The Body of Christ

Notes of meeting on 16 July 2013

Picture of Our Lady heavily pregnant, she carries the Word, the Body of Christ, the Church, the fulfilment of God's promise.
As we look at the life of Jesus under his parents on earth, he is born, he is loved and nurtured, he becomes as man. In all these things Mary His Mother helps and guides him, even to witnessing his death on the Cross and then the joy of the resurrection.
Picture of Mary carrying the Church which is Christ the fulfilment of God's promise.
The Church is subject to God's laws, it is loved by the Father and nurtured by Him. It has grown and leads it's people, His Body.
Just as Mary carried Jesus so does she carry the Church. It may be destroyed as Jesus' body was destroyed but it will rise again to be triumphant just as Jesus was at the resurrection. The Father will never let His Church be fully destroyed, there will always be a remnant that shall remain and grow. Our Mother guides us and her Son's Church we can do nothing better than emulate her.

Ephesians 4 v 11-16
11 And to some, his 'gift' was that they should be apostles; to some prophets; to some, evangelists; to some, pastors and teachers; 12 to knit God's holy people together for the work of service to build up the Body of Christ, 13 until we all reach unity in faith and knowledge of the Son of God and form the perfect Man, fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself. 14 Then we shall no longer be children, or tossed one way and another, and carried hither and thither by every new gust of teaching, at the mercy of all the tricks people play and their unscrupulousness in deliberate deception. 15 If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow completely into Christ, who is the head 16 by whom the whole Body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each individual part to work according to its function. So the body grows until it has built itself up in love.
Romans 8 v 9 - 19
9 You, however, live not by your natural inclinations, but by the Spirit, since the Spirit of God has made a home in you. Indeed, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But when Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is alive because you have been justified; 11 and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead has made his home in you, then he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you. 12 So then, my brothers, we have no obligation to human nature to be dominated by it. 13 If you do live in that way, you are doomed to die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the habits originating in the body, you will have life. 14 All who are guided by the Spirit of God are sons of God; 15 for what you received was not the spirit of slavery to bring you back into fear; you received the Spirit of adoption, enabling us to cry out, 'Abba, Father!' 16 The Spirit himself joins with our spirit to bear witness that we are children of God. 17 And if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, provided that we share his suffering, so as to share his glory. 18 In my estimation, all that we suffer in the present time is nothing in comparison with the glory which is destined to be disclosed for us, 19 for the whole creation is waiting with eagerness for the children of God to be revealed.
2 Corinthians 5 v 17-21
17 So for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old order is gone and a new being is there to see. 18 It is all God's work; he reconciled us to himself through Christ and he gave us the ministry of reconciliation. 19 I mean, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not holding anyone's faults against them, but entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ; it is as though God were urging you through us, and in the name of Christ we appeal to you to be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made the sinless one a victim for sin, so that in him we might become the uprightness of God.