The One True Bride Of Christ


The Church is the sacrament of Christ. This means, to put it another way, that there is between her and him a certain relationship of mystical identity. Here again we encounter the Pauline metaphors and the rest of the biblical images, which the Christian tradition has continually explored. One and the same intuition of faith is expressed throughout. Head and members make one single body, one single Christ; the Bridegroom and the Bride are one flesh. Although he is the Head of his Church, Christ does not rule her from without; there is, certainly, subjection and dependence between her and him, but at the same time she is his fulfillment and “fullness”. She is the tabernacle of his presence, the building of which he is both Architect and Cornerstone. She is the temple in which he teaches and into which he draws with him the whole Divinity. She is the ship and he the pilot, she the deep ark and he the central mast, assuring the communication of all those on board with the heavens above them. She is paradise and he its tree and well of life; she is the star and he the light that illuminates our night. He who is not, in one way or another, a member of the body does not receive the influx from the Head; he who does not cling to the one Bride is not loved by the Bridegroom. If we profane the tabernacle, we are deprived of the sacred presence, and if we leave the temple, we can no longer hear the Word. If we refuse to enter the holy house or take refuge in the ark, we are contemptuous of paradise, we are neither fed nor given drink. And if we persuade ourselves that we can do without this received light, we remain perpetually plunged in the night of ignorance…

-Henri De Lubac