which I mean any particular statement to be understood, it should be compared with the encyclical. A general principle against misunderstanding is that "any explanation of this mystical union is to be rejected if it makes the faithful in any way pass beyond the order of created things, and so trespass on the divine sphere that even one single attribute of the eternal God could be predicated of them in the proper sense" (n.78).
I draw attention to this for I am well aware that highly trained theologians would be able to pick holes in what I have written, saying that this or that statement, as I have put it, does not exclude interpretation in some manner savouring of Apollinarianism, Docetism, Sabellianism or other hoary old heresies. Maybe they're right. But if I have to add to my statements qualifying phrases designed to exclude all possibility of misinterpretation, then the whole chapter would become hopelessly unintelligible, and as heavy and unattractive as the average textbook of theology. And I'm not writing a textbook of theology - I'm attempting a "popular explanation" of a truth so deep that not even a theological pundit can explain it fully.
It is from this standpoint that the chapter should be judged. It will have achieved all that I can hope for if readers have persevered, in spite of the intrinsic difficulty of the subject, in reading thus far; and if the phrase "Mystical Body of Christ" has ceased to be to them mere words, and has begun really to mean something - even if some of the notions be not so meticulously accurate as to satisfy professional theologians. And, while I am about it, I may as well add that this holds, also, for all the remaining chapters of this book.