page_title: Body of Christ
section_title: Catholicism
hierarchical_section_title: Body of Christ / The Church / Catholicism
context_page_description: In Christian theology, the term Body of Christ has two main but separate meanings: it may refer to Jesus' words over the bread at the celebration of the Jewish feast of Passover that "This is my body" in Luke 22:19–20, or it may refer to all individuals who are "in Christ" 1 Corinthians 12:12–14.
  Christ also associated himself with the poor of the world and this is also called the Body of Christ. “If we truly wish to encounter Christ, we have to touch his body in the suffering bodies of the poor, as a response to the sacramental communion bestowed in the Eucharist. "The Body of Christ, broken in the sacred liturgy, can be seen, through charity and sharing, in the faces and persons of the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters”, said Pope Francis on launching the World Day of the Poor.
  There are significant differences in how Christians understand the term as used by Christ at the Last Supper and as developed in Christian theology of the Eucharist. For some it may be symbolic, for others it becomes a more literal or mystical understanding.
context_section_description: The first meaning that Catholics attach to the expression "Body of Christ" is the Catholic Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes with approval, as "summing up the faith of the holy doctors and the good sense of the believer", the reply of Saint Joan of Arc to her judges: "About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they're just one thing, and we shouldn't complicate the matter." In the same passage, it also quotes Saint Augustine: "Let us rejoice then and give thanks that we have become not only Christians, but Christ himself. Do you understand and grasp, brethren, God's grace toward us? Marvel and rejoice: we have become Christ. For if he is the head, we are the members; he and we together are the whole man.... the fullness of Christ then is the head and the members. But what does 'head and members' mean? Christ and the Church." In light of all this, the Catholic Church calls itself the "universal sacrament of salvation" for the whole world, as it dispenses the sacraments which give the grace of Christ to the recipient.
  Saint Paul the Apostle spoke of this unity of Christians with Christ, referred to in the New Testament also in images such as that of the vine and the branches, in terms of a single body that has Christ as its head in Romans 12:5,1 Corinthians 12:12–27, Ephesians 3:6 and 5:23, Colossians 1:18 and 1:24.
  According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "the comparison of the Church with the body casts light on the intimate bond between Christ and his Church. Not only is she gathered around him; she is united in him, in his body. Three aspects of the Church as the Body of Christ are to be more specifically noted: the unity of all her members with each other as a result of their union with Christ; Christ as head of the Body; and the Church as bride of Christ." The Catechism spells out the significance of each of these three aspects.
  To distinguish the Body of Christ in this sense from his physical body, the term "Mystical Body of Christ" is often used. This term was used as the first words, and so as the title, of the encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi of Pope Pius XII. In that document, Pope Pius XII in 1943 states, "the mystical Body of Christ... is the Catholic Church." But in 1964 the Catholic bishops gathered at the Second Vatican Council, while acknowledging that “full incorporation” in the Church required union with the Sovereign Pontiff, described various degrees of being “conjoined” or “related” to the Church including all persons of good will, which was not something new. The Council's decree on Ecumenism stated that "all who have been justified by faith in Baptism are members of Christ's body" (3). Following this understanding, Karl Rahner coined the term “anonymous Christians”.
caption: 1 Corinthians, from the Douai Bible, 1749
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