Opening Prayer
So it’s great to have you here. Thank you for being here. Thank you for wanting to grow in your relationship with Saint Paul — and that’s why we’re here. A reminder that he is here with us as well. We have two relics of Saint Paul with us: one is a first-class relic of his bones, and one is a relic of the pillar where he was decapitated. So in a very real sense, he’s with us. Praise be to God. No longer I, but Christ.
Saint Paul Lent Talk Series Night 2Let us pray together. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Let us give thanks to the Father for having made you worthy to share the lot of the saints in light. He rescued us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. Through him we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creatures. In him everything in heaven and on earth was created — things visible and invisible. All were created through him; all were created for him.
He is before all else that is. In him everything continues in being. It is he who is the head of the body, the Church — he who is the beginning, the firstborn of the dead, so that primacy may be his in everything. It pleases God to make absolute fullness reside in him, and by means of him to reconcile everything in his person, both on earth and in the heavens, making peace through the blood of his cross. Amen.
Lord Jesus, we ask you to send your Holy Spirit into our hearts. We ask the intercession of our guardian angels, Saint Joseph, the Blessed Virgin, and especially Saint Paul. We ask all this in your name, Jesus. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Central Point
One thing I want you to take away from this entire talk: the wrong understanding of Saint Paul’s theology goes like this — we get our act together, we are morally transformed, so that we can participate in the sacraments, so that we can be united to the Church, so that we’re saved. We’ve got to flip it on its head.
The right understanding is this: we are saved so that we can be united to Christ’s body, the Church — which is what we’re going to talk about tonight — and so that we can be fed by the Lord in the sacraments, and then so that we can be transformed, to have and to live a new life. That’s tonight’s talk: Built Up into the Body of Christ.
What Is the Church?
Paul says in Corinthians, “You are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.” That’s our takeoff point for this evening — knowing that we are members of the body of Christ. This is the foundation of what the Church is. The questions I want to answer tonight: What is the Church? How is the Church a body? What is the purpose of this mystical body of Christ that we call the Church? And finally — who cares? We have to ask that question. If our theology is just right belief about something and it doesn’t permeate into our lives, then it’s not worthwhile.
What the Church Is Not
The Church is not merely a human institution or a club. It’s not simply a voluntary association — not just a group of people who decided this is where they go to pray on Sunday evenings. It’s not just a building. It’s not just the clergy — thanks be to God, or this would be a very lonely vocation! It’s not just a set of moral rules. It’s not a museum for saints. And it’s not strictly a spiritual reality that is separate from the raw world. It is immersed in the world.
The Church Is Tangible
Saint Paul, in his letter to the Romans, says: “So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.” The Church is something real. It’s tangible. We can touch it. To the point that when Jesus is telling his disciples how they will be recognized as the Church, he says, “People will know you are Christians by the way they see you loving one another.” How is someone supposed to see that if it’s not flesh and blood? The Church has a body and a soul, just like we do.
The Church Is Living
The Church is something living — not stagnant, not a piece of pottery. It’s like a tree. A seed is planted, but it is continually growing and developing. Is it the same tree as the acorn that was planted? Absolutely. But does it look a lot different than it did a thousand years ago, fifteen hundred years ago, fifty years ago? Yes — because it is living and growing and developing. Is it based on the same rock, the same foundation? You better believe it. But it’s growing through space, through time, through history. And that’s a very good thing, because that means the Church will always be able to bring the gospel to the world. Imagine trying to preach the gospel 1,700 years ago in Greek if we couldn’t update the things that allow us to enter into dialogue with the culture. The Church would be unable to carry out its mission.
The Church Is Sustained by the Spirit
Saint Paul says, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” The Holy Spirit is what is truly animating the Church — it is the soul of the Church. It is through the Holy Spirit, not by our own decisions, that we are joined to the Church and unified within her. Sometimes we can think — especially those who have strayed or converted — “I made the decision to come back to church.” But no: the Holy Spirit was alive in you, drawing you, moving you to come back into the heart of God’s Church.
