Theology of the Body

2. Theology of the Body

3. Chris West

4. Mary Shivanandan

5. Series of Talks 1979-84

6. Purpose • Defend Humanae Vitae • Explaining the importance of the body to understanding the human person • Understanding the body as a sign of transcendent realities • Helping us understand our vocation in the world as being made in the image and likeness of God, as male and female

7. Return to Scripture Likewise let the other theological disciplines be renewed through a more living contact with the mystery of Christ and the history of salvation. Special care must be given to the perfecting of moral theology. Its scientific exposition, nourished more on the teaching of the Bible, should shed light on the loftiness of the calling of the faithful in Christ and the obligation that is theirs of bearing fruit in charity for the life of the world. (Optatam Totius, 16, 1965)

8. Christ Reveals Man to Himself In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of humanity truly becomes clear. For Adam, the first man, was a type of him who was to come, Christ the Lord. Christ, the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals humanity to itself and brings to light its very high calling. (Gaudium et Spes, 22)

10. Self-Giving • “If human beings are the only creatures on earth that God has wanted for their own sake, they can fully discover their true selves only in self-giving” (Gaudium et Spes, 24) • “Man must lose himself, to find himself.” (Luke 17:33)

11. Matt: 19: 4-8 He said in reply, "Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate." They said to him, "Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss (her)?" He said to them, "Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.”

13. Genesis 1:27, 31 God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it.”…God saw all that he had made and indeed it was very good.

14. Man Made in the Likeness and Image of God • Rational: thinks, is creative, is intuitive • Free: makes free choices, creates himself and impacts the world around him • Relational: is designed to love and be loved

15. Powerful Metaphysical Context • Man cannot be reduced to the world. • Procreation places him in the world of time and becoming. • The “goodness” of creation introduces the notion of value.

16. Blessing of Fertility In the mystery of creation – on the basis of the original and constituent “solitude” of his being – man was endowed with a deep unity between what is, humanly and through the body, male in him and what is, equally humanly and through the body, female in him. On all this, right from the beginning, the blessing of fertility descended, linked with human procreation(cf. Gn1:28).(TOB, 47)

17. Genesis 2: 7, 18-19 Yahweh God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life and thus man became a living being….Yahweh God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helpmate. So from the soil Yahweh God fashioned all the wild beasts and all the birds of heaven. These he brought to the man to see what he would call them; each one was to bear the name the man would give it.

18. Original Solitude of Adam

19. Original Solitude • Names the animals • dominion • different • Self-aware • Alone

20. Genesis 2:20-22 But no helpmate suitable for man was found for him. So Yahweh God made the man fall into a deep sleep. And while he slept, he took one of his ribs and enclosed it in flesh. Yahweh God built the rib he had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man.

21. safsdfasf

22. The man exclaimed: “This at last is bone of my bone and flesh from my flesh!” This is to be called woman, for this was taken from man. Genesis 2:23

23. Original Innocence • The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame. • They had no disordered passions.

24. Original Unity • Intersubjectivity: They were one in their thoughts. • They could participate in the freedom of the gift. • They were transparent to each other. • They were a Communion of Persons. • They did not use each other. • They simply delighted in each other.

25. Nuptial Meaning of the Body • The body is an outward SIGN of an inner reality. • Adam and Eve were made for each other. • They are complete only as a whole. • We are all meant to give to others and receive from others.

27. Key Terms • Original Solitude • Original Unity • Nuptial Meaning of the Body • Communion of Persons • Naked without Shame • Freedom of the Gift • Language of the Body • Shame

28. OriginalSin

29. Results of Original Sin • Disunity/Fragmentation • Of Man from God • Of male and female from each other • Of the passions within each person • Shame

30. Language of the Body

33. Human Sexualityis a Language • I want to give myself completely to you and to receive you as a gift. • I will respect you as a person. • I will deserve your trust. • I will not use or exploit you. • I will delight in your “otherness”. • I am willing to be a parent with you.

34. Need for Self-Mastery

35. St Paul

36. Universal Call to Holiness What God wants is for you all to be holy. He wants you to keep away from fornication, and each one of you to know how to use the body that belongs to him in a way that is holy and honourable, not giving way to selfish lust like the pagans who do not know God. He wants nobody at all ever to sin by taking advantage of a brother in these matters. (Thessalonians 4: 3-5)

39. Christ as Bridegroom

40. Celibacy • …There are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother’s womb and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it. (Matt 19:12) • For when they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry; no, they are like the angels in heaven. (Mark 12:25)

41. St. Paul on Celibacy I would like to see you free from all worry. An unmarried man can devote himself to the Lord’s affairs, all he need worry about is pleasing the Lord; but a married man has to bother about the world’s affairs and devote himself to pleasing his wife: he is torn two ways. …I say this only to help you, not to put a halter round your necks, but simply to make sure that everything is as it should be, and that you give your undivided attention to the Lord. (1 Cor. 7: 32-35)

42. Continence for the Kingdom [Celibacy] is a charismatic sign. The human being, male and female, who, in the earthly situation where people marry, freely chooses continence for the kingdom of heaven, indicates that in that kingdom, which is the other world of the resurrection, people will no longer marry (Mk 12:25). This is because God will be “everything to everyone” (1 Cor 15:28).(TOB, 267)

43. Celibacy: Eschatological Sign Earthly continence for the kingdom of heaven is undoubtedly a sign that indicates this truth and this reality. It is sign that the body, whose end is not the grave, is directed to glorification. Already by this very fact, continence for the kingdom of heaven is a witness among men that anticipates the future resurrection. (TOB, 267)

44. Mystic Marriage Of St. Catherine

45. Celibacy: a Spousal Relationship …Continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, the choice of virginity or celibacy for one’s whole life, has become in the experience of Christ’s disciples and followers the act of a particular response of love for the divine Spouse. Therefore it has acquired the significance of an act of nuptial love, that is, a nuptial giving of oneself for the purpose of reciprocating in a particular way the nuptial love of the Redeemer. (TOB, 282)

47. Wives be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord (Eph. 5:2) …the author does not intend to say that the husband is the lord of the wife and that the interpersonal pact proper to marriage is a pact of domination of the husband over the wife. Instead, he express a different concept – that the wife can and should find in her relationship with Christ, who is the one Lord of both the spouses, the motivation of that relationship with her husband which flows from the very essence of marriage and of the family.(TOB, 310)

48. Mutual Submission The husband and wife are in fact “subject to one another,” and are mutually subordinated to one another. The source of this mutual subjection is to be found in Christian pietas, and its expression is love….Love excludes every kind of subjection whereby the wife might become a servant or slave of the husband, an object of unilateral domination….The community or unity which they should establish through marriage is constituted by a reciprocal donation of self, which is also a mutual subjection. (TOB, 310)

49. Contraception violates the Language of the Body It can be said that in the case of an artificial separation of these two aspects, a real bodily union is carried out in the conjugal act, but it does not correspond to the interior truth and to the dignity of personal communion — communion of persons. This communion demands that the language of the body be expressed reciprocally in the integral truth of its meaning.

50. Cont. If this truth be lacking, one cannot speak either of the truth of self-mastery, or of the truth of the reciprocal gift and of the reciprocal acceptance of self on the part of the person. Such a violation of the interior order of conjugal union, which is rooted in the very order of the person, constitutes the essential evil of the contraceptive act. (TOB, 398)