~ ...... 

, ~~~3 PRICE 5 CENTS 

MYSTI[ll · 
BODY 

~ I 
DANIEL A. LORD.S.J. 

/ 
litEQyEENSWiJRK 

3742 West Pine Boulevard 

ST . LOUIS. MO. 



lmprimi potest: 

Peter Brooks, S. J. 

Praep. Provo Missoltrionoe 

Nihil obstat: 

F. J. Holweck 

Censor Libr01'1l11£ 

Imprimatur: 

>I< l ommes 1. Glenno}! 

Archiepiscopus Sli. Ludovici 

Sti. Ludovici, die 8 Decembris 1938 

Ninth printing, October 1946 

ANy FINANCIAL PROFIT made by 

the Cmtral Office of the Sodality 

will be used for the advancement 

of the Sodality Movement and the 

cause of Catholic Action. 

Copyright 1939 

TfIE QUEEN'S WORK, Inc 



What Is This 
Mystical Body? 

T IKE the rest of the intelligent Catholic 
L world, they were studying the doctrine 
of the Mystical Body of Christ. In fact they 

had made a number of trips out from the 

city to see Father Hall and to sit at his feet 

while he showed them the depths and 

heights and beauties and tremendous conse-

quences of this revolutionary doctrine. Their 

text had been Father Lord's "Our Part in 

the Mystical Body." And Father Hall had 

supplemented the book with his enthusiastic 

appreciation of the subject. 

Now, on this crisp winter evening, they 

sat in the comfortable if sUghtly shabby 

rectory parlor and watched Father Hall 

scratch on a block of paper weird and in-

explicable signs and symbols. 

"Quite an artist, aren't you?" said Dick 

Bradley, with brash irony. 

" Or are you doing problems in analytics?" 

asked Sue, Dick's twin. 

The priest furrowed a long wrinkle across 

his forehead and concentrated on the pad. 

"Neither," he repUed. "Just ·attempting 

to draw pictures of the Mystical Body for 

you." And the twins hooted at the idea that 

these pen scrawls should be called pictures. 

But Father Hall was unperturbed. "It al-

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ways seemed to me that theology was a lot 

like mathematics. So if we start with a few 

symbols ... " 

The two shifted their chairs closer and 

gazed in amazement at the weird drawings 

on the pad. Only one sign was clear, the 

beautiful symbol for Christ that they had 

seen so often in the liturgy. 

"Three signs," said the priest, almost to 

himself: "The infinity sign out of math-

ematics we'll use for G<ld. The Chi-Rho for 

Christ. (Those are the first two letters of 

the Greek word Christos.) The 1 means man, 

any man. More l's, more men. [Fig. 1.] 

c:><:J ~ Co<i 

)R: Christ." m<V1 111/= /nelt 
"Now let's get the two levels, the level 

which is heaven and the level which Is 

earth." 

Two more scratches on the pad and this 

was accomplished. [Fig. 2.] 

ib.nven ~ c::><::::> 

£Ilrth 

"Now we're back to our old question. How 

can a man get from earth to heaven? 

Heaven is clearly out of reach. There are 

no stairs, ' no elevator, no ladder between 

earth and heaven, unless someone should 

make that connection. If someone leaned 

down from heaven and united human nature 

with himself, there would be a divine ladder 

-4-



connecting earth and heaven, and on that 

ladder we could go up to the level of God. 

Did that happen?" 

"That," volunteered Dick, "certainly did." 

"It was the Incarnation," added Sue. 

"Correct. Let's make a drawing for that. 

"There you have it. [Fig. 3.] The Second 

Farth 

Person of the infinite Trinity )eaned down 

from heaven, united man, human nature, 

with Himself. And when He did that, He 

formed, so to speak, a ladder between earth 

and heaven. Heaven, in the person of the 

Second Person of the Blessed. Trinity, 

stooped to earth. Earth, in that human 

nature which · the Second Person had taken 

and united with Himself, was lifted up to 

divine, heavenly heights." 