The Holy Spirit is the great unifying principle of the Church. Our unity is not uniformity. “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.” Within the Catholic Church, there is a beautiful plurality of ways that it looks to be Catholic — and all of these are unified in their catholicity, guided by the Holy Spirit. If every single person practiced the Catholic faith in the exact same way and prayed the exact same way, would that be a beautiful tree? No. A tree has many branches, many nooks and crannies, many wounds even that have been healed up. All of these contribute to the diversity of the Church. But unity in the Holy Spirit is our strength.
How Is the Church a Body?
Saint Paul says, “The body does not consist of one member, but many.” That’s the starting-off point. A body has many members. And Jesus uses this image — Paul uses this image — for a reason, because it is intimately relatable to us.
Christ Is the Head
Christ is the head of the body, the Church. What does that mean? He directs, he animates, he unifies. He is the mind leading us, drawing us in a direction. If we were without our heads, we couldn’t do much — actually, we could do nothing. That’s a great reminder for us: if we want to be effective in the Church, it’s not going to come from whatever initiatives we think we need to lead, or whatever programs we think we must do. Being effective in our ministry in the Church ultimately comes from being connected to the Head.
Jesus is the Head also because he governs and directs the body. “God has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the Church.” Our one mission statement as the Church is obedience to Christ — obedience to him, doing the will of the Head. When our bodies are working well, we can get things done easily. But when we’re injured, when part of the body is injured — when my knees don’t work like they used to — there’s resistance. It’s the same in the body of Christ. When the body is healthy, when it’s obedient to the Head, things move smoothly.
Christ is also the Head because he sanctifies the Church. Paul says in Ephesians, “Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her.” Sometimes we might think Christ is the Head because he’s trying to dominate the Church or use it according to his will. That would be an incorrect understanding of Christ’s authority — and of authority in general. True authority, the authority that Christ wields, is an authority that lays down its life. It’s authority for service, for self-giving, for sacrifice. Christ the Head lays down his life so that the body can be animated, so that it can have the fullness of what it was made for, so that it can be sanctified.
The Structure of the Body: Hierarchy
The Church has a structure. It is hierarchical — which simply means it is ordered, with specific roles. That’s all a hierarchy means: structure, order, a goal. Paul says in Corinthians, “God has appointed in the Church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers.” Paul makes this clear — there is an order to things. Not so that we can say these people are better than those, or these are superior. All of this is simply so that the body can be harmonized and working well.
That hierarchical structure the Lord has given us consists of bishops, priests, deacons, laity, and religious. Paul writes to Timothy: “Do not neglect the gift you have been given, which was given to you by prophetic utterance when the council of elders laid their hands upon you.” To Titus he writes: “This is why I left you in Crete, that you might amend what was defective and appoint elders in every town.” And he reminds us that “deacons must be serious.” These three ordained ministries — bishops, priests, and deacons — existed from the very beginning of the Church. They give the body a skeleton, if you will, upon which the flesh, the true muscle, can be built.
The Lay Life and Religious Life
And what is that flesh, that muscle? That is the lay life. The lay life is not simply “those who aren’t bishops, priests, and deacons.” It is those people who sanctify family life, work, and the world. Do you want that responsibility? Because that is what you have. That is the highest of callings, if I may say so — the responsibility to order and sanctify your family life, your life of labor, and indeed the life of the world. God so designed the Church that there would be ordained ministers whose calling is to serve you, so that you can go and serve the world. There is a beautiful ordering to that.
Religious offer their lives in union with the evangelical counsels — anyone? Poverty, chastity, obedience — to be perfected in the life that Christ himself lived: the Christ who was poor, who was chaste, who was obedient. Sometimes we can think about the cloistered Poor Clares, who enter the convent and never leave for the rest of their lives, and we think: “What a waste. Think of all the good they could have been doing.” But that’s thinking according to the mind of the world. What are they doing? Above all, they are conforming their lives to Christ — giving themselves completely to him, spending long hours in prayer, interceding for the world. They are living the life of heaven to the maximum right now. They are the heartbeat of the world.
