The Body of Christ, Church and Sacrament

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“The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?  Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (NRSV, 1 Corinthians 10:16b, 17)

The Crucifixion and Ascension of Our Blessed Lord were definite events.  Each happened at a particular spot on a particular day in a particular year – a year which, as time goes on, is receding farther and farther into the past.  But the Christian religion is concerned rather with the present than with the past because, though the Crucifixion and Ascension once marked its beginning, its centre is now and always the Person of our Crucified and Ascended Lord.

When, seven weeks after Good Friday, the Risen Lord returned to Heaven, he did not journey from one part of the Universe to another.  On the contrary, he withdrew from this sphere of space and time into that supernatural world which is the eternal background of the Universe and which is none other than the visible Presence of the omni-present God.


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