„This is his Church”. Divine dimension of Joseph Ratzinger ecclesiology

Abstract

According to Joseph Ratzinger, the Church is a theological reality. We can see that she is characterized by a three essential earthly realties: the human, the institutional and the historical. But it would be impossible to understand her without seeing primarily that her identity is rooted in her belonging and being joined to Christ. The Church, though inserted in history, cannot preserve her identity by merely appealing to the expectations and aspirations of people who situate her at a certain moment in time (in statu peregrinationis). Taking seriously those divine elements of the Church’s beginning lead us to an essential self understanding of her identity as bound by what happens at Pentecost, and the Last Supper. Consequently to fully understand the union of Christ’s community with the Saviour, a full understanding of the dynamic life of the Eucharist must be expolored. It is in and through the Eucharist where the Church becomes in the strictest sense, repraesentatio Christi.