No Member Is Unimportant
There are two patrons of the missions in the Church. One is Saint Francis Xavier, who in his lifetime baptized 700,000 people. His arm is enshrined in the Church of the Gesù in Rome — that hand brought almost a million people into union with Christ. There are probably a billion people today who have lived a life with Christ because of him. He is one of the patrons of the missions.
The other patron of the missions is Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, who at around the age of fourteen entered the Carmelite convent — and never left. She lived a radically hidden life, and yet she is one of the most exalted saints in the Church, a Doctor of the Church. She never left the convent. Her role in conforming her life to Christ was just as important as Francis Xavier’s zealous global mission. No member is unimportant.
Paul says: “Can the eye say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’?” There is no member of the body of Christ who is unimportant. Every single one of you is needed to be a member of the Church. And when any one of us says no to our mission, the body suffers. We start to limp. We’re not as effective. Each of us, in our own little part of the body — whether it’s a tiny cell or the giant biceps — must function. It’s important.
Different Functions, Equal Dignity
Paul says in First Corinthians: “The parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable. And those parts of the body which we think are less honorable, we invest with the greatest honor.” This is a call to us to remember — especially those suffering members of the body, especially as we age, when we think, “I’m just ineffective now, I can’t do what I once used to do.” I remember my grandmother, who for the last fifteen years of her life had Alzheimer’s and didn’t know who we were — just suffering. Her life in those years was likely making her the most honorable person in the body of Christ. Those who are suffering, those who can’t do anything — they are the heart of the body of Christ, the beating hearts, because they are conforming themselves to Christ. Think about it: when Christ was nailed to the cross, he couldn’t move. His hands couldn’t move. He could barely breathe. He was pinned down. Yet that was when he was most effective. That was when he was most glorious. It is the same for the weakest, smallest members of the body of Christ.
Unity, Not Uniformity
Paul writes: “From whom the whole body, joined and knit together, grows with a growth that is from God.” We cannot demand that everyone walk in perfect, right angles all the time. There needs to be freedom — a freedom within the walls of the Church. Not a freedom of morality, not “do whatever you want,” but a freedom in how we live our faith, how we relate to the Lord, how we express our obedience to him as Head. That will look unique for each of us, and that’s okay — because we are all united in the Spirit and in our obedience to Christ.
A Body Acts as One
Each member is connected. “If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together.” This means there can be no rivalry in the Church — ever. Even if it’s just a passing thought, like, “Look at that family — they have fifteen kids and they all arrived on time.” No. When we see a brother or sister living out their unique calling and doing it well, the response should be affirmation, not jealousy. “I’m glad they’re on our team, because that means the body is being built up.” We should say, “Help me pray like you. Help me know the faith like you. Help me live an ordered family life like you.” That’s the spirit of the body of Christ.
The Christian Life Is Never Individualistic
The Christian life is not individualistic, and this is both sobering and beautiful — because it means both our virtue and our vice have effects beyond ourselves. “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? For we are members of one another.” If you’ve ever wondered why we confess our sins to a priest — a representative of Christ and the Church — it’s because our sins don’t just affect us. They are corporate actions that need to be confessed to someone who represents Christ and the Church, so that we can be grafted back into the body of Christ. Every single act of virtue, every single act of vice, either builds up the entire body or diminishes it. There are no hidden acts for a Christian. And knowing that our sins hurt our brothers and sisters should spur us on: even in those moments of temptation, we can say, “I want to raise the tide of holiness in the Church. A rising tide raises all boats.” That’s a beautiful thing.
The Purpose of the Mystical Body of Christ
To Save the World
Ultimately, the purpose of the Mystical Body of Christ — the Church — is to save the world. Why did Christ leave a Church? To be united to him. To be a bride to him. This is the heart of it. Salvation comes through Christ’s body, the Church. “God has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” Recall the end of John chapter 20: the first thing Jesus does after the Resurrection when he sees his apostles is breathe on them and say, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven; whose sins you retain are retained.” He is giving to his Church the gift of reconciliation — the gift of making people right with God — the very same gift he possesses as the one who says to the woman caught in adultery, “Daughter, your sins are forgiven.” He gives that same authority to his Church so that the Church can carry out his mission of reconciling sinners to his body, of saving them. The Church is not just a social institution. It is called to save the world by incorporating as many people as possible into Christ’s body.
