One body, both and

During the World Cup, I noticed that the announcers would use plural verbs to refer to countries. For instance they would say something like, “You can tell America are getting tired. Belgium are on the march.” This seemed strange to me. We never say that about American sports teams. “Seattle are getting tired?”

Although such grammatical usage seemed awkward, referring to a group in the plural is pretty common in the Bible. Take a look at Hosea 11:1-4 for example: “When Israel was a child I loved him. Out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the farther they went from me.” In the first two sentences, the author uses a singular masculine pronoun to refer to Israel. In the third sentence, he uses the plural form.

It seems pretty clear that God sees us as not only individuals but also as parts of a larger entity. In First Corinthians, for example, Paul says that we are part of one body:

Click here to open 1 Corinthians 12:12-27

¹² There is one body, but it has many parts. But all its many parts make up one body. It is the same with Christ. ¹³ We were all baptized by one Holy Spirit. And so we are formed into one body. It didn’t matter whether we were Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free people. We were all given the same Spirit to drink. ¹⁴ So the body is not made up of just one part. It has many parts.

¹⁵ Suppose the foot says, “I am not a hand. So I don’t belong to the body.” By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body. ¹⁶ And suppose the ear says, “I am not an eye. So I don’t belong to the body.” By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, how could it hear? If the whole body were an ear, how could it smell? ¹⁸ God has placed each part in the body just as he wanted it to be. ¹⁹ If all the parts were the same, how could there be a body? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts. But there is only one body.

²¹ The eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” ²² In fact, it is just the opposite. The parts of the body that seem to be weaker are the ones we can’t do without. ²³ The parts that we think are less important we treat with special honor. The private parts aren’t shown. But they are treated with special care. ²⁴ The parts that can be shown don’t need special care. But God has put together all the parts of the body. And he has given more honor to the parts that didn’t have any. ²⁵ In that way, the parts of the body will not take sides. All of them will take care of one another. ²⁶ If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part shares in its joy.

²⁷ You are the body of Christ. Each one of you is a part of it.

At Mass today (7/27/26 at Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine in OKC) I was sitting up front pretty close to the priest, so during communion, I could clearly hear him say “The body of Christ” to each parishioner. Having been thinking about how the bible uses plural and singular to refer to groups (Israel, Ephraim, the body of Christ…) for quite a while now, I was struck by the fact that the priest was feeding the Body of Christ to individuals who are in fact the Body of Christ.

The thought occurred to me that our separation is just an illusion. We are all members of the mystical body of Christ, and therefore we are all one in a mystical way. Nevertheless, I dare say that most of us often feel isolated and alone. Maybe the reason is that we don’t communicate well with the rest of the body. It’s like we are living cells in the body of Christ, but we are unaware of the larger role that we’re playing in the body because our communication signals are all blocked.

Eusocial insects leave pheromone trails when their abdomens touch the ground. Each ant that follows the trail reinforces the signal and makes it clearer. In the spiritual world, we leave similar trails for others through our prayers, our preaching, our love, our living a Christian life. But the enemy comes along and lays other tracks, washes the scent away and offers more tantalizing scents that lead to a trove of sugared poison that we love.

If we live to ourselves and refuse the will of God, we are easily led astray. It’s like a part of our body refusing to do what the brain tells it to do. We will eventually be rejected and thrown out.¹

So, we as Christians should be working on communication. Divine communication. We must listen to one another. We must listen especially to those we dislike and disagree with so that we can bring healing to the body. The body must be unified. It must be acting as one. Unfortunately, we don’t listen to the brain, much less each other. Even if we listen to one another without listening to the brain, we accomplish nothing. “Without you, God, no foundation is solid and nothing is holy.”

We are not independent. See my essay titled Rich Bastard. We are dependent in the body of Christ, yet we are free. “Independence? That’s middle class blasphemy” -George Bernard Shaw.

In politics, there’s left and right. What’s missing is up and down. One cannot make the sign of the cross without all four directions. Left right up and down. We should not be looking so much to the left or to the right as up. We must look up to God, listen to him and listen to each other. When others are suffering, it’s an indication that something is lacking. The body is hurting. Rather than slap the part that hurts, thereby hurting ourselves, we must offer soothing understanding, grace, guidance, patience and acceptance.² They may also provide the same for us. This analogy is weak as are all analogies but it is helping me and I hope it might help others.

No the hard part to grasp is that we are more than just cells in a body. We are also individuals and we are conscious and will not lose our individual identities at the end of time. Instead, our individual identities will be wholly incorporated into the body of Christ. Therefore, we must treat our bodies, intellect, will and memory with respect. Care for them. Not abuse them. Because at an individual level, doing so helps us to feel good physically, but also because in a collective way diseased parts of a body are a burden to the whole. They need to be removed by surgery.

Listening to the priest offer “The body of Christ” to individuals today, I realized that we are at once part of the collective body AND individual bodies. We are consuming the physical body of Christ in holy communion. It’s as if we are playing a role in circulating the blood of Christ throughout the collective body of Christ.

And the body are going to be good.

1. That said, I don’t believe that if we get kicked out of the Body of Christ due to our own unsuitability we would be isolated, flopping around on our own. We would ultimately become part of an evil body. Somewhat like the body of CHAI (as I’m calling it in the sequel that I am working on to my book Refreshing Jutta). We will be incorporated, used and abused. Slapped by the others members of the body when we cause trouble. Because we refused to be part of the body of our Lord, we become parts of an evil body. In that collective, we will have no self-determination. We will be total slaves. In the collective body of Christ, though we will be a part of the body, we will have true freedom. ↩︎
2. The words acceptance, tolerance, equity have been hijacked by the left. By acceptance here, I don’t mean acceptance of the sin. I mean the old-fashioned “Love the sinner hate the sin” notion. As Christians, we must accept everyone, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want everyone to stay where they are. ↩︎