8o5 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. 8o6 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. 807 The Church is this Body of which Christ is the head: she livesfrom him, in him and for him; he lives with her and in her. 8o8 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 thefruitful mother of all God’s children. 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 l~fe, of its unity in diversity, and of the riches of its gifts and charisms. 810 ‘Hence the universal Church is seen to be “a people brought into unit y from the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”’ (LG 4, citing St Cyprian, De Dom. orat. 23: PL ~, 55g). Paragraph 3. The Church Is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic 8i j ‘This is the sole Church of Christ, which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic.~25ó These four char— 750 acteristics, inseparably linked with each other,257 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 832, 865 who calls her to realize each of these qualities. 812 Only faith can recognize that the Church possesses these 770 properties from her divine source. But their historical manifestations are signs that also speak clearly to human reason. As the i~6 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.~258