Tit 2, 14-15 Who gave himself for us to deliver us

(Tit 2, 14-15) Who gave himself for us to deliver us

[14] who gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people as his own, eager to do what is good. [15] Say these things. Exhort and correct with all authority. Let no one look down on you.

(CCC 802) Christ Jesus "gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify for himself a people of his own" (Titus 2:14). (CCC 811) "This is the sole Church of Christ, which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic" (LG 8). These four characteristics, inseparably linked with each other (Cf. DS 2888), indicate essential features of the Church and her mission. The Church does not possess them of herself; it is Christ who, through the Holy Spirit, makes his Church one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, and it is he who calls her to realize each of these qualities. (CCC 805) The Church is the Body of Christ. Through the Spirit and his action in the sacraments, above all the Eucharist, Christ, who once was dead and is now risen, establishes the community of believers as his own Body. (CCC 806) In the unity of this Body, there is a diversity of members and functions. All members are linked to one another, especially to those who are suffering, to the poor and persecuted. (CCC 807) The Church is this Body of which Christ is the head: she lives from him, in him, and for him; he lives with her and in her. (CCC 808) The Church is the Bride of Christ: he loved her and handed himself over for her. He has purified her by his blood and made her the fruitful mother of all God's children. (CCC 809) The Church is the Temple of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the soul, as it were, of the Mystical Body, the source of its life, of its unity in diversity, and of the riches of its gifts and charisms. (CCC 812) Only faith can recognize that the Church possesses these properties from her divine source. But their historical manifestations are signs that also speak clearly to human reason. As the First Vatican Council noted, the "Church herself, with her marvellous propagation, eminent holiness, and inexhaustible fruitfulness in everything good, her catholic unity and invincible stability, is a great and perpetual motive of credibility and an irrefutable witness of her divine mission" (Vatican Council I, Dei Filius 3: DS 3013).