The Imperfect Communion

I've been doing much thinking and praying these days. All in search of truth. In doing so I have discovered a few things. Whatever else the Church may be, she is Christ's own body, and his bride, which cannot be divided. The Church's unity in Christ has never been found in a resolution passed, a dogma, claim, nor regarded as an impossible ideal. She is given freely in an unmerited gift of grace as a single, apostolic, sacramental, and extant communion into which we are grafted by the Holy Spirit, and offered as the only certain witness to a risen Christ.

Yet we all claim differing versions in our wittness. If we regard the Church as a mere voluntary association, the historical result of a particular preference, we will only come to know more fully the associated doctrine. Not a doctrine of truth, but our "team doctrine". Now if we treat her as a mystical bride, being declared so by Holy Scripture, then would not the Lord of the entire universe give to us freely all the tools and spiritual defense needed to sustain her unity and order?

Of course that would mean some must confess the grave miscalculation and unmistakable sin of separating from the Mother Church which, as his Bride, was also not beyond God's love or saving reach. If our Lord had not invested his Spirit in the preservation of the Catholic Church, then in what sense should we expect that he has invested himself in any?

Despite any and all faults of the Catholic Church, I can not accept that Christ has abandoned her. For he would have to abandon his bride and that would be contrary to scripture. Therefore, how do we claim the ability to do as Christ would not and still in good conscience claim the title of "Christian"?