On the Way to Jesus Christ

by Joseph Ratzinger

But this christological presence is called Church. Church is based on the fact that Christ perpetually keeps his promise: “Behold, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28: 20). This “being with” occurs in such a way that he perpetually creates a body for himself, in which he constantly gathers people, in whom his bodily existence continues. Indeed, he is not only the Christ yesterday, but he is Christ today and forever (Heb 13:8). But if he is one, then this “body”, in turn, can only be one—despite the fragmentation that is empirically evident. And so this unity cannot be relegated to a utopia or to eschatological times; it must then be present corporeally, so to speak, in a bodily manner in history itself.