TU ASESOR Y LA INSOLVENCIA

The image of “the People of God” is derived from the Hebrew Scriptures, in which Israel is understood as a people chosen by Yahweh (cf. Ex 6:7, 19:5, 23:22; Deut 7:6, 14:2, 26:18; Lev 26:9-12; Jer 32:38-41).78 _{The early Church appropriated this imagery and made use of it to} explain their election, which has much importance in salvation history (cf. Rom 9:30f, 10:9-13, 11:11-2, 25; 1Pet 2:9-10).79 _{Lumen Gentium Chapter II, People of God, opens with the salvific} arena, where Israel was specially chosen by God. At their failure, a new covenant is established by Christ, and a new people of God is formed as one in Spirit (LG 9). The new covenant was signed by the blood of Christ and it was sacramentally established during the Last Supper. It is sacramentally experienced in every Eucharistic celebration. The Church as “the People of God,” one of the significant contributions of Vatican II, in “contrast to the preconciliar tendency to

76 _{McBrien, 173. Lubac, De Lubac: A Theologian Speaks, 19-20.} 77 _{McBrien, 166.}

78 _{Ibid., 49-50; Cf. Worgul.}

79 _{McBrien, 50-1. See other examples: 2 Cor 6:16; Titus 2:14; Heb 8:10; See also the references of the new covenant} (Lk 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25; 2 Cor 3:6; Heb 8:13; 9:15; 12:24; Col 2:11), and the tension between the old and the new people (Rom 9-11; 1Cor 10:18-20; Gal 6:16; 3:28-9).

identify the Church with the hierarchy, thereby reducing ecclesiology to a kind of

hierarchiology,” from the sacramental point of view, “has a visible and an invisible side. The invisible side is the presence of the triune God. The visible side is primarily the baptized persons who constitute the Church.”80 _{Thus, it includes all people in the Church: Pope, bishops, priests,} deacons, religious, and laity. The best possible way to explain or to make explicit this

relationship between these members is the “priesthood” of the members which is made clear in the administration of the sacraments. At one level, all members share in the “common

priesthood” of Christ by becoming members of his body; and at another level, some share in the ministerial priesthood of Christ. “The people of God” has the dignity and freedom of the sons and daughters of God in Christ. The document also says that the people are made members of the body of Christ through baptism and they are strengthened by the body of Christ in the

Eucharistic communion that is manifested in a concrete way in the unity of “the people of God” (LG 10-1).81

Lumen Gentium also uses the imagery of the Body of Christ to explain the ecclesial

vision of the council (LG 7). “The faithful, collectively known as ‘the people of God,’ receive Christ’s life poured out for them in the sacraments, and the Holy Spirit acts as the Body’s living principle, ordering its members to a common end.”82 _{The constitution is very particular in} explaining the life-giving role of the Holy Spirit in the building up of the Body of Christ from its

80 _{Ibid., 166. McBrien says that the Church is not something apart from its baptized members, the “recipients and} beneficiaries of its spiritual assets, namely the sacraments. The people of God are the Church. Whatever structure and other institutional elements exist within the Church are to assist the People of God to fulfil their mission and ministries. These elements, therefore, exist to serve the whole people of God, not the other way around.” 81 _{Cf. Gaillardetz and Clifford, Chapter 9: "The Baptismal and Ministerial Priesthood"; Prusak, 281.}

82 _{Daniel J. Catellano, "Commentary on Lumen Gentium," in Repository of Arcane Knowledge (2012). Cf. Herwi} Rikhof, The Concept of Church: A Methodological Inquiry into the Use of Metaphors in Ecclesiology

(London/Shepherdstown, WV: Sheed & Ward/Patmos Press, 1981), 49-66. See also Gaillardetz and Clifford, Chapter 7, "The Holy Spirit in the Church".

very beginning to the present day.83 _{The Church as “the People of God” is actualized and} realized in the sacrament of Eucharist, which is consonant with the Thomistic à propos of the Eucharist that “the reality (res) of the sacrament is the unity of the mystical body.”84 _Ratzinger says that “it is only in the community of all the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ that one is a Christian, not otherwise.”85 _{This community, which is the Body of Christ, is built up in the} celebration of the Eucharist (LG 11), which is the highest worship of the Church under the leadership of Christ, her head. The Body of Christ image of the Church, which has its foundation in the teachings of Paul, emphasizes God’s call to a communal relationship with him and with one another in Jesus Christ.86 _{Paul’s image of the Body of Christ was carried forward by} Augustine holding together the Eucharistic Body and the ecclesial Body.87 _{The Second Vatican} Council, rooted on ressourcement and going back to the teachings of the Fathers of the Church, has used it as one of the primary images to explain the theology of the Church (cf. nos. 3; 7; 12; 14; 17-18; 21-23; 26; 28; 30-33; 39; 43; 45; 48-50; 52; 54). The image of the Body of Christ explains the vertical and the horizontal relationship established in the sacrament of the Eucharist.88 _{Thus, the theology of Vatican II is in line with the ecclesiology of de Lubac who} wrote years before the council: “Considered as a ‘body’ or as a ‘people,’ Body of Christ or

83 _{Most of the paragraphs of Lumen Gentium mention the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church. See nos. 1-2; 4-9;} 11-15; 17; 19-22; 24-28; 32; 34; 39-45; 48-50; 52-3; 56; 59; 63-65.

84 _{Thomas Aquinas, "Summa Theologiae," (Cambridge: Blackfriars, 1975), III.73.3.} 85 _{Ratzinger, "Review of the Postconciliar Era: Failures, Tasks, Hopes," 375.}

86 _{McBrien, 51. I have explained St. Paul’s explanation of the image of the Body of Christ in the first chapter. For} McBrien (p.52), in Romans 12:4-21 (vv. 4-5: we who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another; v. 8 – the whole body needs the gifts of each one) and 1Cor 12:4-27 (vv.12-3: in the Spirit we are all baptized into one body; v. 26 – if one member is suffering, all members suffer, if one is honored, all rejoice together with it), Paul refers more to the union of the faithful than with Christ. In Eph 5:23, Col 1:18 (Christ is the head of the body, the Church), and 2:19, “the Body” refer to the universal Church of which Christ is the head, and in this sense, Body of Christ is something that is to be built up (Eph 4:12; 16; 1:22-3: Christ as the head of the Church), and the gifts of the Spirit are for this purpose (1Cor 14:12).

87 _{Richard R. Gaillardetz and Catherine E. Clifford, "Eucharistic Ecclesiology," in Keys to the Council: Unlocking}

the Teaching of Vatican II (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 67.

people of God, the Church appears first of all as totality. She is, if it can be put this way, the total consciousness or, better yet, the total being of believers. Pastors and faithful are united in one same Church; together they form a single People, a single Body. They are all together the flock of whom Christ is the Shepherd.”89