9781644135945

The Time After Pentecost
head. Thus He makes us the children of God in union with Christ. He regulates our communion
with Christ, with the Church, and with other members of the Church.
The Spirit of our union with the Son. We are united with Christ, the Son of God, in so far as
we have “the communication of the Holy Ghost” (2 Cor 13:13). For St. Paul “living in Christ”
means the same as “living in the Spirit.” For him baptism is baptism in Christ and in the Holy
Spirit. This is the fundamental law of Christian life: “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ,
he is none of His” (Rom 8:9). The Spirit of Christ is the Holy Ghost, who draws us into such
an intimate communication with the Son that St. Paul can say: “Know you not that your bodies
are the members of Christ?” and he adds: “Know you not that your members are the temple of
the Holy Ghost, who is in you?” (1 Cor 6:15, 19.) “He who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit”
(1 Cor 6:17). It follows that we cannot be in Christ without being simultaneously in union with
the Holy Spirit. We can be united with Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, and children of
the Father only so far as we are filled with the Holy Spirit and live in Him. “In this we know that
we abide in Him, and He in us: because He hath given us of His Spirit” (1 Jn 4:13). For “the
incarnate Son of God has not received the Holy Spirit for Himself, the only-begotten Son of
God, but for us” (St. Cyril of Alexandria). “The faithful become Christ’s mystical body in so far
only as they are determined to live by the Spirit of Christ. Only the body of Christ lives by the
Spirit of Christ” (St. Augustine). Therefore we begin to possess and live Christ’s life the very
moment when we possess the Holy Spirit and live by Him. We are growing in Christ, living
His life, in the same degree as we become spiritual. The liturgy of the Sundays after Pentecost
wishes to bring home to us that we are to become more spiritual, more enlightened by the Spirit
of God, filled with Him and guided by Him.
The Spirit of our union with the body of Christ. “Now there are diversities of graces, but
the same Spirit; and there are diversities of ministries . . . [and] operations, but the same God,
who worketh all in all. . . . To one indeed, by the Spirit, is given the word of wisdom; and to
another, the word of knowledge, . . . to another, faith in the same Spirit. . . . But all these things
one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as He will” (1 Cor 12:4 ff.).
As the vitality of the various members and organs in a natural organism can work fruitfully
only if these various organs cooperate in the unity of the organism, so likewise in the organism
of the body of Christ, the Church, the variety of the members, offices, and graces has to be
coordinated in the unity of the organism, the entire body. The Holy Ghost accomplishes this
unity by directing the different operations and members towards the growth and perfection
of the body of Christ. We belong to Christ not as individuals or single members, but only as
members of the community, of the entire body. We are of necessity connected with the other
members and related to them; for the member does not live its own separate existence, but
only in connection with the life of the organism. So we, too, living not for ourselves, but for the
organism, have to be united not only with the living head, but also with each single member in
the communion of the Holy Spirit, who is the principle of unity in the variety of the different
members, operations, and offices of the Church.
The Church is a community wrought by the Holy Ghost and living in Him. She is “one
body and one spirit” (Eph 4:4) in communion with the Holy Spirit, who links the individual
member with Christ and, through Christ, with the Father. She is one in spirit and also one in
body. The more we consider ourselves members of the organism and responsible for the welfare
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