"I get it," supplemented Dick. "And the 

ladder that united heaven with earth was 

Christ, whom you have indicated there in 

the Chi-Rho sign." 

"Haven't I a very smart brother though?" 

purred Sue. 

"I'm dumbfounded that you admit it," the 

brother ungraciously retorted. 

Father Hall pushed on. "Because of this 

ladder it was possible for the rest of us who 

have human nature (there we are, all the 

other little l's) to mount to heaven." 

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"Through Christ our Lord." It was Sue's 

time to answer, and she did. 

"Now let's take the next step," said 

Father Hall. "Even if we did mount to 

heaven, we could not see God face to face; 

we could not directly know, love, and pos· 

sess Him as He is. Why not?" 

He was scratching new drawings, which 

the twin.s watched with interest. [Fig. 4.] 

1 ----)-+ C><:)' 

"I rememl;1er," replied Dick, quickly. "Be- .. 

cause God is without limits, and we are 

entirelY limited. He is too big for us to see 

or know or possess. Something without J 

limits couldn't fit into something with limits 

unless-': 

Again Sue took it up: 

"-unless there was a change in the 

nature of the limited thing-if this Number 

1 here" (and she pointed back at the dia-

gram) "could be made to share the divine 

powers of this infinite, limitless being who 

is God." 

Her finger was reaching the infinity sign 

and racing back again to the small 1 which 

must be made to share the powers of God 

Himself. 

"And that," said Father Hall, "was what 

Christ promised He'd do for us. H"e was 

God-Man and hence had the unlimited 

powers which He needed to see, know, love, 

and possess the unlimited Trinity. Where 

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precisely did He promise us that He would 

share His divine powers with us, who don't 

otherwise have them?" 

They both responded to that. 

"At the Last Supper," they chorused. 

"Let's see if we can diagram that." Again 

the priest's pencil worked rapidly and 

crudely, and he had another rough drawing. 

[Fig. 5.] 

-
"There we have it. Christ, according to 

the record kept by St. John, promised His 

disciples that He would unite His followers 

as closely with Himself as branches are 

united with the vine. He said that He was 

the vine. There we have the vine." His 

finger sought the drawing. "He said that if 

His followers remained, like the branches, 

united with Him, the vine, His life would 

pour through their souls and bodies. Be-

cause of this life there would be nothing 

they could not do. They could do the very 

divine things He did-they could see, know, 

and possess the unlimited God in heaven as 

He did. Just as the branch separated from 

the vine (there are two poor separated 

branches in the drawing) could do nothing, 

bear no fruit, so the branches that reo 

mained united with the vine would bear 

much fruit ... merit for heaven. And the 

life that flows through the vine and the 

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branches is precisely the same in quality 

and character. Christ said we should share 

His divine life and powers." 

The priest was sketching again. 

"It shouldn't be difficult to get a drawing 

now in which we see Christ substituted for 

the vine and ourselves for the branches." 

His rough drawing was soon done. 

[Fig. 6.] 

tt.,veL-~ 

EAdh ~rJ3tn /'" 
"This is," said Father Hall, looking care· 

fully at the drawing, "really the same 

picture as the picture of the vine and 

branches." 

"Only turned upside down," supplemented 

Dick. 

"Naturally," said Sue. "What could you 

expect when Christ is rooted, so to speak, 

in heaven, in God?" 

"All right then; we have the picture. As 

the vine is rooted in the earth and draws its 

life out of the earth (that life-giving sap 

which is essential if the vine and branches 

are to live), so Christ is rooted, to use 

Sue's quite descriptive word, in the Blessed 

Trinity in heaven." He indicated this in 

the drawing. "From that Blessed Trinity 

the divine life flows through Jesus Christ-" 

"- to us who are united with our dear 

Lord." Sue's voice was almost triumphant. 

