From our New Testament reading, from 1 Corinthians: ‘For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptised into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and all were made to drink of one Spirit’.

St John Chrysostom commented: ‘Do you see his exact consideration? He is pointing out the same thing to be both one and many. … If therefore the one is many, and the many are one, where is the difference? Where the superiority? Where the disadvantage? … And how is it possible that they should be one? When throwing out the difference of the members, you consider the body. For the same thing which the eye is, this also is the foot in regard of its being a member and constituting a body. For there is no difference in this respect. Nor can you say that one of the members makes a body of itself, but another does not. For they are all equal in this, for the very reason that they are all one body … So also is the body of Christ, which is the Church. For as the body and the head are one man, so he said that the Church and Christ are one’.

May we know this true unity in Christ, and pray for it this day – and may God bless you with His abundant love.