CHRISTIAN LIFE

Daily duties are very ordinary things. But when done to serve the needs of the Body of Christ they have extraordinary value. No action of the day is trivial or unimportant to true Catholics, for every action done in Christ has ascetic value and leads to perfect union with Him. When the Christian miner plunges down the shaft he is really soaring to Heaven; his wife at home preparing the dinner is, like Martha, preparing a meal for Christ; every pace a Christian takes is another step towards Christ. The Christian Life is nothing more than growth in Christ, and unto Christ, by membership in His Mystical Body, and Christian Asceticism is the process of growth into a perfect man. This is the thesis of an excellent book which has recently been translated into English, and which has inspired these pages. The analogy of the Mystical Body comes to us from St. Paul, who distinguishes an historical Christ Who was born of a woman, Who was crucified and rose from the dead; and a mystical Christ with Whom ‘we are buried unto death’ (Rom. vi, 4), and of Whose body we are members (I Cor. xii, 12). The complete mystical Christ is not He Who was born of Mary, but consists in Christ the Head plus the members ... The expression ‘Mystical Body of Christ’ signifies a mysterious union with Him, which is the basis of an actual reality. This does not only indicate our moral relationship to Him, owing to the fact that we love Him and call Him brother and friend, but implies an ontological union.