An Apologetical Explanation of the

Church as the Sacrament of Communion

Why is the Church called the “Sacrament of Communion”?

Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.  (1 Cor 10:17)

The Church is the Sacrament of Communion because of her unique and intimate relationship both within humanity and with God himself.  The Church is fundamentally a community of men and women united in Christ’s fullness of grace as Head of his Mystical Body.  (Cf. CCC 1140)

The Church’s communion—in Greek, koinonia,* includes both an invisible dimension (intimate communion among the Persons of the Blessed Trinity and all humanity) and the visible dimension (communion in the teaching of the Apostles, the Sacraments, and the hierarchical order).†  This communion, then, implies a spiritual solidarity among the members of the Church inasmuch as they are members of one Body, united in Christ.  The union of the Church with Christ is described in Scripture as that of a Bride with her Bridegroom.  (Cf. CCC 771-773)

This communion is above all a gift from God, a new relationship between the members of the Church and God that has been established in Christ and is communicated through the Sacraments and also extends a new relationship to humans among themselves.  It is through this communion that God seeks to gather all of humanity to him in order to draw them toward eternal salvation—the ultimate unity of the human race rooted in heavenly glory.  (Cf. CCC 775-776)

Through Baptism the faithful are incorporated into a Body—the Church—which the risen Lord builds up and sustains through the Eucharist.  The Eucharist, the root and center of the community, is the source of communion among the members of the Church; it unites each one of them with Christ himself (cf. 1 Cor 10:17; LG 7).  “When we share in the body and blood of Christ we become what we receive”  (St. Leo the Great, Sermo, 63, 7).  (Cf. CCC 2837)

By giving us his Body, the Lord transforms us into one Body: the Church.  Hence, St. Paul’s identification of the Church with the Body of Christ means that the Church expresses herself principally in the Eucharist.  While present everywhere, the Church is yet One, just as Christ is one.  (Cf. CCC 1396, 1398)

The Catechism addresses this question in paragraphs 777 and 780.

* Cf. St, John Paul II, Address to the Bishops of the United States of America, n. 1, September 16, 1987: Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, X, 3 [1987], p. 553.

† Cf. Ratzinger, Joseph, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on some Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion, 3.

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