Mens Christi Mens Ecclesiæ

St. Paul wrote that Christ “is the head of the body, the church" (Colossians 1:18) And “as a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ" (1 Corinthians 12:12). Nevertheless, we must undergo continuous conversion (v. 31) and are identified with different parts of Christ's body, depending on the graces given us and the calling we each have from God (v. 28).

If we didn't have to undergo further conversion, why would Paul repeatedly write that we must put on Christ and not make provision for the desires of the flesh (Romans 13:14; cf. Galatians 3:27)? To become more like Christ, we must know how to act as Christ would act and therefore must know how Christ would think and speak as well. In other words, we must have the "mind of Christ," or the mens Christi (that's Latin).

Why must we have the mens Christi? Because by ourselves we could never come to know the truth of God as He is in Himself. St. Paul states it so clearly:

"This God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God. Among human beings, who knows what pertains to a person except the spirit of the person that is within? Similarly, no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God. And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms. 

"Now the natural person does not accept what pertains to the Spirit of God, for to him it is foolishness, and he cannot understand it, because it is judged spiritually. The spiritual person, however, can judge everything but is not subject to judgment by anyone. For “who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to counsel him?” But we have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor. 2:10-16).

Without faith, without being moved by the Holy Spirit, we absolutely cannot understand the things of God, nor can we act and think and speak with the mind of Christ. And how can we be conformed to Christ without grace, without conformity to His mind?

How then shall we come to know what is of the mind of Christ? How can we know that we are not fooling ourselves in our prayer life? Christian tradition and the Scriptures shows us that the mind of Christ is the mind of the Church, for the Church is the body of Christ. Mens Christi mens ecclesiae est. This statement is practically a tautology, a statement of identity, A=A. Mind of Christ = Mind of the Church.

Just as grace comes from the Head, who is Christ, down to the Body, so too do we receive grace and the Spirit through the channel which Christ has established for us, namely, the Church. Paul wrote, "You should know how to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Timothy 3:15). Conformity, then, to the tradition of the Church (tradition is literally that which is "traded" or handed on, and hence in this understanding, even the Bible is tradition, for the Bible is handed on from one generation to the next) is conformity to Christ, for the Holy Spirit guides the Church to all truth (John 16:13). The members of the body need conversion, but the body itself is pure, for it is Christ's body. By being attached as branches to the vine, we obtain the grace of purification (John 15:4-5).

We need an authority to guide us to the truth, to give us the guarantee of true teaching. Christ said He would not leave us as orphans (John 14:18) but would give us the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. In every other area of life, we rely on proper authorities for truth; should we not also rely on an authority in spiritual matters?

Finally, it should be said that in the view of St. Ambrose and St. Thomas Aquinas, although we are bound to the Sacraments in order to obtain salvation, God is not. God instituted the Sacraments as sure means of obtaining God's grace and forgiveness for those who have access to them, but not everyone has access to them. This is what Aquinas wrote:

"Secondly, the sacrament of Baptism may be wanting to anyone in reality but not in desire: for instance, when a man wishes to be baptized, but by some ill-chance he is forestalled by death before receiving Baptism. And such a man can obtain salvation without being actually baptized, on account of his desire for Baptism, which desire is the outcome of "faith that worketh by charity," whereby God, Whose power is not tied to visible sacraments, sanctifies man inwardly. Hence Ambrose says of Valentinian, who died while yet a catechumen: "I lost him whom I was to regenerate: but he did not lose the grace he prayed for."" (Summa Theologiæ.3a.68.2)

Nevertheless, I've found even in my experience that the best attitude for deeper conversion is assuming one's ignorance and the need for a guide, that we can't do it ourselves. Paradoxically, when we think we know, when we think we're being open, we tend to close ourselves off to any genuine growth. The person who thinks he knows that a loving God looks at things in this way or that, or that a loving God would never do things x, y, or z is making such judgments from his own experience and viewpoint, which most probably isn't informed by the Spirit! In the attempt to be tolerant and open, the person is closed to the Spirit of God, who is Truth. Rather, it's better to say, "I don't know how God looks at this. I perhaps hardly even fathom what true love is like. Perhaps I should let God show me such things." And hence we turn to the Church for guidance in the supernatural realm.

Salvation isn't an individual endeavor but communal, ecclesial. A church, an ecclesia, is simply a gathering of people in the original Greek. But this gathering is sanctified through the grace of Baptism to be "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own" (1 Peter 2:9).