The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality

by Ronald Rolheiser

Scripture uses the expression the “Body of Christ” to mean three things: Jesus, the historical person who walked this earth for thirty-three years; the Eucharist, which is also the physical presence of God among us; and the body of believers, which is also the real presence. To say the word “Christ” is to refer, at one and the same time, to Jesus, the Eucharist, and the community of faith. We are the Body of Christ. This is not an exaggeration, nor a metaphor.7 To say that the body of believers is the Body of Christ is not to say something that scripture does not. Scripture, and Paul in particular, never tells us that the body of believers replaces Christ’s body, nor that it represents Christ’s body, nor even that it is Christ’s mystical body. It says simply: “We are Christ’s body.”