To the Head and to the Members
"Here we speak, here our Head speaketh for us. Manifestly both the devil persecuted the Soul of Christ and Judas the Soul of his Master: and now too the same devil remaineth to persecute the Body of Christ, and one Judas succeedeth another ... Do we not see plainly the transition from the Head to the members, from the members to the Head?" (St. Augustine, On the Psalms, Psalm 143, 4-5)
What happens to the members of the body is first experienced by the head of the body. This is the principle that St. Augustine implicitly refers to in the quote above, and it is a principle that we can see being played out in Scripture.
I wish to draw a sort of triple-parallel here: a parallel from head-to-members, members-to-members, and head-to-members again. Confused yet? Let me make it more plain: I wish to highlight the parallels between the experience of Abraham as head of Israel and the corporate body of Israel itself, between Israel as a corporate body and the Church as a corporate body, and between Jesus as head of the Mystical Body and the members of the Mystical Body itself.
The lines do get criss-crossed, but the parallelism is most instructive. Israel is a type of the Church; what happens to Israel first happens, on a micro-scale level, to Abraham; and what happened to Our Lord is happening and will happen to His Body, the Church.
First, we look at the life of Abraham:
1) He went down to Egypt in order to escape the hardships of a famine: "Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land." (Gen. 12:10)
2) When he left Egypt, he left much richer than before he went down, having de-spoiled Egypt in a sense: "And for [Sarai's] sake [Pharaoh] dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, he-asses, menservants, maidservants, she-asses, and camels." (Gen. 12:16)
3) The riches that he brought up out of Egypt led to lack of faith and sin on Abraham's part: "Now Sarai ... had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar ... and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife ... And Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael." (Gen. 16:1, 3, 15)
These experiences are repeated by the corporate body of Israel, hundreds of years after Abraham:
1) Israel went down to Egypt to escape the famine: "There was famine in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread ... all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth ... When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons ... 'Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt; go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live, and not die.'" (Gen. 41:54, 57; 42:1-2)
2) Israel left Egypt richer than when they went down, de-spoiling the Egyptians like Abraham had done: "The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked of the Egyptians jewelry of silver and of gold, and clothing; and the LORD had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they despoiled the Egyptians." (Ex. 12:35-36)
3) The riches that Israel took from Egypt led them into lack of faith and sin: "When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, 'Up, make us gods ... as for this Moses ... we do not know what has become of him.' And Aaron said to them, 'Take off the rings of gold ... and bring them to me.' ... And he received the gold at their hand ... and made a molten calf; and they said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'" (Ex. 32:1-4)
That the corporate body of Israel is a type of the Church is made explicit by St. Paul:
In summary:
1) Israel was baptized into Moses
2) Israel was baptized in the cloud and the sea
3) Israel ate supernatural food (the manna from heaven)
4) Israel drank supernatural drink (water from the rock, which was Christ)
Likewise:
1) The Church is baptized into Christ
2) The Church is baptized in water and the Spirit (John 3:5)
3) The Church eats the supernatural food of the true manna from heaven, the Eucharist
4) The Church drinks the supernatural drink of Christ's Precious Blood in the Eucharist
All of this brings us to a simple consideration: to what extent will the Church continue to parallel Israel's history? To what extent will the experience of Our Lord, the Head, be repeated in His Body?
Our Lord began as an infant; the early Church is often called "the infant Church."
Our Lord's infancy was marked by the bloody martyrdom of the Holy Innocents in Bethlehem; the Church's infancy was also marked by many martyrdoms and much bloodshed.
Our Lord lived a hidden life for many years, quietly growing up in Nazareth; the Church also spent many decades underground, quietly growing up and branching out across the world.
Our Lord's life reached a sort of popular high point in His three year ministry, the end of which was marked by a decline in popularity; this could be analogous to the Middle Ages, when the world was Catholic through and through, only to be followed by the Reformation, Englightenment, etc., during which time the Church became less and less popular.
This raises the question: if the Head of the Church had to undergo a bloody Passion, will not the Body also have to experience a bloody Passion?
