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Chapter 10. The Church: Reflecting the Light of Christ • 119
The Church as Communion is our loving fellowship and union
with Jesus and other baptized Christians in the Church, the Body
of Christ, which has its source and summit in the celebration of
the Eucharist by which we are joined in divine love to the com-
munion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (cf. CCC, Glossary)
The Church, the Body of Christ, is the assembly of people gathered
into her by Baptism and their participation in the Sacraments, especially
the Eucharist, which open their minds and hearts to the Trinity, a loving
communion of divine persons. In this communion of the Church, the
members are called to love God, others, and self, and so to be a commu-
nal witness of the love by which Christ saved the world. By divine love,
we are joined to the communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
At the center of the Gospel message is God’s desire to share the com-
munion of Trinitarian life with us. Jesus came to invite everyone to par-
ticipate in the loving communion that Father, Son, and Spirit have with
each other. All creation is meant to show us the Trinity’s plan of love for
us. Everything Jesus did pointed to this goal.
In the Church, the Holy Spirit works in us to achieve the same pur-
pose. When we say God is love, we are doing more than applying an
abstract quality to the Lord. We testify in faith that God as Trinity wants
to relate to us and to be engaged in our world.
This truth in no way diminishes the mystery of God as totally other,
unique, awesome, majestic, and pure holiness. But love within the Trinity
makes possible a divine closeness to us. Love preserves the mystery and
yet overcomes what might have been a gulf between us and God. Unity
and communion with God in the Church also calls us to become a source
of unity for all people.
UPON THIS ROCK—A COMMUNITY OF LOVE
In our culture, some have a resistance to institutions. Our history reminds
us of the freedom of the frontier where the homestead was central and
the fields endless—even though such traditions as wagon trains, com-
munal barn-raising, and volunteer fire departments show us that even
frontier freedom needed structure of some sort. But the sense of endless