Thursday, January 24, 2013

Christ's Body


This is a copy of Marc Chagall's stained glass window which takes up an entire wall of the chapel at the United Nations Building in New York.  It seems to hint at the unity of all nations.  Maybe it can help us meditate on Christ's Body.
The second reading for this Sunday's Mass is St. Paul's powerful passage about our being Christ's Body (1 Corinthians 12:12-30.)  It begins, "As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ."  After explaining the analogy in detail, he says that it is more than an analogy, "You are Christ's Body, and individually parts of it."
The passage helps me think of three things.  The Risen Christ living in each of us makes us all one in His Body.  Like the members of a body, we each have a separate function in the Body of Christ, according to our God-given abilities and interests.  Christ relies on us to do what he wants to do in today's world.
St. Teresa of Avila tells us:
"Christ has no body now but yours
  No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
  Yours are the eyes with which he looks
  With compassion on this world.
  Christ has no body now on earth but yours."

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