The Incarnation Through Time and Space

Bishop Robert Barron on the Mystical Body of Christ

For it is impossible to speak of the parts of an incorporeal being, or to make any division of them; but He is in all things, and through all things, and above all things, in the manner in which we have spoken above, i.e., in the manner in which He is understood to be either “wisdom,” or the “word,” or the “life,” or the “truth,” by which method of understanding all confinement of a local kind is undoubtedly excluded. – Origen (from Origen De Principiis. Book IV Chapter I.31)

As Christmas draws near, Bishop Robert Barron makes a point to discuss how the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity extends itself through time and space, through the Church. This idea goes back to the Church Fathers. It is what the “mystical body of Christ” is all about, a  “second incarnation” of sorts where Christ joins Himself to His Mystical Body, the Church, and through this Body He acts—in the sacramental life, in the lives of the great saints, in the Church’s apostolic teaching. In all these ways, Jesus Christ continues to address and engage with the world.