Beginning in the nineteenth and continuing through the twenty-first century, the prevailing way of characterizing the Church has changed several times. The “perfect society” in the nineteenth century was followed by the “Mystical Body of Christ” in the first half of the twentieth, only to be replaced after the Second Vatican Council by the term “People of God.” Today, the preferred description of the Church seems to be as “Communion.” Beginning in the twentieth century, however, a much less popular complementary patristic perspective emerged, which saw the Church as Bride and Mother as well as the perichoresis, or “being in one another,” of Mary and the Church.

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