At His Passion, Our Lord was deserted by 9/12 (or 3/4) of His disciples, betrayed by 1/12 of His disciples, and outright denied by St. Peter, His vicar. Only 1/12 of His disciples stayed with Him through the entire ordeal, standing close by His Mother.
I look at this current stage of the Church's History and wonder how close to the Church's Passion we have come. In many ways, Our Lord's modern-day Apostles - the hierarchy of the Church - have deserted Him in fear, while a small-but-significant portion of them have denied Him outright. Once again, St. Peter is absent from the scene, with the promise that 1) Christ prays for him specifically, 2) that he will deny the Christ, 3) but that he will turn again and strengthen his brethren.
Meanwhile, a small remnant - represented by St. John - stay close to the cross and to Our Lady, willing to ride out the storm and suffer whatever comes as a result.
Studying Israel's history seems absolutely necessary at this point. Ezekiel heard from God (Ezek. 20:25) that, in the Deuteronomic Covenant, Israel was purposefully given "laws that were not good, by which they could not live," so that they would finally collapse under the weight of these laws and once-for-all beg God for mercy and grace.
[I note with interest that Ezekiel gives a specific example: God allowed them to defile themselves with bad sacrificial laws - see vs. 26. The law referred to here is detailed in Dt. 12, and I note again with interest that this law of sacrifice was not mandatory, but optional. An Israelite could, if he wanted, continue to follow the older Levitical laws of sacrifice, instead of following the newer Deuteronomic laws. What does that remind you of?]
Those laws served to defile Israel, and sealed their fate: they would be exiled and scattered to the four winds.
How closely does this typify the Church today? Has God allowed us to be handed laws that are not good, by which we can not live, in order to break us and scatter us until we beg for His mercy?
At least we know how this ends. The Head gave His life, as it appears the Body will have to do as well - but He rose again in a new and glorified state; and She will as well. St. Peter denied Him; but St. Peter turned back and was rehabilitated, punctuating his recovery by preaching to thousands of Jews at Pentecost that they had crucified their Messiah, and that they must repent and be baptized.
Given the state of the Jewish-Church relationship today, I don't think it takes a lot of imagination to see that very scenario replayed again in the future - verbatim, as it were.
What happens to the members of the body is first experienced by the head of the body. This is the principle that St. Augustine implicitly refers to in the quote above, and it is a principle that we can see being played out in Scripture.
I wish to draw a sort of triple-parallel here: a parallel from head-to-members, members-to-members, and head-to-members again. Confused yet? Let me make it more plain: I wish to highlight the parallels between the experience of Abraham as head of Israel and the corporate body of Israel itself, between Israel as a corporate body and the Church as a corporate body, and between Jesus as head of the Mystical Body and the members of the Mystical Body itself.
The lines do get criss-crossed, but the parallelism is most instructive. Israel is a type of the Church; what happens to Israel first happens, on a micro-scale level, to Abraham; and what happened to Our Lord is happening and will happen to His Body, the Church.
First, we look at the life of Abraham:
1) He went down to Egypt in order to escape the hardships of a famine: "Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land." (Gen. 12:10)
2) When he left Egypt, he left much richer than before he went down, having de-spoiled Egypt in a sense: "And for [Sarai's] sake [Pharaoh] dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, he-asses, menservants, maidservants, she-asses, and camels." (Gen. 12:16)
3) The riches that he brought up out of Egypt led to lack of faith and sin on Abraham's part: "Now Sarai ... had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar ... and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife ... And Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael." (Gen. 16:1, 3, 15)
These experiences are repeated by the corporate body of Israel, hundreds of years after Abraham:
1) Israel went down to Egypt to escape the famine: "There was famine in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread ... all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth ... When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons ... 'Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt; go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live, and not die.'" (Gen. 41:54, 57; 42:1-2)
2) Israel left Egypt richer than when they went down, de-spoiling the Egyptians like Abraham had done: "The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked of the Egyptians jewelry of silver and of gold, and clothing; and the LORD had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they despoiled the Egyptians." (Ex. 12:35-36)
3) The riches that Israel took from Egypt led them into lack of faith and sin: "When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, 'Up, make us gods ... as for this Moses ... we do not know what has become of him.' And Aaron said to them, 'Take off the rings of gold ... and bring them to me.' ... And he received the gold at their hand ... and made a molten calf; and they said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'" (Ex. 32:1-4)
That the corporate body of Israel is a type of the Church is made explicit by St. Paul:
I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless with most of them God was not pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
Now these things are warnings for us, not to desire evil as they did. (1 Cor. 10:1-6)
In summary:
1) Israel was baptized into Moses
2) Israel was baptized in the cloud and the sea
3) Israel ate supernatural food (the manna from heaven)
4) Israel drank supernatural drink (water from the rock, which was Christ)
Likewise:
1) The Church is baptized into Christ
2) The Church is baptized in water and the Spirit (John 3:5)
3) The Church eats the supernatural food of the true manna from heaven, the Eucharist
4) The Church drinks the supernatural drink of Christ's Precious Blood in the Eucharist
All of this brings us to a simple consideration: to what extent will the Church continue to parallel Israel's history? To what extent will the experience of Our Lord, the Head, be repeated in His Body?
