The Church of Christ (from the Catechism )
The Church
Origin and Foundation in the Blessed Trinity
The Church - foreshadowed from the world's beginning
A plan born in the Father's heart
The Church
Origin and Foundation in the Blessed Trinity
The Church - foreshadowed from the world's beginning
Christians of the first centuries said, "The world was created for the sake of the Church". God created the world for the sake of communion with his divine life, a communion brought about by the "convocation" of men in Christ, and this "convocation" is the Church. The Church is the goal of all things, and God permitted such painful upheavals as the angels' fall and man's sin only as occasions and means for displaying all the power of his arm and the whole measure of the love he wanted to give the world:"Just as God's will is creation and is called ‘the world’, so his intention is the salvation of men, and it is called ‘the Church’." (Clement of Alexandria) (760)
A plan born in the Father's heart
"The eternal Father, in accordance with the utterly gratuitous and mysterious design of his wisdom and goodness, created the whole universe, and chose to raise up men to share in his own divine life", to which he calls all men in his Son. "The Father... determined to call together in a holy Church those who should believe in Christ." … (Vatican II, the Church) (759)The Sacrament of Salvation
In brief The Church is both the means and the goal of God's plan: prefigured in creation, prepared for in the Old Covenant, founded by the words and actions of Jesus Christ, fulfilled by his redeeming cross and his Resurrection, the Church has been manifested as the mystery of salvation by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. She will be perfected in the glory of heaven as the assembly of all the redeemed of the earth (Cf. Rev 14:4). (778) More detail
It is in the Church that Christ fulfils and reveals his own mystery as the purpose of God's plan: "to unite all things in him" (Eph 1:10). St. Paul calls the nuptial union of Christ and the Church "a great mystery" (Eph 5:32). Because she is united to Christ as to her bridegroom, she becomes a mystery in her turn. Contemplating this mystery in her, Paul exclaims: "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col 1:27). (772) In brief - The Church is both visible and spiritual, a hierarchical society and the Mystical Body of Christ. She is one, yet formed of two components, human and divine. That is her mystery, which only faith can accept. (779)
The Church in this world is the sacrament of salvation, the sign and the instrument of the communion of God and men. (780) More detail