To Suffer with Christ
Another purpose of the Mystical Body of Christ is to suffer with Christ. When Paul was on the road to Damascus — going to persecute the Church — Jesus knocked him to the ground and said, “Why are you persecuting me?” How was Paul persecuting Jesus? Because he was persecuting his Church. Jesus identifies himself with his Church. He truly sees us as one with him. And that’s why Paul says in Colossians: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church.” What is lacking in Christ’s sufferings? The body’s participation in them. The Head has suffered; now the body in this world gets to participate in that suffering — to bring it to fulfillment, to bring it to completion. That means there is great meaning in our suffering, in our trials and difficulties in this life. If we are the body of Christ suffering, then we know what comes next: after suffering, rest. After death, we rise in glory.
To Grow into the Fullness of Christ
Paul says in Ephesians, “We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” The Church, when Christ first founded it, was an infant. The Lord has allowed two millennia to go by so that the Church can grow into its fullness of stature — both individually in our lives of holiness, and communally in cruciform suffering. Paul told the Corinthians, “I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it.” The milk was the beauty of the gospel, the beauty of following Christ. The solid food they weren’t ready for was this: being crucified with Christ, being united to Christ in suffering so that they could be united to Christ in glory. The conversion we are each called to make is from simply desiring the beauties of the faith to seeing, even in our sufferings, the truest beauties of the faith. This is why it’s so important for us as Catholics to keep the body of Christ on our crucifixes. We look at the crucifix and we see beauty — the beauty of self-gift and self-sacrifice that bears fruit. And when we’re reminded of that, we see: that’s what I truly want. That’s what my heart actually desires.
To Point the World to Christ
Through the Church, “the manifold wisdom of God might be made known.” One of the Church’s purposes in this world is to point to the world and say: we know what is truly true, good, and beautiful. A world without God goes insane. We’re not going to tackle anyone and drag them over. But we want to help the world understand what is true, what is good, what is beautiful. This is why the Church throughout history has made beauty such a vital part of her heritage. When we walk into our church, we are captivated by the architecture that raises our eyes, by the beautiful images, by the saints, by the most precious of materials — the vestments, the chalices. All of this attracts our hearts and says: something is happening here that is outside of the ordinary. And then the good and the true begin to attract us as well. When the Church draws people into this, it draws them into the body of Christ.
The Unity of the Church at Mass
When is the Church most united? When is the body most complete? At Mass. Every time we are at Mass, we are reunited with the saints in heaven. We are offering sacrifice for those souls in purgatory — those souls who need cleansing, who need to let go of all they are still holding on to, so that they can be fully united to God. And we are present in sacramental form, receiving the body and blood of Jesus. That is the moment we are most united to the Lord.
Why Does This Matter?
I Belong, and I Am Needed
When we live out Paul’s theology of the Church, we come to understand: I belong and I am needed. If we don’t fulfill our mission — whatever part of the body we are — the body hurts. However small a part of the body you are, live it out. Live it out well. Live it out even in a hidden way. The majority of the functions of the body are not seen. Even the most critical functions are hidden. If you can see someone’s heart beating, something has gone wrong. Yet all of the hidden functions keep things going. That is most of us, in most of our days. But if we don’t fulfill them, the body dies.
Each Member Has Real Authority
Just as Christ the Head has authority over all the body, each of us has authority within the little system we operate in — and that authority is meant for service, for laying our lives down. Each of us has at least one person for whom we are meant to lay our life down in authority and love.
My Choices Affect the Whole Body
Love builds up the body. Sin breaks down the body. This is a great examination for us. How did my actions affect the body of Christ today? How did my holiness change someone’s life today? When I got the last word in an argument — that probably hurt someone’s faith a little bit. When I sacrificed for another person — they were built up because of it. We are interconnected, and that should change how we act.
The Church Is Visible Through Our Actions
Our daily life is a place of witness. When we live out the body of Christ — when we realize who we are — we begin to realize, humbly: when people see me, they see the Church. That can be a little shocking. But it is a good thing. And we are connected to the whole Church — all of it.
