The Bible is Catholic Week 2In the first week, we discussed the question of the relationship between the Church and the Bible. Some Christians have come to see the Bible as the fundamental ground of truth for the Church. However, the Bible itself says that the Church is “the pillar and ground of truth” (1 Tim 3:15). Far from the Bible being the ground of the Church then, it is the Church which is the fundamental ground of the Bible. The Church wrote and compiled the Bible, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In the Church the words of God in the Bible are made fully present to us in the ‘Word made Flesh’; this is sacramentally present in the Eucharist. In the Church therefore, the word of God is not simply something from which we take psychological comfort and strength. The word of God is made truly present to us in the Eucharist. This means that our relationship with God in the Church is not simply a psychological aide; instead we truly participate in the divine life of God. This participation takes place through the liturgy. The scriptures, which were formed around and refer to the early church’s liturgy, describe how we really participate in the life of the Trinity through the liturgy. This takes place by a “dynamic of reciprocity” - a kind of mutual indwelling - in which we are “in Christ” through Baptism into his body, the Church, and at the same time Christ dwells is “in us” through the Eucharist. We will examine the figure of the Temple in scripture which reveals this relationship between Christ, the Church, the individual Christian and the Eucharist.