Communion of the saints

The communion of the saints indicates in the Christianisme - in any case at least in its branches catholic and orthodoxe - the union of the whole of faithful alive and deaths linked, by their membership of Christ, in a kind of solidarity through space and time.

Origin

These doctrines, also called, dogma of the “mystical body”, rest on the doctrines of holy Paul in the epistle with the Corinthians, chapter 12, when he speaks about the spiritual Dons.

“: I thus declare you that nobody, if he speaks by the Spirit about God, says: Jesus is anathema; and nobody can say: " Jesus is the Lord, " if it is not by the Holy Ghost.

There is however diversity of gifts, but it is the same Spirit;

diversity of ministries, but it is the same Lord;

diversity of operations, but it is same God who operates all in all.

With each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common utility. ”

Saint Paul considers that these gifts come from baptized in the Christ in same a Esprit:

“But it is only and even Esprit which produces all these gifts, distributing them to each one in particular, as it likes it.

Because, as the body is one and has several members, and like all the members of the body, in spite of their number, one body forms, thus is it of Christ.

All, indeed, we were baptized in only one spirit to form only one body, either Juifs, or Greeks, or slaves, or free, and we all were watered of only one Spirit. ”

Saint Paul insists on the members of the weakest bodies:

“There are thus several members and only one body.

the eye cannot say to the hand: " I do not need you; " nor the head to say to the feet: " I do not need you. "

On the contrary, the members of the body which appears weakest are more necessary;

and those which we hold for the least honourable of the body, are those which we surround of more than honor. Thus our least honest members, we treat them with more decency,

while our honest parts do not need any. God laid out the body so as to give more respect with what is less worthy,

so that there is no division in the body, but that the members also have care from/to each other.

And if a member suffers, all the members suffer with him; if a member is honoured, all the members are delighted some with him. ”

The communion of the saints in Eucharistie

The Catholic church makes report of the Saint S during the Eucharistie:

“With the offering of Christ links not only the members who are still ici-bas, but also those which are already in the glory of the sky : it is in communion with the Very Holy Virgin Mary and by making report of it, as well as all saints and holy, that the Church offers the sacrifice eucharistic. In Eucharistie the Church, with Marie, is as with the foot of the Cross, plain with the offering and the Intercession of Christ. ”

The memory of the saints is recalled in the four forms of eucharistic Prière

The communion of the saints in patristic and medieval theology

Patristic and medieval theology, in more technical terms, will explain why it represents solidarity between:

the suffering Church of the heart S with the Purgatory
the militant Church of faithful still alive on the ground
the Church triumphing over the holy of the sky

It is closely related to another concept which is that of Rédemption.

“Deaths are involved in the immense river of the life of the communion of the saints”, explains the orthodoxe theologist Olivier Clément.

Encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi

Pie XII approached this concept in the encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi (1942), in connection with the prayer:

“And though the public prayer, like proceeding of our Mother the Church, because of its quality of Wife of Christ, overrides very other, however all the Prière S, even the most deprived, miss neither of value nor of effectiveness, and contribute even much to the utility of the mystical Body in which nothing good, nothing Juste is operated by each member who, by the communion of the saints, also does not flash back on the safety of all. And, to be members of this Body, the individual Christians do not lose the right to ask for themselves of the particular graces, even of a temporal nature, while remaining dependant on the will of God: they remain, indeed, of the independent people, subjected each one to special needs. As for the regard that all must have meditation of the celestial truths, in fact only the documents of the Church indicate it and recommend it, but also the use and the example of all the saints. ”

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