Description: Renowned scholar J.-M. R. Tillard defines what the flesh of the Church is for the New Testament and the period of the undivided Church. He enables readers to understand not the structure of God's Church but the living reality of grace for which this structure exists. He explains that the "flesh of the church" is communion of life for humanity reconciled with the Father and with itself "in Christ".
Brief description: The late J.-M.-R. Tillard, OP, (1927-2000), served as vice-president of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, was consultor to the Vatican's Secretariat for Christian Unity, and a member of several ecumenical commissions. He also wrote Church of Churches: The Ecclesiology of Communion, published by Liturgical Press.
Review Quotes: With Tillard's death, the Church laments and gives thanks for one the great ecumenists of our time. In this, his first posthumous work in English, he takes up again his abiding concern: Rather than being a juridical or sociological reality, the Church is first and finally a sacramental and mystical communion. Only by taking this insight with utmost seriousness can our ecumenical efforts move forward in the twenty-first century.Michael Downey, Professor of Systematic Theology and Spirituality, St. John's Seminary, Camarillo, Author, Altogether Gift: A Trinitarian Spirituality