Practical Steps for This Week
Read the Letter to the Ephesians. It is Paul’s most ecclesial book — the one that most deeply addresses how to order the Church and live as its members.
In your examination of conscience before Confession, try asking: How did my actions affect the body of Christ today? How did my holiness change someone’s life today? How did my sins wound the body? This trains us to see ourselves not just in terms of individual right and wrong, but in terms of our responsibility to the whole body.
Offer your sufferings for another. No suffering goes to waste — it all builds up the body of Christ. The day-to-day aches and pains, the penances God sends us, and the ones we freely choose: see all of these as opportunities to be united to Christ, the Head who suffered. Offer them for the body.
Examine what gifts God has given you. Are you the eye? The toe? The spleen? Read through Paul’s fruits of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control. Which one do you live most naturally? If that’s the gift the Lord has given you, live it really, really well. The toe can’t be the spleen; the spleen can’t be the eye. Be what you are.
Ask yourself: Do my actions build up the unity of the Church, or are they causing division? With my brothers and sisters in my pew, in my Bible study, wherever — am I helping to build up the unity of the body? Let that be the heart of how you engage.
Questions & Discussion
On Cloistered Religious Life
There are active religious — like the sisters here — who live an intense life of prayer and also teach, nurse, and serve in the world in many ways. And then there are cloistered religious, like the Poor Clares or Carmelites, who live in the same place for the rest of their lives. They live a radically hidden life, hidden away with Christ. What are they doing there? They are being united to Christ. They are conforming their lives completely to him, interceding ceaselessly for the world. That is the perfection of religious life.
On Saint Thérèse and the Hidden Life
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux didn’t remain unknown by chance. Her biological sister, who was also her religious superior, instructed her to write the story of her life. God raises up saints for us because the whole Church needs to know them. And think about her “little way”: do little things with great love. So often we want to do great things with little love — look how amazing I am! What she teaches us is the opposite: doing the little things with great love is where holiness lies.
On Suffering: Should We Seek It?
The question is about Colossians 1:24 — filling up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. Should we be seeking suffering? Probably not. The sufferings we choose — willful acts of self-denial, especially during Lent — serve a purpose: to deprive the body of something it wants, in order to awaken the soul to what it truly desires.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, when speaking about fasting, always pointed toward the happy medium. He said: fast until 3 p.m. — long enough to remind the body that it is in need, but not so long that you become deprived and unable to function. These voluntary sufferings are meant to awaken our hearts to our ultimate destiny: the things of this world are passing away, and heaven is a reality we must remember.
But the best sufferings we can embrace are the involuntary ones — the ones Christ sends us, the crosses we didn’t choose. When we embrace these courageously, saying, “Lord, this is a cross you’ve given me to bear, and so I’ll take it up” — when we do that heroically, with God’s grace, with the Holy Spirit driving us in the same way the Spirit led the Lord through his passion — then we start to really bear fruit. And should we seek suffering for others? No. We keep our voluntary mortifications to ourselves. We do not try to make others suffer.
Closing Prayer
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord Jesus, we give you thanks for the gift of your body, the Church. We give you thanks for incorporating each and every single one of us into your body. Help us to know our great dignity as members of you. Help us to see our brothers and sisters as ourselves, because we are united to them through you. We ask the intercession of Saint Paul — may he continue to feed and nourish us as we reflect on his most divine teachings. And we ask as well the intercession of Our Lady, who constantly intercedes for us. She who is the mother of the Church, as we pray together:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
The Lord be with you. May almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Go in peace.
Coming Up Next
Next week (March 8th, 6:30 p.m. here in the Klinger Center) we will be talking about the sacramental life. We’ve talked about salvation; we’ve talked about the Church. Christ saves us so that we can be united to his body, and it is within his body that he begins to feed us — feeding us with his own life. We will be covering:
The sacramental worldview
The centrality of Baptism and the Eucharist
Holy Orders and the apostolic ministry
Reconciliation
And the great mystery — which Paul in Ephesians 5 says refers to Christ and the Church: Marriage.