Chapter I of Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, is entitled “The Mystery of the Church.” It continues as follows:
“7. . . . From Him ‘the whole body, supplied and built up by joints and ligaments, attains a growth that is of God’.(65) He continually distributes in His body, that is, in the Church, gifts of ministries in which, by His own power, we serve each other unto salvation so that, carrying out the truth in love, we might through all things grow unto Him who is our Head.(66)
“In order that we might be unceasingly renewed in Him,(67) He has shared with us His Spirit who, existing as one and the same being in the Head and in the members, gives life to, unifies and moves through the whole body. This He does in such a way that His work could be compared by the holy Fathers with the function which the principle of life, that is, the soul, fulfills in the human body.(8*)
“Christ loves the Church as His bride, having become the model of a man loving his wife as his body;(68) the Church, indeed, is subject to its Head.(69) ‘Because in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily’,(70) He fills the Church, which is His body and His fullness, with His divine gifts (71) so that it may expand and reach all the fullness of God.(72)”
(65) Colossians 2:19.
(66) Cf. Ephesians 4:11-16.
(67) Cf. Ephesians 4:23.
(68) Cf. Ephesians 5:25-28.
(69) Ibid. 23-24.
(70) Colossians 2:9.
(71) Cf. Ephesians 1:22-23.
(72) Cf. Ephesians 3:19.
(8*) Cf. Leo XIII, Epist. Encycl Divinum illud, 9 maii 1897: AAS 29 (1896-97) p. 6S0. Pius XII, Litt Encyl. Mystici Corporis, 1. c., pp 219-220; Denz. 2288 (3808).S. Augustinus, Serm. 268, 2: PL 38 232, ct alibi. S. Io. Chrysostomus n Eph. Hom. 9, 3: PG 62, 72. idymus Alex., Trin. 2, 1: PG 39 49 s. S. Thomas, In Col. 1, 18 cet. 5 ed. Marietti, II, n. 46-Sieut constituitur unum eorpus ex nitate animae, ita Ecelesia ex unil atc Spiritus.....
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