-8-



"Absolutely right. There we see, in those 

extensions of the Ohi -Rho, Christ, as it were 

stretching out His arms toward us_ No. 

Much more intimately than that- He is 

uniting Himself with those who are His fol-

lowers so that His divine life will flow 

straight from the Blessed Trinity through 

Himself to us who are part of Him in that 

mystical union. 

"And if the branches share the life of the 

vine, so we who are united with the God-

Man share the life of the God-Man, which is 

divine. Hence we can do the divine things 

He does, see, know, and possess God in 

eternal happiness." 

Dick pointed almost regretfully to the 

three 1's which had been separated by a 

stroke of the priest's pencil and which 

clearly were not united with the symbol of 

Christ. 

"These poor chaps," he said, in a sincere 

minor, "are not united." 

"They are the same as the branches cut 

away from the vine," volunteered Sue. 

"And hence," continued her twin, "as far 

as the divine life is concerned, dead." 

"The tragic situation," the priest added, 

in the same regretful tone, "of those who 

rlecline to unite themselves with Jesus 

Christ. But for those who do, the divine 

life, flowing through them as life flows from 

the vine to the branches, makes it possible 

for them to look forward to a divine life in 

eternity. Without that life-" 

-9-



"-'without me you can do nothing'," said 

Sue, quietly. 

"Those are Christ's words. Tiley are re-

lentlessly true as far as any divine actions 

relating to the limitless God are concerned." 

"That," said Dick, "makes clear the vine-

and-branches comparison. But now let's see 

you draw the Mystical Body." 

Father Hall laughed. He knew this was 

going to be a struggle. So first he warned: 

"Remember that the figure of the Mystical 

Body really does not advance the truth of 

our union with Christ far beyond Our Lord's 

own comparison to the vine and branches. 

But let's Me what we can do. You won't 

mind if I made it crude?" 

"We'd expect it," retorted Sue, cruelly. 

And Father Hall struggled with a conven-

tionalized figure of a man. [Fig. 7.] 

"Not much of a man." Dick pretended to 

grumble. 

"We'll use it only for an example and 

then rub it out. Now the first thing we 

notice about a man is his head-inevitably. 

For his head is the center of his life; his 

head, clever, stupid, sane, mad, determines 

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the quality of his life., His head is the 

center of all his most important functions-

seeing, hearing, speaking, and, with the 

brain as organ, thinking and willing. So 

from the head there flow through the man 

all the operations of life. And if his head 

is gone-" 

"I know; if he loses his head-" 

",Precisely. It's all over, including the 

shouting, Now St. Paul, in order to impress 

upon us the perfection and closeness of our 

union with Christ, said that Christ and we 

together made up one body; that Christ was 

the Head and we were the members. Let's 

draw that crudely, using once more our 

Chi·Rho and our little l 's. ['Fig. 8.] 

J)ivrne Ii Fe. 
/' 

\ :Divine act"icA5 

"Christ is the Head. But, we said a 

moment ago, the head is the source and 

center of life. The head determines the 

quality of our life. The head is the center 

of all of life's most important functions. So 

if our Head is Jesus Christ, who is the God-

Man-" 

"Our life which comes to us from Him," 

Dick explained, "is divine, as His was." 

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"Exactly. And if He can see, know, love, 

and possess the Blessed Trinity, infinite, 

limitless God-" coached the priest. 

"We can do as our Head does. We can 

see, know, love, and possess God too." 

"And suppose that we are separated from 

our Head, suppose that through mortal sin 

'we lose our Head'." 

"Supernaturally dead as a doornail," said 

Dick, emphatically. "No doubt of that." 

"No doubt whatsoever," agreed Father 

Hall. "We're as dead as if we were a hand 

that has been amputated, or a foot that has 

been cut off by a passing train." 

"Seems to me," ventured Sue, perversely, 

"that I know a lot of people who aren't 

united with Christ that look pretty much 

alive." 

"Isn't she dumb?" Her fond brother was 

scathing. "Must be terrible to be so thick. 

