From: 1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13
Kinds of Spiritual Gifts
[4] Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; [5] and there are varieties
of service, but the same Lord; [6] and there are varieties of working, but it is the
same God who inspires them all in every one. [7] To each is given the manifes-
tation of the Spirit for the common good.
Unity and Variety in the Mystical Body of Christ
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Commentary:
3. This provides a general principle for discerning signs of the Holy Spirit — re-
cognition of Christ as Lord. It follows that the gifts of the Holy Spirit can never
go against the teaching of the Church. “Those who have charge over the Church
should judge the genuineness and proper use of these gifts [...], not indeed to ex-
tinguish the Spirit, but to test all things and hold fast to what is good (cf. Thess
5:12 and 19-21)” (”Lumen Gentium”, 12).
4-7. God is the origin of spiritual gifts. Probably when St Paul speaks of gifts, ser-
vice (ministries), “varieties of working”, he is not referring to graces which are es-
sentially distinct from one another, but to different perspectives from which these
gifts can be viewed, and to their attribution to the Three Divine Persons. Insofar
as they are gratuitously bestowed they are attributed to the Holy Spirit, as he
confirms in v. 11; insofar as they are granted for the benefit and service of the
other members of the Church, they are attributed to Christ the Lord, who came
“not to be served but to serve” (Mk 10:45); and insofar as they are operative and
produce a good effect, they are attributed to God the Father. In this way the va-
rious graces which the members of the Church receive are a living reflection of
God who, being essentially one, in so is a trinity of persons. “The whole Church
has the appearance of a people gathered together by virtue of the unity of the Fa-
ther and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (St Cyprian, “De Dominica Oratione”,
23). Therefore, diversity of gifts and graces is as important as their basic unity,
because all have the same divine origin and the same purpose — the common
good (v. 7): “It is the Holy Spirit, dwelling in those who believe and pervading and
ruling over the entire Church, who brings about that wonderful communion of the
faithful and joins them together so intimately in Christ that he is the principle of
the Church’s unity. By distributing various kinds of spiritual gifts and ministries
he enriches the Church of Jesus Christ with different functions ‘in order to equip
the saints for the work of service, so as to build up the body of Christ’ (Eph 4:12)”
(Vatican II, “Unitatis Redintegratio”, 2).
12-13. In Greek and Latin literature, society is often compared to a body; even
today we talk of “corporations”, a term which conveys the idea that all the citi-
zens of a particular city are responsible for the common good. St Paul, starting
with this metaphor, adds two important features: 1) he identifies the Church with
Christ: “so it is with Christ” (v. 12); and 2) he says that the Holy Spirit is its life-
principle: “by one Spirit we were all baptized..., and all made to drink of the Spi-
rit” (v. 13). The Magisterium summarizes this teaching by defining the Church as
the “mystical body of Christ”, an expression which “is derived from and is, as it
were, the fair flower of the repeated teaching of Sacred Scripture and the holy
Fathers” (Pius XII, “Mystici Corporis”).
“So it is with Christ”: “One would have expected him to say, so it is with the
Church, but he does not say that [...]. For, just as the body and the head are one
man, so too Christ and the Church are one, and therefore instead of ‘the Church’
he says ‘Christ”’ (Chrysostom, “Hom. on 1 Cor”, 30, “ad loc”.). This identification
of the Church with Christ is much more than a mere metaphor; it makes the
Church a society which is radically different from any other society: “The complete
Christ is made up of the head and the body, as I am sure you know well. The head
is our Savior himself, who suffered under Pontius Pilate and now, after rising from
the dead, is seated at the right hand of the Father. And his body is the Church.
Not this or that church, but the Church which is to be found all over the world. Nor
is it only that which exists among us today, for also belonging to it are those who
lived before us and those who will live in the future, right up to the end of the world.
All this Church, made up of the assembly of the faithful — for all the faithful are
members of Christ — has Christ as its head, governing his body from heaven. And
although this head is located out of sight of the body, he is, however, joined to it
by love” (St Augustine, “Enarrationes in Psalmos”, 56, 1).
The Church’s remarkable unity derives from the Holy Spirit who not only assem-
bles the faithful into a society but also imbues and vivifies its members, exercising
the same function as the soul does in a physical body: “In order that we might be
unceasingly renewed in him (cf. Eph 4:23), he has shared with us his Spirit who,
being one and the same in head and members, gives life to, unifies and moves the
whole body. Consequently, his work could be compared by the Fathers to the fun-
ction that the principle of life, the soul, fulfils in the human body” (Vatican II, “Lu-
men Gentium”, 7).
“All were made to drink of one Spirit”: given that the Apostle says this immedia-
tely after mentioning Baptism, he seems to be referring to a further outpouring of
the Holy Spirit, possibly in the sacrament of Confirmation. It is not uncommon for
Sacred Scripture to compare the outpouring of the Spirit to drink, indicating that
the effects of his presence are to revive the parched soul; in the Old Testament
the coming of the Holy Spirit is already compared to dew, rain, etc.; and St. John
repeats what our Lord said about “living water” (Jn 7:38; cf. 4:13-14).
Together with the sacraments of Christian initiation, the Eucharist plays a special
role in building up the unity of the body of Christ. “Really sharing in the body of
the Lord in the breaking of the eucharistic bread, we are taken up into communion
with him and with one another. ‘Because the bread is one, we, who are many, are
one body, for we all partake of one bread’ (1 Cor 10:17). In this way all of us are
made members of his body (cf. 1 Cor 12:27), ‘and individual members of one ano-
ther’ (Rom 12:5)” (”Lumen Gentium”, 7).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
From: Romans 8:8-17
Life in the Spirit
[9] But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really
dwells in you. Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong
to him. [10] But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of
sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. [11] “If the Spirit of him who
raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the
dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
[12] So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the
flesh—[13] for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit
you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.
Christians Are Children of God
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Commentary:
10-11. Once he is justified the Christian lives in the grace of God and confidently
hopes in his future resurrection; Christ himself lives in him (cf. Gal 2:20; 1 Cor
15:20-23). However, he is not spared the experience of death, a consequence of
original sin (cf. Rom 5:12; 6:23). Along with suffering, concupiscence and other
limitations, death is still a factor after Baptism; it is something which motivates
us to struggle and makes us to be like Christ. Almost all commentators interpret
the expression “your bodies are dead because of sin” as referring to the fact that,
due to sin, the human body is destined to die. So sure is this prospect of death
that the Apostle sees the body as “already dead”.
St. John Chrysostom makes an acute observation: if Christ is living in the Chris-
tian, then the divine Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, is also present in him.
If this divine Spirit is absent, then indeed death reigns supreme, and with it the
wrath of God, rejection of His laws, separation from Christ, and expulsion of our
Guest. And he adds: “But when one has the Spirit within, what can be lacking?
With the Spirit one belongs to Christ, one possesses Him, one vies for honor
with the angels. With the Spirit, the flesh is crucified, one tastes the delight of
an immortal life, one has a pledge of future resurrection and advances rapidly
on the path of virtue. This is what Paul calls putting the flesh to death” (”Hom.
on Rom.”, 13).
14-30. The life of a Christian is sharing in the life of Christ, God’s only Son. By
becoming, through adoption, true children of God we have, so to speak, a right
to share also in Christ’s inheritance – eternal life in heaven (vv. 13-18). This di-
vine life in us, begun in Baptism through rebirth in the Holy Spirit, will grow under
the guidance of this Spirit, who makes us ever more like Christ (vv. 14, 26-27).
So, our adoption as sons is already a fact – we already have the first fruits of the
Spirit (v. 23) – but only at the end of time, when our body rises in glory, will our
redemption reach its climax (vv. 23-25). Meanwhile we are in a waiting situation
– not free from suffering (v. 18), groans (v. 23) and weakness (v. 26) – a situation
characterized by a certain tension between what we already possess and are,
and what we yearn for. This yearning is something which all creation experien-
ces; by God’s will, its destiny is intimately linked to our own, and it too awaits
its transformation at the end of the world (vv. 19-22). All this is happening in ac-
cordance with a plan which God has, a plan established from all eternity which
is unfolding the course of time under the firm guidance of divine providence (vv.
28-30).
14-15 St. Josemaria Escriva taught thousands of people about this awareness
of divine filiation which is such an important part of the Christian vocation. Here
is what he says, for example, in The Way, 267: “We’ve got to be convinced that
God is always near us. We live as though he were far away, in the heavens high
above, and we forget that he is also continually by our side.
“He is there like a loving Father. He loves each of us more than all the mothers
in the world can love their children — helping, inspiring us, blessing . . . and for-
giving.
“How often we have misbehaved and then cleared the frowns from our parents’
brows, telling them: I won’t do it any more! — That same day, perhaps, we fall
again . . . — And our father, with feigned harshness in his voice and serious face,
reprimands us while in his heart he is moved, realizing our weakness and think-
ing: poor child, how hard he tries to behave well!
“We’ve got to be filled, to be imbued with the idea that our Father, and very much
our Father, is God who is both near us and in heaven.”
This awareness of God as Father was something which the first chancellor of
the University of Navarre experienced with special intensity one day in 1931:
“They were difficult times, from a human point of view, but even so I was quite
sure of the impossible — this impossibility which you can now see as an accom-
plished fact. I felt God acting within me with overriding force, filling my heart and
bringing to my lips this tender invocation — Abba! Pater! I was out in the street,
in a tram; being out in the street is no hindrance for our contemplative dialogue;
for us, the hustle and bustle of the world is a place for prayer” (St. J. Escrivá,
quoted in Bernal, p. 214).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.