Page 35 - Fr.Emil3

Office of Readings Thursday 32nd Wk Second Reading

A sermon of the second century

The living church is the body of Christ

Therefore, brothers, if we do the will of God the Father, we
shall be members of the first spiritual Church that was created

before the sun and the moon; but if we fail to do the will of the
Lord, we shall be among those to whom it is said in

Scripture: My house has been made into a robbers’ den. We
must choose then, if we want to be saved, to be members of

the Church of life.

You surely cannot be ignorant of the fact that the living Church

is the body of Christ; for Scripture says: God made man male
and female. Now the male signifies Christ, and the female

signifies the Church, which, according to both the Old and New
Testament, is no recent creation, but has existed from the

beginning. At first the Church was purely spiritual, even as our
Jesus was spiritual, but it appeared in the last days to save us.

For the spiritual Church was made manifest in the body of
Christ, in order to show us that if we uphold its honour in the

outward, visible form, and do not defile it, we shall, through the
Holy Spirit, be made its members in the true, spiritual sense.

For the body of the Church is a copy of the Spirit, and no one
who defaces the copy can have any part in what the copy

represents. In other words, brothers, you must preserve the
honour of the body in order to share in the Spirit. For if we say

that the body is the Church and the Spirit is Christ, it follows
that anyone who dishonours his body, dishonours the Church.

Such a man will have no part in the Spirit, which is Christ. But
if the Holy Spirit is joined to it, this body can receive an
immortal life that is wonderful beyond words, for the

35 | P a g e