Salvation Seminar Week 4.
“The bread which we break, is it not a
communion in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many
are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” (1 Cor 10:16-17.)
In Chapter 4 of Dr. Michael Patrick
Barber’s book, Salvation, he tells a story the likes of which many of us
Catholics have also experienced. Dr. Barber’s fellow-passenger on an airplane,
noticing what Dr. Barber was reading, asked, “Are you a Christian?” He replied,
“Even better, I’m a Catholic.” The passenger looked surprised and said, “I
didn’t realize Catholic were Christians. Would you say you have a personal
relationship with Jesus?”
The Catholic answer to that question is:
Of course! Even the Catechism (CCC 2558) says that faith is “a vital and personal
relationship with the living and true God.” Of course!
The New Testament has many different
images for the Church. The image of we being members of the body of Christ (Ro12:5) is particularly apparent when Christ – having died, resurrected, and
ascended into Heaven – then appears to Saul on the road to Damascus. Saul was
on his way to arrest and persecute the Christians in Damascus. Jesus says, “Saul,
why do you persecute me?” And, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” (Ac9:4-5.) Jesus completely identifies himself with his believers, and whatever
Saul would do to them, he would be doing to Christ. (Saul, of course, would
later become St. Paul.)
This oneness in the Body of Christ also
means that we have a spiritual union with each other. “If one member suffers,
all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Cor12:26).
The New Testament also refers to believers
and the Church as a temple, where holiness – God the Holy One – dwells. St.
Peter says, “Like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to
be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices” (1 Pet 2:5). Believers are
united to Christ, built into a spiritual house (temple), offering our spiritual
sacrifices united with Christ’s sacrifice (cf., Col 1:24).
St. Paul says, “We are the temple of the
living God” (2 Cor 6:16), the “household of faith” (Gal 6:10), and the family
or “household of God” growing “into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also
are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Eph 2:19-22).
Incidentally, buildings don’t “grow,” and
bodies aren’t “built.” St. Paul is merging together the images of body, family,
and temple. A bit later in the same letter Paul also speaks of the Church as a
bride when he says husbands should love their wives “as their own bodies ... as
Christ does the Church, because we are members of his body” (Eph 5:28-31).
Dr. Barber writes, “Christ is united to believers, but not in an individualistic way. Christ has one bride. All believers are therefore saved together as part of this one body, the bride of Christ.... The Church is saved by being united to Christ. Believers are not saved apart from one another but through being united to the ‘whole Christ,’ namely, his body, the Church. The union is covenantal – it is marital and, therefore, familial. Salvation really is a family affair.”
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church is located in California City, CA. Visit our website at ollcalcity.org.
Dibby Allan Green has a BA in Religious Studies (Westmont College, 1978) and MA in Theology (Augustine Institute, 2019), is a lay Catholic hermit, and a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish.