"Christ used the flesh and blood of Mary for His
life on earth, the Word of love was uttered in her heartbeat. Christ used
His own body to utter His love on earth; His perfectly real body, with bone and
sinew and blood and tears; Christ uses our bodies to express His love on
earth, our humanity.
A Christian life is a sacramental
life, it is not a life lived only in the mind, only by the soul; through
the bodies of men and women Christ toils and endures and rejoices and loves and
dies; in them He is increased, set free, imprisoned, restrained. In them He is
crucified and buried and rises from the dead.
Our humanity is the
substance of the sacramental life of Christ in us, like the wheat for the host,
like the grape for the chalice.
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Christ works His love
through material as well as spiritual things. Into His worship, following His
own lead, the Church, His Church, brings material things, pure wax, flame, oil,
salt, gold, water, linen, the voices of people, the gestures and actions of
people, our own souls and bodies–the substance of our flesh and blood. All this
is consistent with the Incarnation, when Christ took the human nature of our
Lady to be Himself."
Caryll Houselander
The Comforting of Christ, pp. 26-27
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image ~ Artist: Carlo Dolci
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