Theology of the Body Lecture Series Lent 2012 St Patricks Catholic Church Talk I Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving

in the Redemption of the Body

OPENING PRAYER A humbled, contrite heart, O God, you will not spurn. Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness. In your compassion blot out my offence. O wash me more and more from my guilt and cleanse me from my sin. A humbled, contrite heart, O God, you will not spurn. A pure heart create for me, O God, put a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, nor deprive me of your holy spirit. A humbled, contrite heart, O God, you will not spurn. For in sacrice you take no delight, burnt offering from me you would refuse, my sacrice, a contrite spirit. A humbled, contrite heart you will not spurn. A humbled, contrite heart, O God, you will not spurn. Collect Look with favour on our Lenten observance, Lord, and while we subdue our bodies by self-denial, renew our spirit with the grace that prompts us to good works. We make our prayer through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. INTRODUCTION What is the Redemption of the Body? It is a term comes from St Pauls letter to the Romans: We ourselves who have the rst fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait forthe redemption of our bodies.1 Because of the sexual revolution and because of all the tactics that it employs, images, advertisements, lines of thinking, off-colour humour, and also because of the never before seen instant web access to things such as pornography, because also of television shows that not just glory in hedonism but make it a kind of self-evident assumed goal of all right-thinking or normal persons that everybodys doin it,
1

Romans 8:23

there is a very high awareness of the human body and its capacity for pleasure. Its inescapable. You see it everywhere and evidence of it in so many interactions with people. Catholics, indeed all people, nd themselves very much immersed in a culture of lust, like a thick fog or cloud of poisonous smoke, they nd their minds and hearts, even on an instinctual level almost swimming through a swamp of lust, of an ethos, an atmosphere where it is presumed that the body cannot possibly be used for anything other than pleasure. It is like living in a city that has such poisonous fumes that the nose and lungs soon become accustomed to it so that it becomes no longer noticeable to those who live and move in it. In fact, the malformation of the average persons conscience with regard to what is considered good and evil in the realm of sexual ethics has been totally reduced to what might be called the pleasure principle, if it feels good, do it, or as long as you think its right for you. Blessed Pope John Paul II was very much aware of this and that is why he wrote what is called the Theology of the Body, a series of 129 teachings of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium. These are Wednesday audiences of the Pope that are on teachings about faith and morals, intended for the whole Church, and therefore to be received by Catholics as the teachings of the Universal Pastor of the Church with religious submission of mind and will. 2 I emphasize this because these teachings have not been received by the Church fully and therefore their fruitfulness has sadly not been attained. One of the reasons why people seem to be afraid of the Theology of the Body is simply ignorance. They just havent read it or maybe dont even know it exists. Another reason why it hasnt been accepted is because it is sometimes presented in a false light. Particularly the topic of Redemption of the Body is treated with an over emphasis on our participation in redemption on this side of heaven while ignoring the remaining effects of sin, concupiscence, and the need for boundaries. It is implied that we can achieve original integrity, go back to the garden of eden before sin happened and live together in original nakedness. Yet Blessed Pope John Paul II says: In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ does not invite man to return to the state of original innocence, because humanity has left it irrevocably behind, but he calls him to ndon the foundation of the perennial and, one might say, indestructible meanings of what is humanthe living forms of the new man.3 Not to go backward but forward, and this means that we have to ght through the swamp of the effects of original sin that still remains around us and within us with the innitely available and constantly present help of divine grace. So let us start talking about Redemption of the Body by saying what it is not. We are not attempting to take off our g leaves, we do not presume that we can rid ourselves of the effects of sin. For by not removing the mystery of evil entirely from our midst in the work of Redemption, Christ has willed that we be permitted to be tempted, so that our
2

Lumen Gentium 25: This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra 3 Paul, John; Michael Waldstein (2011-07-01). Man and Woman He Created Them (Kindle Locations 6579-6581). Pauline Books and Media. Kindle Edition.

