The Mystical Body of Christ by Fulton J. Sheen

Author:Fulton J. Sheen [Sheen, Fulton J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
Published: 2015-03-09T04:00:00+00:00

two precious gifts yet to be conferred: His beloved disciple John and His sorrowful

Mother, Mary. To whom could He give such gifts except to each other? And so to John, as

representative of beloved redeemed humanity, He says: “Behold thy Mother.” Then

looking to His Mother He said: not “Mother,” but “Woman,” to remind her of her

universal relation to the race of the Redeemer, “Woman, behold thy son”—”Behold thy

son”—She had one Son already—He was hanging on the tree of ignominy. Now she was

to have another; a son of Zebedee. John then was her second-born! All becomes clear. Her

Son told her there was another Motherhood than that of the flesh; now she realizes how

literally true it was. She brought forth her first-born in Bethlehem, and His name is Jesus;

she brings forth her second-born on Calvary. Mary was destined to have other children

than Jesus, but they were to be born not of her flesh but of her heart. Mother of Christ was

she at the Cross. Her first-born in Bethlehem was brought forth in joy, but the curse of Eve

hung about her labours at the Cross, for she was now, like Eve, bringing forth her children

in sorrow. At that moment Mary suffered the pangs of spiritual childbirth for the millions

of souls who would ever be called to the adoptive sonship of the Father, the brotherhood

of Christ and the joy of calling her Mother. The cup of her sorrow at the Cross, like her

Son’s, was filled to the brim, and no one knows how much she suffered to become our

spiritual Mother or the Mother of the Mystical Body of her Divine Son. We only know

that the millions of martyrs throughout all Christian ages consider their pains as

insignificant compared to hers and scruple not to address her as the Queen of Martyrs.

But even that tragic day when the angel’s sword which guarded the gate of Paradise was

thrust into Mary’s heart did not mark the end of her vocation as Mother of the Church, as

it did not mark the end of her Son’s relation with His Church. He was yet to apply the

merits of His Redemption by sending His Spirit upon the apostles to make them His new

Body of which He, at the right hand of the Father, would be the glorious Head. But even

this new Body our Lord would not assume without the co-operation of His Blessed

Mother. If our poor intellects thought out the Redemption and the sanctification of the

world, we would have planned to have our Lord take His Mother with Him to heaven on

Ascension Thursday; we would have thought it becoming that her work was done once

Easter gave victory of life over death. But not so with Divine Wisdom. Her Divine Son

willed that since she was the nurse and Mother of the Physical Body with which He

redeemed the world, so she should be left behind to be the nurse and Mother of His

Mystical Body with which He would pour forth the fruits of the redemption upon the souls

of men. As she had been the Mother of the Head, so she should be the Mother of the Body.

Ten days after the Ascension we find the apostles “persevering with one mind in prayer

with Mary the Mother of Jesus”; awaiting the descent of the Holy Spirit. He had

descended upon her at Nazareth to make her the Mother of Jesus; now He descends upon

the apostles to make them His new Body and her the Mother of that Body. Virgin in the

flesh she brought forth her first-born Christ; virgin by the purity of her faith she brings

forth the other-born, the Church, and in both instances it is the Holy Spirit which renders

her fruitful.

Such was God’s reason for leaving the Blessed Mother on earth for a time after Her Son

had ascended into heaven. Called to the sublime vocation of being the Mother of Christ in

His redemptive work, it was her duty not only to cradle the Head of the Church in

Bethlehem, but also to cradle the Body in Jerusalem. The Mystical Christ of Pentecost,

like the physical Christ of Bethlehem, was small, and delicate, and frail like any new-born

thing. Its members were small; its organs were in the process of formation, and though life

was there it was yet to grow in “age and grace and wisdom before God and men.” But that

growth and development would not be without the menace of hatred and persecution, for

new Herods would arise to attack the Church as the other Herod had attacked its Head. It

was necessary therefore that the Mother of the infant Mystical Christ be there to bestow

her loving care on it as thirty-three years before she had watched over the infant Christ.

Every infant needs a mother’s care, even an infant Church. The mystery of Jesus did not

begin without her, neither could it finish without her. Our Blessed Lord had kept His

promise: He did not leave us orphans. He gave us His Father as our Father: His Spirit as

our Spirit and His Mother as our Mother. 1

Not only was it fitting that Mary be present as Mother at the birth of the Mystical Christ,

but it was also fitting that she be present as Queen of the apostles on the solemn day when

the Church begins preaching the Gospel to the world.

From the very beginning she was the apostle par excellence of her Divine Son. She it

was who first made Jesus known to His precursor John the Baptist on the occasion of her

visit to Elizabeth; she it was who first made Jesus known to the Jews in the person of the

shepherds, and to the Gentiles in the person of the Wise Men. It was therefore in keeping

with her vocation that she be with the apostles on Pentecost, to make the Mystical Christ

known to the world, as she had made known the physical Christ to Judea and Galilee. She

brought into the world apostolicity itself—He who came to cast fire on earth and willed

that it be enkindled. Her rôle would now have been incomplete if she had not been in the

very centre of the tongues of fire which the Spirit of her Son sent upon the apostles to

make them burn with His message even to the consummation of the world. Pentecost was

Mary’s spiritual Bethlehem, her new Epiphany, in which, as Mother standing by the crib

of the Mystic Christ, she makes Him known once again to other shepherds and other

kings.

Finally, when in the Providence of God the Church had grown to its full stature and

began its “public life” as her Son began His when He left the maternal home at Nazareth,

Mary was called home to her reward. Her Divine Son had His Crucifixion and His

Resurrection and then His Ascension. Mary had her crucifixion as the sword of sorrow

pierced her heart on Calvary. But she was now to have the counterpart of His Ascension,

and that was her Assumption into heaven. She had begotten Eternal Life; how then could

she be subject to the corruption of the tomb? The Assumption of Mary into heaven was

the natural consequence of her Divine Maternity, the counterpart of her Son’s Ascension

and the beginning of another world wherein we live by faith, hope and charity. In that state

of glory for which we labour here below, Christ, the Head of the Mystical Body, lives to

intercede for us before the heavenly Father (Heb 7:25–27). Associated with Him in glory

as she had been associated with Him in His earthly pilgrimage is His Mother, the Queen of

angels and saints. Inseparably united at the Cross when the reservoirs of redemption were

filled, Jesus and Mary are now inseparably united in heaven as those same merits are

poured out upon all who believe in Him as Brother, in her as Mother, and in God as

Father.

Called to co-operate with Him in the acquisition of graces on Calvary, she is now called

to co-operate with Him in the dispensation of those same graces to the Mystical Body.

There is every reason to believe that we who are members of the Mystical Body now

receive the Divine Life of her Son through her, just as we first received the Divine Life of

her Son in Bethlehem.

He is the Redeemer; Mary is the [Reparatrix].2 “Christ is the Head of the Church; Mary the channel therein of Christ’s graces. All benefits, all graces, all heavenly favours come

from Christ as from a Head. All descend into the Body of the Church through Mary, as

through the neck of the human body the head vivifies the members.” “Every grace given

to the world comes by three steps in perfect order; from the Father to Christ; from Christ

to the Virgin; from the Virgin to us. ”3 The rôle of Mary in the Church is therefore just as active as her rôle in the Incarnation.

Mary’s Motherhood embraces more than the bare fact that the Word took human nature

in her womb. Her glory is more profound than that of the woman who hearing her

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