Our Lord began as an infant; the early Church is often called "the infant Church."
Our Lord's infancy was marked by the bloody martyrdom of the Holy Innocents in Bethlehem; the Church's infancy was also marked by many martyrdoms and much bloodshed.
Our Lord lived a hidden life for many years, quietly growing up in Nazareth; the Church also spent many decades underground, quietly growing up and branching out across the world.
Our Lord's life reached a sort of popular high point in His three year ministry, the end of which was marked by a decline in popularity; this could be analogous to the Middle Ages, when the world was Catholic through and through, only to be followed by the Reformation, Englightenment, etc., during which time the Church became less and less popular.
This raises the question: if the Head of the Church had to undergo a bloody Passion, will not the Body also have to experience a bloody Passion?
At His Passion, Our Lord was deserted by 9/12 (or 3/4) of His disciples, betrayed by 1/12 of His disciples, and outright denied by St. Peter, His vicar. Only 1/12 of His disciples stayed with Him through the entire ordeal, standing close by His Mother.
I look at this current stage of the Church's History and wonder how close to the Church's Passion we have come. In many ways, Our Lord's modern-day Apostles - the hierarchy of the Church - have deserted Him in fear, while a small-but-significant portion of them have denied Him outright. Once again, St. Peter is absent from the scene, with the promise that 1) Christ prays for him specifically, 2) that he will deny the Christ, 3) but that he will turn again and strengthen his brethren.
Meanwhile, a small remnant - represented by St. John - stay close to the cross and to Our Lady, willing to ride out the storm and suffer whatever comes as a result.
Studying Israel's history seems absolutely necessary at this point. Ezekiel heard from God (Ezek. 20:25) that, in the Deuteronomic Covenant, Israel was purposefully given "laws that were not good, by which they could not live," so that they would finally collapse under the weight of these laws and once-for-all beg God for mercy and grace.
[I note with interest that Ezekiel gives a specific example: God allowed them to defile themselves with bad sacrificial laws - see vs. 26. The law referred to here is detailed in Dt. 12, and I note again with interest that this law of sacrifice was not mandatory, but optional. An Israelite could, if he wanted, continue to follow the older Levitical laws of sacrifice, instead of following the newer Deuteronomic laws. What does that remind you of?]
Those laws served to defile Israel, and sealed their fate: they would be exiled and scattered to the four winds.
How closely does this typify the Church today? Has God allowed us to be handed laws that are not good, by which we can not live, in order to break us and scatter us until we beg for His mercy?
At least we know how this ends. The Head gave His life, as it appears the Body will have to do as well - but He rose again in a new and glorified state; and She will as well. St. Peter denied Him; but St. Peter turned back and was rehabilitated, punctuating his recovery by preaching to thousands of Jews at Pentecost that they had crucified their Messiah, and that they must repent and be baptized.
Given the state of the Jewish-Church relationship today, I don't think it takes a lot of imagination to see that very scenario replayed again in the future - verbatim, as it were.
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