The Eucharistic liturgy is the efficacious sign of the reality, both divine and human, that makes up the Church. For, through communion in the Body and Blood of the Lord who makes them part of his redemptive sacrifice, distinct individuals—separated and even opposed by all the seeds of division that they carry within themselves by reason of their sinful condition, but washed in the redemptive bath of baptism and brought into the kingdom that the Lord inaugurated in his resurrection—become a single being, a multiform but cohesive and solidly articulated organism. In this organism a single vital sap, a single flow of life from him who is at once head and fullness (or fulfillment), a single lifegiving breath (the Spirit) that works differently in the different members, make it possible for the whole to grow harmoniously, through the ministry of all, to the full stature of the perfect Human Being—a climax reached on the day where there will no longer be aught but a single Christ presenting himself to the Father at the term of a passage now completely accomplished.
* * *
From The Church at Prayer, Volume I: Principles of the Liturgy (page 243). Edited by A. G. Mortimort.
Class: Introduction to the Sacraments and Worship
Class: Introduction to the Sacraments and Worship
