Our body is for love

I was happy to learn that recently a national congress on the theology of the body, the first of its kind, was organized in the US. This, I believe, has crucial importance to all of us—for our life and for forming the right attitude toward our body and everything material in our life.

 It is my opinion that something like this has to reach our shores. We need it urgently. The deformation of our attitude toward this aspect of our life is massive and deep.

 For years now, I think that there has been a growing misunderstanding of the role of our body and the material world in general in our life. The error may not be the result of deliberate effort, but rather of a certain inertia generated from an incomplete knowledge of the material world.

 This is actually a common phenomenon in our life. If we fail to be continually vigilant, if we fail to detect deviations from their beginnings, we can end up in time with monstrous mistakes that started with something good and correct.

 Our attitude toward the body and the material world, I am afraid, has suffered a dangerous mutation, a radical reversal of God’s designs for them. We seem to be falling into two extremes.

 One is to consider the body as completely evil, as when the distinction between the body and the soul becomes exaggerated that they by nature become hostile to each other. This mindset is prevalent among those who may be regarded as too spiritual in their life.

 The other extreme, the more common one, is to consider the body as completely good, with no more need for spiritual animation and direction. This is the case of a variety of people—the hedonists, the naturalists, etc.

 While there is a distinction between the body and the soul, between the material and the spiritual realities of our life, we should not forget that both make up our nature. They cannot and should not be separated.

 Our Catechism teaches that: “The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual…The human body shares in the dignity of the ‘image of God’…

 “Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world…He is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day.”

 It is important that all of us acquire a proper understanding of the world of our flesh and the whole material reality. We have to be quick to recognize their original goodness, since they all come from God, as well as the distortions that came and continue to come as a result of our sins.

 What is crucial is that we know how to enter our body and the material world into the dynamics of divine love that is supposed to characterize our life here on earth and, of course, beyond.

 The theology of the body, ably systematized by the late Pope John Paul II based on what is revealed in the Gospel and developed in Church tradition, etc., will show how the body has been designed by God for this purpose.

 It takes into consideration our body’s original state of goodness and its fallen, wounded nature after sin for which the pathways for its redemption were given to us by Christ.

 Here we will see how the language of divine love for our body necessarily involves the character of gift, which is actually a sacrifice that involves self-denial and the whole reality of the cross as dramatized by Christ himself.

 The theology of the body definitely deserves to be taught as widely as possible, given the current situation where there seems to be a rush toward a body cult without the animation of faith and charity. It’s pure unredeemed flesh in all its raging wildness and lawlessness!

 On the one hand, there’s a lot of vanity and arrogance, the so-called concupiscence of the flesh. On the other, we can have a spirituality that knows next to nothing about the entire reality of our flesh—a disembodied spirituality.

 We should all recognize the indispensable role played by Christ’s cross, the whole scope of the spirit of sacrifice, that puts our flesh in its proper place—in profound humility and “extravagant” desire to love the way Christ loves us.

 We should always feel the edge of the cross so that our body behaves as it should!

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