Why is Jesus called “the Head of the body”?

This title comes from the apostle Paul who uses it, not so much to assert Christ’s authority over the Church, as to declare His love for her; for He is the Leader, the firstborn of those who are risen from the dead. He is the Head who animates the body and also grants it the spirit of unity. “He is the head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that He in all things He may have the pre-eminence” (Col. 1:18). As the Head, He incorporates us into the body of His humanity and we take on His righteousness and sanctity: “In the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight” (Col. 1:22). “But, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Eph. 4:15–16).

St. Augustine says, “If He is the Head, he takes us as members: His whole Church that is diffused everywhere is the body itself, of which He is the Head; not only the faithful who are now alive, but also those who were before us, and those who will come after us, even to the end of the world — all belong to His body; of which body He is the very head, who ascended into heaven … We can say that His voice is ours, and our voice is His. So, let us acknowledge that Christ speaks through us.”⁷⁵⁰

From the Head, His blood flows through His body, this which He sacrificed for the sake of His own body rather than for that which is alien to Him; for the body that He cherishes as His own. Given this wondrous concept of our union with Christ, we should not be surprised

748 St. Ambrose, On Jacob and the Happy Life 6.21 (FOTC 65:133).

749 St. Augustine of Hippo, The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century: Part III— Sermons; Volume VI: Sermons 184-229Z , trans., Edmund Hill; ed., John E. Rotelle (New City Press, 1993) Sermon 213.6: p. 143.

750 St. Augustine of Hippo, Enarrationes in Psalmos 62:2 (PL 36:748).

when the apostle Paul says, “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you” (Gal. 4:19).