Ave Verum Corpus Natum ...

I seem to have some fan club, who, for some reason that is a bit opaque to me (maybe some hunch of theirs about my origins or maybe they actually read a thing I wrote which they found intelligent and could equally have found in Catholic sources but refused to read there, or maybe because of some contrast with something which has very lately become predominant in the Church socially speaking but was not so a hundred years ago), have decided I simply must be more intelligent, not than their view of what Catholicism is, not than this or that Catholic, but simply than the Catholic Church.

Newsflash (for them): I am not. Nobody is greater than his master. The Church as a whole (meaning orthodox believers, not people who have to sneak about their real thoughts when going to Church) is equal to but not greater than Our Lord Jesus Christ.

I am not, and therefore not equal to it.

I had this evening the occasion to speak to a lady who was a bit confused about what Catholics really believe, and who said that it was the soul that came back and vivified the body, not the body as such, which we were supposed to divinise.

Newsflash for that lady: if Catholicism has divinised Jesus like Swedes (my ancestors) and Norwegians and Danes (also among my ancestors) divinised the king of Uppsala Odin, then Catholicism is a fraud, precisely as Odinism is a fraud.

But it is not.

So, for one thing we are not divinising Jesus, we are acknowledging He is truly God. We are also acknowledging it in such an exclusive way that if we are right, not only must Swedish Pagans before St Ansgar have been wrong in divinising Odin, but also Hindoos to this day are wrong in divinising Arjuna's charioteer Krishna. And on the other hand, if they are right, we must be at least wrong about this exclusiveness.

Now the vital precision. God became man. God did not just unite Himself to a body, like having Himself as soul of it, He united Himself to a human creature, complete such except for the Person being God instead of just the composite of soul and body. This means that God united Himself to this composite in the very moment He created it. It also means He remained united to the soul that went down to She'ol to free those in Abraham's bosom from having to remain down there, but also remained united to the body in the grave. And remains so still after reuniting His soul to His body. This means Christ's Soul is truly worthy of divine honours, but so is His Body and His Blood. Hence my reference to the Eucharistic Hymn: Hail true Body, Born of the Virgin Mary, truly having suffered and been pierced ... so I have sung before the Blessed Sacrament, and, please God, will do again.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Easter Wednesday
23-IV-2014