CCC 752 In Christian usage, the word “church” designates the liturgical assembly,1 but also the local community2 or the whole universal community of believers.3 These three meanings are inseparable. “The Church” is the People that God gathers in the whole world. She exists in local communities and is made real as a liturgical, above all a Eucharistic, assembly. She draws her life from the word and the Body of Christ and so herself becomes Christ’s Body.

1 Cf. 1 Cor 11:18; 14:19,28,34,35.
2 Cf. 1 Cor 1:2; 16:1.
3 Cf. 1 Cor 15:9; Gal 1:13; Phil 3:6.