The word "Church" means "convocation." It designates the assembly of those whom God's Word "convokes," i.e., gathers together to form the People of God, and who themselves, nourished with the Body of Christ, become the Body of Christ.

Here are some images of the Church:

- The Noah's Ark. Noah and his family were the symbol of the Church to come. Today, the Church navigates on the streams of time and saves from the wreck by leaning on the wood of the cross of the Christ (cf. Augustine, of the Catechism, 1053)

- The herd ewes of which are driven and fed by the Christ, the good Shepherd, who gives his life for them (John 10,11-15).

- The God's field or still the vineyard planted by the heavenly Wine grower. The Christ gives life and fertility to the twigs whom we are (1Corinthians 3,9; Matthew 21,33-43).

- 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. 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.

- 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.

- 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.

 "Hence the universal Church is seen to be 'a people brought into unity from the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit'" (St. Cyprian, De Dom. orat. 23: PL 4, 553).

Names and images (or symbolic representations) of the Church