The Mystical Body of Christ

Sunday’s gospel reading focused on the “Parable of the Weeds among the Wheat” (Matthew 13: 24-30). In the allegory a gardener sows good seed in his field, only to have someone defile it overnight by adding weeds to it. When the crop emerges the gardener’s slaves see the weeds and ask if they should tear them from the ground. The gardener answers, “No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until the harvest.”

Most commentaries on this parable suggest that Jesus was instructing his followers to be patient with the lost sheep of the flock. In fact, The New American Bible’s footnote (Memorial Bible Publishers, 1976) to the tale explains the “moral of the story” as such:

“The refusal of the householder to allow his slaves to separate the wheat from the weeds while they are still growing is a warning to his disciples to not to anticipate the final judgment of God by a definitive exclusion of sinners from the kingdom.” (New American Bible, p 1174)

The above analysis is logical and corresponds with Jesus’ other parables describing God’s infinite mercy and love. (For ex., from the “Parable of the Lost Sheep” we learn that even the loss of one soul deeply saddens God.) However, after contemplating the Weeds among the Wheat parable, I believe Christ’s message is more concerned with protecting the Mystical Body than with sinners and their exclusion from paradise.

Pope Pius XII discusses the doctrine of the Mystical Body in his 1943 encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi:

“We would define and describe this true Church of Jesus Christ—which is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church—we shall find nothing more noble, more sublime, or more divine than the expression ‘the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ’—an expression which springs from and is, as it were, the fair flowering of the repeated teaching of the Sacred Scriptures and the holy Fathers.” (Mystici, 13)

“That the Church is a body is frequently asserted in the Sacred Scriptures. ‘Christ,’ says the Apostle, ‘is the Head of the Body of the Church.’ If the Church is a body, it must be an unbroken unity, according to those words of Paul: ‘Though many we are one body in Christ.’” (Mystici, 14)

“Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed.”

(Mystici, 22)

Catholic thought teaches that Judgment Day will come when the Mystical Body is complete, fully-matured:

“For this reason St. Paul says that Christ is being brought to fulfillment, and thus he achieves the fullness of life, that is, the mystical stature that he has in his mystical body, which will reach completion only on judgment day.”

(The Mystery of Christ in us and in the Church, St. John Eudes)

This eschatological principle is essential to understanding the gardener’s refusal to tear out the weeds. He does not reject the option in the hopes that the weeds will eventually become wheat or because they may serve a future unknown purpose. He rejects the choice because the slaves “might uproot the wheat along with them [weeds].” Tearing out the wheat would prevent it from ripening, maturing to full-growth. Without full-growth the harvest would be incomplete. Similarly, passing judgment on the wicked before the souls of the elect have matured would leave the Mystical Body incomplete, immature.

One final note: When explaining the parable to his disciples, Christ defines the weeds as “the children of the evil one”—hardly a sympathetic term asking for patience. (Matthew 13:38)

Donald Tremblay