freedom to desire Redemption also is redeemed. As St Augustine says, "God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without us."4 Allow me to make a summary of the Theology of the Body with regard to the redemption of the body. Structure " The rst part of the TOB is divided into what the holy father calls a triptych three parts that all compose one kind of picture. The way I like to explain this part is by an analogy of a life experience that happened to me when I was training boy scouts how to use a map and compass. Three small scouts and myself were in a kind of swampy forest and they were asked to nd there way to the other side. I showed them where the starting point and the ending point were and they began the trek. It wasnt soon before they were lost. They began to panic when I asked them three simple questions: Where did we come from? Where are we going? Where are we now? They began to look at the topographical signs, hills, streams, and it wasnt long before they were able to triangulate where we were. The theology of the body is like this. The rst part shows where we come from: Christ appeals to the beginning. The second part is where we are now: Christ appeals to the human heart - this is mans situation in history. The third part is where we are going: Christ appeals to the resurrection - the eternal destiny of our bodies in the glory of God. You could also say that this is a kind of trinitarian triangulation that Christ has with each person. He shows them that the Father has created them in Christ before the world began revealing to them the primordial meaning of the body that are revealed by our rst parents. Then Christ shows them that he knows exactly where they are right now in the state of fallen man, battling with concupiscence and their own personal tendency toward sin calling man to ght the battle of redemption for his body. Finally he shows the distance between who the Father created them to be and exactly where they are at right now - to reveal the Holy Spirit lling in this gap and calling them to their eschatological destination. In the Beginning " We begin with the conversation Jesus has with the Pharisees in Matthew 19, where he says that Moses permitted divorce because of our hardness of heart, but in the beginning it was not so. Here we enter into dialogue with Jesus who walks us through primordial man, the rst few chapters of Genesis. Here the pope gives one of his greatest insights to the TOB and really to his papacy and our epoch we live in now: man is created in the image and likeness of God for communion not only with God, but the communion of the one-man and one-woman union is the very image and likeness of the communion of the Father and the Son. Just as the Father and Son bring forth eternally the Holy Spirit, who is the fruit of their union, so a child proceeds forth from the holy union of one man and one woman. This communion is not primarily carnal but spiritual. Animals live a male-female union and if we reduce this to a bodily union we might as well say that they live in the image and likeness of God the same way we do, but the holy father is referring here to the union of the whole person, body, soul, and spirit.

St. Augustine, Sermo 169, 11, 13: PL 38, 923.

" Then the holy father takes us on a journey through the second account of creation that shows mans original experience of his own body rst through his solitude, elevation above visible creation, awareness of his own self-consciousness and self-determination, and that he nds that no other creature can satisfy his need for communion. Then when God creates for him his other self, i.e. for woman he discovers the love of God realized in the gift woman and sees himself as a gift to her, discovers his own complimentarity, and nd himself in a communion of persons. Next the holy father talks about mans primordial experience of his body as naked without shame before God and before woman, with complete openness and vulnerability. " This leads us to another key topic in the TOB: the Spousal Meaning of the Body, that the body itself is revealed as a gift to the other, man can only nd this meaning and love in a disinterested gift of self to the other. The Spousal Meaning of the Body constitutes the fundamental component of human existence in the world and is expressed either in the conjugal covenant of marriage or in the gift of oneself for the Kingdom of heaven. This is the foundation of the redemption of the body. The sincere gift of ones whole being, that is mediated through ones body, to God and to all to whom God grants him friendship and communion. Christ Appeals to the Human Heart " The next section is based on Christs comments in the sermon on the mount, You have heard it said, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Here Jesus shows that he knows what is in man and that he knows exactly what man is going through. The value of this chapter is this: exactly as you are right now, Jesus knows and accepts where you are and if you are honest with him and yourself he is willing to take upon your misery and transform it for his glory. Jesus loves you as you are! He knows and understands you. This is of the utmost importance for what the holy father says next - to recover this interior glance of the heart so that it can begin to look upon the human body to behold the mystery of God. This is where he gives his denition of purity: To behold the mystery of God through the gift of the human body. Then Jesus takes us through the 3rd chapter of Genesis - the fall, and not only our rst parents but begins this discussion with each person so as to reveal to them their need for redemption. The other important insight of this section is that Christ doesnt accuse the heart but calls it to a higher life. He ends this section with a discussion of purity as life in the Spirit. Christ Appeals to the Resurrection " This section begins with Christ speaking to the Saducees who ask him whose spouse the seven brothers wife will be in the resurrection. This is really a silly question. Hearkens back to the catechetical question that kids ask, did Adam and Eve have belly buttons or something of this sort. Jesus answer is clear: Have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not God of the dead, but of the living. Jesus points out here that the body is made for resurrection and eternal communion with God. Here the holy father gives another pivotal term: the Virginal Meaning of the Body. While the Spousal Meaning of the body signies that the body is made for communion, the virginal meaning of the body

