As the Pharisees did then, so everyone deceives
himself who at any time plays the part of the serpent, gives membership to his
cursed body and service to Satan by persecuting Christ's body, the ecclesia.
Since the days of Christ the body of the serpent has been engaged in a struggle
with the body of Christ. The dragon has always been fighting the woman. But he
has been deceived about her, as he was about Christ her head. Because he saw
her in her present form, with earthly members who are not immune to his poison,
he thought he might one day devour her and her child, the Christ she is
bringing to birth, but he was deceiving himself
If Christ's body suffers and calls out to the
Father in its need, as we hear in the introit and offertory and gradual today,
it suffers and prays and feels fear as its head suffered and prayed and felt it
on the cross; but in it there lives and triumphs what cannot die or perish: the
life of God.
The woman, the ecclesia, seems barren and
waste-like to the blinded eyes of her enemies; but hidden in that desert there
springs up a source of living water, and streams pass out of her to give
moisture to the land of those who curse her. How does Christ speak in the
Gospel today? As the head of his body, he says: 'If any man is thirsty let him
come to me, and drink; yes, if a man believes in me, as the scripture says,
fountains of living water shall flow from his bosom. 'The Evangelist adds: ' He
was speaking here of the pneuma which was to be received by those who learned
to believe in him.'
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