Actualidad del pensamiento ecclesiológico de Santo Tomás

Abstract

In the Commentaries on the Letters of St. Paul, St. Thomas offers a vision of the Church concerning “communion with the Father, in the Son and by the Holy Spirit” which clarifies that the Church is built as a gift, from above, from the Father. The depth of his thought appears not only in this definition of her nature but also in signifying the Humanity of Christ as exemplary of the Church. These two affirmations are the key to understand the ecclesial mystery and its realisation at different stages as the true mystery which finds its full realisation at the final stage, the vera Ecclesia . The source of this unity of the Church is the Holy Spirit, the giver of both gratum faciens as well as gratis datas , but definitely it is His real presence, the one which structures the unity of the entire Church. In order to answer the question why St. Thomas did not write a treaty, the author of the article repeats after Le Guillou that, among other reasons, it was because the Church is the space where the entire Christian mystery is alive and all his theology should be repeated.