5 Foreword At the end of Saint John’s Gospel, after twenty-one chapters relating the miracles, teaching, and saving mysteries of the life of Our Lord, the Evangelist issues the following caveat: “There are many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written” ( Jn 21:25). The statement invites us to marvel at the plenitude of what our Savior accomplished two thousand years ago, in the course of the thirty-three years he dwelt among us. However, as the Catechism declares, even “when his visible presencewas taken fromthem, Jesus did not leave his disciples orphans. He promised to remain with them until the end of time; he sent them his Spirit” (CCC 788; cf. Jn 14:18; 20:22; Mt 28:20; Acts 2:33). Accordingly, Catholic tradition refers to the Christus totus, the “whole Christ.” Christ the Head, dwelling in glory, is one with and continues to act in his Body, the Church. How this is so has been the subject of many scholarly books. But “a reply of Saint Joan of Arc to her judges sums up the faith of the holy doctors and the good sense of the believer: ‘About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing, and we shouldn’t complicate the matter’” (Acts of the Trial of Joan of Arc; cf. CCC 795).
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