Nowhere is the role of the faith community more eloquently expressed than in the image of the church as the body of Christ. This image conveys both unity and diversity. As Ephesians 4:4-5 states, we are members of “one body and one Spirit…one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Our different gifts and roles are like the various parts of the human body, according to Romans 12:4-8. This is more than a metaphor. The community of Christ doesn’t just function like Christ’s body. The community of Christ is Christ’s body. Through baptism, communion and the proclamation of the Gospel, God’s Holy Spirit forms individual people into a community – a community in and through whom Jesus is truly present. As St. Teresa of Ávila, a contemporary of Martin Luther, wrote: “Christ has no body but yours/ No hands, no feet on earth but yours/ Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world.”
This message is excerpted from the Bible study “After certainty” by Meghan Johnston Aelabouni in the July/August 2024 Gather magazine. Today we commemorate Clare, Abbess of San Damiano, 1253.
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