For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
1 Corinthians 12 12-14, 26-27
For many centuries, the period of Lent was the final time of preparation for the baptism and admittance of new converts – catechumens – as full members into the Church. The new believers would join a local church, yet mystically they were joining the full Church – the Saints who have come before, and the entire body of Christ. All of prayer 75 is worth praying and studying. In it, there is a comprehensive theological presentation of the Church. In essence, the body of Christ is the Church, which in turn is the one family of believers: God’s children. Let us join St. Gregory in prayer, with this understanding of the mystical body of Christ in our hearts.
Let us pray with St. Gregory:
We profess the true faith, unerring and pure, the body of the church
as the dwelling place of God more exalted than the most splendid heights of heaven
and founded upon the congregation of the apostles,
revered by the disciples of the one on high,
as the place where the servants of the Word worshipped.
This treasure of life had its beginning in the upper room,
the place where the miracle happened on the great day of Pentecost.
The Spirit of God radiant with power, filled that beautiful house,
breathing upon it as a sign of the pre-eminence of the church,
endowing it and those within with glorious renewing light.
In the church, there is but one baptism into the death of Christ.
For she is an ark of purity, a second cause of rejoicing
who saves us from drowning in the tumult of our worldly lives.
For the glory of the almighty Trinity, and of the one Godhead,
forever and ever.
Amen
Prayer 75 G, J