They may look alive and act naturally alive. 

They may be able to do a wicked tap dance 

or sing a mean croon, but as far as doing 

any of the divine things that matter for 

heaven, as far as seeing, knowing, loving, 

and possessing God, they're dead, dead, 

dead." 

"Which," said Father Hall, qUietly, "is 

what makes the tragedy of the world. Peo· 

pIe who seem so gifted, brilliant,. wealthy, 

far in the front of civilization are, as far as 

the divine actions which make up a man's 

real life, utterly dead. Nothing could be 

more terrifying than that." 

-12-



"And all this happenl!!-how?" Sue's ques-

tion was a lead for another drawing. Father 

Hall scratched on his pad again. 

"Let's skip union in baptism, which is 

after all the first union and our real in-

corporation in Jesus Christ. Instead we'll 

take the simpler fact .of Holy Communion. 

[Fig. 9.] 

} 
Ihose dot the. 
Col't\. ..... ul\i~ r4i1 

"Christ is the Host. We are the little l's 

kneeling at the altar rail. Christ unites 

Himself to us in Holy Communion. His 

divine life flows through us. We are united 

with Him, sharing His life, His divine 

powers. And we continue to share them 

until such time as we deliberately cut our-

selves away. And ... " 

He started another drawing. 

"Let's go back to ODe of the early draw-

ings." And he repeated one he had already 

made. [Fig. 10.] 

",~,h~~~:d 
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ () - .... ~ ~ ~~ :;t-4.. 
... _ r> :i U :::- ... :0 '" i": ~ Q 
~ ,. ~ "" ~ ... ·0 t:M l" (\ '" ::: 
(0 ~;s~ >-- iii "T"' .. 

;z II> i 
;z 

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"See the consequences of this truth? First 

of all there is the tremendous consequence 

to my personal dignity. I am united with 

Jesus Christ. I share His divine life. When 

I pray, I pray with and through Him. When 

I work, my work Is dignified and made im-

portant by my union with the Savior, whose 

every action was and is pleasing to God. I 

may be ever so unimportant in the eyes of 

the world; in the eyes of the Blessed Trinity 

I am important, because Christ has united 

me with Himself. 

"Now note that I've given to each of these 

little l's a name. They are all united with 

me in the Mystical Body, as my hands and 

feet and arms and legs and stomach and 

lungs all go together to make one person. 

Now how ridiculous it would be if I loved 

my left hand but hated my right; or if I 

were careful of my right leg but tried to get 

my left leg run over; if I took exercises for 

my lungs but declined to eat because I had 

a grudge against my stomach. Yet how 

terrifyingly stupid it is that I pretend to be 

a member of the Mystical Body and then 

cherish hatred against any man or hold a 

dislike for or prejudice against any race or 

color or nation. Christ said: 'Thou shalt 

love thy neighbor as thyself.' Really if you 

study the Mystical Body, because we are ail 

parts of the Mystical Body, whose Head is 

Christ, my neighbor in one sense is myself. 

He is one with Christ and hence one with 

me. 'We are members one of another'." 

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"I think I see the next consequence," said 

Dick, slowly. "Here are those poor chaps 

out there who are separated from Christ 

and hence are dead. It is our job to work 

might and main to see that they are united. 

They must have the divine life flowing 

through them." 

"And that is what we mean by zeal." 

They were all silently thoughtful. 

. "It is going to take a little time to get all 

this clearly. But now study the diagrams in 

connection with 'Our Part in the Mystical 

Body,' which we've been reading together ... 

and- What in the world are you doing?" 

Sue was carefully folding up the scraps of 

paper. 

"Taking 'em along with us." 

"As souvenirs?" 

"No. Just as little charts in supernatural 

geography and spiritual physiology," she 

replied. 

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~38 

THE QUEEN'S WORK 

3742 West Pine Boulevard 

St. Louis 8, Missouri 


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