Christ to the Third Power

If you missed the first posts in my Catholic Study of Ephesians, you may wonder, What’s a Catholic Bible Study? You missed a surprise about Blessings, a discussion of God’s Ways & Means, and Catholic thoughts on God’s Plan for Your Life.

Today, Ephesians 1:1-23. Let’s go!

This section pulses with the beauty of St. Paul’s heartfelt prayer for his readers – for us. He prays that we will be enlightened through God’s spirit of wisdom; that His revelation of Himself will fill our hearts with hope of heaven and awareness of God’s riches and power. And where does that immeasurable, death-defying, dominion-wielding power reside? In Christ, the name above all names, the head of our Church, His Body.

And, um, in me…in you. Small as we feel when speaking of power on a world-creating, world-reversing, world-redeeming scale, each of “us who believe” is an actual place where Christ Himself resides. This should be a bit more than you can wrap your mind around!

One metaphor that helps me understand it is that of an electric power distribution system. Not one home on the block could deal with electricity on the scale it is generated. It must come to us through a series of contraptions that modulate its force from ‘lethal’ to ‘plug coffee pot in here’. I see the Church as the huge, whole, majestic, universal structure where Christ generates and renews the power of His own life.

Thank God for priests, consecrated – thus, strengthened, set apart, supported – to raise up bread in human hands to touch such power! Thank God for the Liturgy that knits us all together through word, gesture, music and prayer to stand before Him as a Body, so that He may be revealed in the world through us. Thank God for the Holy Spirit, my Guardian Angel, Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the Saints who support me as I approach the altar of His very Presence! It’s a wonder we don’t all just explode with Resurrection power!

Thank God also for the Catechism, which leads me deeper into the “riches of His glorious inheritance”.

CCC 2632 tells us that our prayers must center “on the desire and search for the Kingdom to come.” We cooperate with Christ to welcome in His Kingdom. This is the mission of the Church, so “divine solicitude for all the churches ought to inspire” our prayer. Memo to self: Pray, pray, pray for the Church! Only through the Church has Christ intended that His Kingdom come. She needs our solicitude (“How are you?” “How can I help you?” “Is there anything you need from me?”)

This is particularly poignant for me as news of slain, enslaved and persecuted Christians fills cyberspace daily. Oh, how this dear structure, built to make possible the entrance of Christ’s life, power, riches and dominion into history, suffers! How our Mother needs our prayers for strength to be what only She can be for us! How her members need our prayers for their deliverance, healing, endurance and growth.

She and we must grow better able to bear all that God wants to give to us. As faith opens “the eyes of your hearts,” “a more penetrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love.” (CCC 158) If the coming of the Kingdom has anything to do with Love overflowing through us to bless the world, we’d better grow in capacity to receive that love! Agreed?

Our faith grows as we learn more about it, so let’s keep going.

CCC 668 asserts that Christ already reigns through the Church, citing Ephesians: “He is ‘far above all rule and authority and power and dominion,’ for the Father ‘has put all things under his feet.’ Christ is Lord of the cosmos and of history. In him human history and indeed all creation are ‘set forth’ and transcendently fulfilled.” Lumen Gentium is quoted in CCC 669: “The kingdom of Christ [is] already present in mystery,” “on earth, the seed and the beginning of the kingdom.” Folks, He’s here; His kingdom is here; His work was “accomplished in Christ” in the Resurrection (Eph. 1:20). Let’s call that the ‘first dimension’.

What’s more, He’s gathering all things unto Himself, transforming us (and everything else! See Blessings) into the means by which His Kingdom grows and fully emerges in history as a living reality. Coming, becoming, being realized – let’s call that the ‘second dimension’.

So – if ‘three dimensional’ means ‘fully formed’ – what is ‘Christ to the third power’? We have to use the future perfect tense to describe it, which I find delightful! Our hope is for a complete fulfillment of all things: time, Creation, me, the Church, all governmental authority and power, beeswax, wine, bread, work, art…everything. The kingdom, at some point, will finally have come in its perfection, its entirety, its full realization, its glory. Christ is most fully formed in that moment when His Kingdom will fully have come, when His Bride will fully have become the full realization of His own life and power.

And just think: the Church is at the epicenter of this earthquake, at the core of this volcanic eruption, at the root of this fruit-bearing maturation, at the center of this wholesale transformation, at the fountainhead of the glorious riches of God’s unbearable power! You can only take so much, but She’s to bear it all…so that you will have a place to grow up.

Next up: Ephesians Chapter 2, Part 1: You, to the First Power