"the first cell of the new cosmos"

Source

     "The whole of Pauline teaching is oriented to this corporeal resurrection of Christ as to one of its cardinal points.  In Christ, and in him alone for the moment, has already been effected the cosmic renewal that must characterize the eschatological age.  The risen body of Jesus is the first cell of the new cosmos.  In him the Spirit has already taken possession of matter, as he must do of all creation after the parousia, when Christ 'will recapitulate' definitively all things.  For as long as the present age continues, the bodies of other men do not yet participate in this triumph; they remain submitted to the law of death and corruption.  But his faithful are already united to his [body] by the mystical union of baptism and the eucharist; with him they have died and been raised.  What is for him a state physical and definitive is for them a state mystical and expectant [(mystique et qui attend son achèvement)] but no less real.  It is on these exceptionally concrete footings that the profoundly realistic moral and mystical theologies [(la morale et la mystique si réalistes)] of St. Paul are constructed.  If the bodies of Christians are already now in his eyes the 'temples of the Holy Spirit', if they are sanctified and purified right down to the level of [(jusque dans)] their physical passions, this is because they are united by means of the sacraments with the glorified body of their master.  They are his members and preparing to rejoin him in his celestial existence by a [corporeal] resurrection of their own, which will take place at the time of his parousia."

     Pierre Benoit, O.P., "L'ascension," Revue biblique 56, no. 2 (avril 1949):  181-182 (161-203).