points out that the body is made ultimately only for God. Those who live in a gift of celibate love gift their body totally to Christ now to be an eschatological sign of what is to come. He concludes this section and the entire rst part with the a call to the redemption of the body, to which Christ calls each of us, pointing out that this primarily a work of God and calls for mans vigorous participation. LENT and the Redemption of the Body The holy season of Lent is a time when the whole Church, the mystical Body of Christ, is driven by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness for forty days,5 to face our temptations, to conquer our self with bodily penance, with, as Jesus tells us solemnly through the liturgy and readings of Ash Wednesday, the ancient practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Lent is a time of the body par excellence. The word body , or things pertaining to it, is mentioned several times in almost every lenten liturgy: Ash Wednesday, Opening Prayer: Support us, Lord, as with this Lenten fast we begin our Christian warfare, so that in doing battle against the spirit of evil we may be armed with the weapon of self-denial. Tuesday of the First Wee, Opening Prayerk: Look with favour on your family, Lord, and as at this time we restrain the desires of the body, may our hearts burn with love of you. Preface II of Lent: For you have given your children a sacred time for the renewing and purifying of their hearts, that freed from disordered affections Preface IV of Lent: For through bodily fasting your restrain our faults, raise up our minds, and bestow both virtue and its rewards The body is very important. My arm is me. If you touch my arm you dont touch someone else. You touch my person and personhood. I am a body. I dont just have a body, and the real me is somehow oating spiritually inside my body. My body and soul are one. You see my body and you see me. The body is also the instrument by which I gift myself to others. I can have the invisible intention to love others but unless I use body in service to do things for them, to demonstrate and express love for them, have I loved them at all? For this reason, it is not enough to have merely spiritual or intellectual fasts such as fasting from negative thoughts or almsgiving of kindness or the intention to do everything in a state of prayer. It must also be corporal. I must fast from bodily desires of food and comforts. I must give alms of what corporally has value to mye like money and time. I must take some time to turn away from everything else and speak to my Father in secret just as Jesus left the sick unhealed, the ignorant untaught, and the poor untended to show us that we must do the same. Why is it so important for these practices to be bodily? In the scriptures there are two kinds of turning from evil toward good. There is a metanoia, which most people talk about and focus on. Good. This the deeper conversion of ones heart, the changing of ones thought patterns, the renewal of ones spirit. However there is also an epistrefa, a physical, measurable change of bodily behaviour. If you dont
5

Mark 1:12

have an actual physical change of behaviour, you dont have the spiritual part either. You need both. Also it is important to know that these two are linked and really one just like the body and soul are one person. If you pray on your knees as a practice for Lent, as the Fathers of the Church recommend, your spirit tends to follow the humbling action of your body and to lay itself prostrate before God - to humble itself. Why prayer, fasting, and almsgiving? Blessed Pope John Paul II tells us that Jesus reveals to us our own hearts, he knows what is in man and knows the wounds that he must struggle with. When Jesus tells the Church, through the Liturgy of Ash Wednesday, to focus on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, he doesnt just arbitrarily give us these three things. They are very deliberate because they address the threefold biblical teaching on concupiscence: All that is in the world, the concupiscence of the esh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, comes not from the Father but from the world. And the world passes away with its concupiscence; but the one who does the will of God will remain in eternity.6 If we reduce these to one word they are pride, lust, and greed. Let us go back even further. Why these three wounds? Where do they come from. If we go back, like Jesus directs us in the rst part of the Theology of the Body to the beginning we nd that God made man and woman: a. In his image in likeness b. male and female c. to have dominion over all the earth7 These are the three relationships that have broken by sin. The communion of man and woman with God, the communion with each other, and the communion with the earth and all it holds. Prayer attempts to heal the broken communion with God that has resulted in pride, or the concupiscence of the pride of life. Fasting attempts to heal the broken communion we have within our body, or maleness and femaleness, the gift of self we have to give to others that we call our sexuality which has resulted in lust, or the concupiscence of the esh. Almsgiving attempts to heal the broken communion we have with creation and using it properly, that has resulted in greed, or the concupiscence of the eyes. CONCLUSION Mary, our holy Mother, the Mother of God, is like an oasis, a refuge, a rest in the midst of the desert of Lent and the desert of the Redemption of our bodies. Let us close by asking the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be with us in the work of Redeeming our bodies, as Christ himself chose to have her by his side and chooses to have her by our sides as well.

6 7

1 Jn 2:1617 Genesis 1:27-28

CLOSING PRAYER - Magnicat My soul glories the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour. He looks on his servant in her lowliness; henceforth all ages will call me blessed. The Almighty works marvels for me. Holy his name! His mercy is from age to age, on those who fear him. He puts forth his arm in strength and scatters the proud-hearted. He casts the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly. He lls the starving with good things, sends the rich away empty. He protects Israel, his servant, remembering his mercy, the mercy promised to our fathers, to Abraham and his sons for ever. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.