Christ.[66]

If any one does not believe this, he is an infidel, and has
denied Christ and the Church. For even if it should not be
perceived yet it is true; but who could fail to perceive it? For
why is it that you do not sink in despair, or grow impatient? Is
it your strength? Nay: it is the communion of saints. Otherwise
you could not bear even a venial sin,[67] nor endure a word of
man against you. So close to you are Christ and the Church. It is
this that we confess in the Creed, "I believe in the Holy Ghost;
the holy Catholic[68] Church." What is it to believe in the holy
Church but to believe in the communion of saints. But what things
have the saints in common? Blessings, forsooth, and evils; all
things belong to all; as the Sacrament of the Altar signifies, in
the bread and wine, where we are all said by the Apostle to be
one body, one bread, one cup.[69][1 Cor. 10:17] For who can hurt
any part of the body without hurting the whole body? What pain
can we feel in the tip of the toe that is not felt in the whole
body? Or what honor can be shown to the feet in which the whole
body will not rejoice? But we are one body. Whatever another
suffers, that I suffer and bear; whatever good befalls him,
befalls me. So Christ says that whatsoever is done unto one of
the least of His brethren, is done unto Him. If a man partake of
the smallest fragment of the bread of the altar, is he not said
to have partaken of the bread? If he despise one crumb of it, is
he not said to have despised the bread?

When we, therefore, feel pain, when we suffer, when we die, let
us turn hither our eyes,[70] and firmly believe and be sure that
it is not we, or we alone, but that Christ and the Church are in
pain, are suffering, are dying with us. For Christ would not have
us go alone into the valley of death, from which all men shrink
in fear; but we set out upon the way of pain and death attended
by the whole Church, and the Church bears the brunt of it all.
Therefore, we can with truth apply to ourselves the words of
Elisha, which he spake to his timid servant, "Fear not: for they
that be with us a remote than they that be with them. And Elisha
prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may
see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw:
and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire
round about Elisha." [2 Kings 6:16 f.] This one thing remains for
us also; namely, to pray that our eyes m