A re-reading of the Theology of the Body in Bl. John
Paul II
One of the greatest contributions of Bl. John Paul
II to the field of theology was his exposition of the theology of the body. In
a world torn apart by two diametrically opposed trends - a Manichaeistic
oriented suppressed negative theology of
the body of the Christian traditional teaching together with a quite
misunderstood moral teachings of ‘Humanae Vitae’ by Pope Paul VI on one hand
and the over exposed, idolized ‘eros’ oriented post-modern theology of the body
of the present era on the other- the church had to come out with a balanced,
scripturally oriented, theology of the body that makes justice to the life and
dignity of the human person. A pope and a pastor known for his great themes on
humanity in his entire writing career such as freedom, gift, communion, truth,
dignity, love and person, expounds once again in his unique style, during his
Wednesday’s public audiences what we popularly call the “theology of the body.”
In these reflections the Pope demonstrates the importance of the physical body
and human sexuality as a whole. Falling back on the foundations of scripture
and Christian tradition, en-filling it with his own mystical insights, the pope
re-lives the trodden path of human person in the creative vision of God and the
ecstatic beauty of the nakedness of man in his solitude and companionship, the
cause of shame and degradation and subsequent homelessness as a consequence of
sin and the path of returning home through a life of the purity of heart and the gift of faith
reassured to us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this article we follow
the path trodden by Pope John Paul II in his exposition of the theology of the
body and investigate the relevance of his teaching to the world of today.
A Misunderstood
Theology of the Body
It may not be a mistake to state that the concept of
the body from the fourth century leading to Second Vatican Council was
misunderstood through and through. Although the scriptures in no compromising
way uphold the uniqueness and superiority of human body as the gift of God to
the incarnate spirit, the human person; the theology of the body developed by
the church fathers and the great theologians like St. Augustine and St. Thomas
Aquinas was in stark opposition to what the Scriptures want to tell us. This
was due to the influence of Platonic and Manichaeistic philosophical background
on one hand and the Aristotelian and Athenian religious background on the
other. In this background the spirit was considered eternal and real now
imprisoned in the human body enslaved by its snares, struggling to liberate
itself from the clutches of the body which is evil, concupiscent and
perishable. The body is considered an enemy of human salvation and therefore
required to be chastised, suppressed and ignored in one’s pursuit of
liberation. The Athenian religion proposes a fourfold path to its followers in
order to liberate the soul from the clutches of the body. They are prayer,
fasting, penance and almsgiving an ideology literally christened and
extensively used by the Catholic Church till the Vatican second council if not
to our times. The religious “discipline” is a simple example that shows the
atrocities levied upon the human body due to this negative “starvation theology”
of the body.
The sexual taboo and sexual maniac world in which we
live today is another extreme manifestation of the theology of the body; a mind
set in fact whereby the theology itself made to disappear. Human person is
considered a mere commodity to be used and misused for the pleasure of the
other, and in the bargain the spiritual nature of man totally wiped off. In
this consumeristic world the human person is seen from two extreme world views.
On one hand the body is seen as a object of pleasure and used for the immediate
gratification of man whereby the spiritual side is totally ignored, other side
sees human relationships as a platonic idealized reality totally cut off from
that is truly human and realistic[1] Fr. Cantalamessa in his Lenten reflections in
the year 2011, reflecting on the encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI “Deus Caritas
Est” makes this point very clear. When the Eros ideology is misunderstood and
misused the distorted version of agape is idealized in which the true nature of
the incarnate spirit eclipsed.
Original Unity and
Dignity of the Body
Pope John Paul II in order to establish an authentic
theology of the body falls back heavily on the book of Genesis in its first and
second chapters where the original creative dream God had for humanity is
manifested. In this creative dream God shapes the human person in His own image
and likeness. “He created them man and woman” “He breathes into the nostril of
the person His own divine breath.” Thus we are the image of God not just in the
gift of our intellect and will, through the special ability to know and to
choose which puts human’s in a unique position above all other creatures, but
also through our ability to possess ourselves as a body and then give ourselves
as a selfless gift of love to the other, thereby forming a communion of persons
in love. In this communion we participate in the divinity of God who Himself is
a communion of persons in the Trinitarian dimension of Love.
Pope writes,
Man became the "image and likeness" of
God not only through his own humanity, but also through the communion of
persons
which man and woman form right from the beginning. The function of the image is
to reflect the one who is the model, to reproduce its own prototype. Man
becomes the image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment
of communion. Right "from the beginning," he is not only an image in
which the solitude of a person who rules the world is reflected, but also, and
essentially, an image of an inscrutable divine communion of persons.[2]
This communion of persons realizes in the dual relationship
of identity between God and man is further emphasized by the pope John Paul II.
He writes,
“…that
the "definitive" creation of man consists in the creation of the
unity of two beings. Their unity
denotes above all the identity
of human nature; their duality, on the other hand, manifests what, on the basis
of this identity, constitutes the masculinity and femininity of created
man. This ontological dimension of unity and duality has, at the same time, an
axiological meaning. From the text of Genesis 2:23 and from the whole context,
it is clearly seen that man was created as a particular value before God.
"God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good"
(Gn 1:31). But man was also created as a particular value for himself—first,
because he is man; second, because the woman is for the man, and vice versa,
the man is for the woman.”[3]
Original Solitude of the Human Person
The
uniqueness and dignity of the human person is further explained by the pope
through his concept of original solitude.
Man experiences the “original solitude” in two ways: First in that he is
alone as the only rational creature on earth. He is aware of himself, of his
body and its meaning. In his self -knowledge he knows that he is created by
God, and is therefore not God. He realizes that he is not the same as the
animals either. With his self-knowledge he also has self determination, by
which he can choose between good and evil. He is the only one capable of
“tilling the earth,” which God gave him to tend and rule. Secondly, he is alone
without the woman, without another human person. Man was not created to live by
himself but in communion with others and he feels this acutely without the
woman. “The first meaning of man’s original solitude is defined on the basis of
a specific test [the naming of the animals]… By means of this test, man becomes
aware of his own superiority, that is, that he cannot be considered on the same
footing as any other species of living beings on the earth… Solitude also
signifies man’s subjectivity, which is constituted through self-knowledge. Man
is alone because he is ‘different’ from the visible world, from the world of living
beings… The concept of original solitude includes both self-consciousness and
self-determination.”[4]
Original unity of the person is further discussed
by bringing the unique distinction between corporeality and sexuality although
they cannot be identifies one without the other. Although it is a common sense
fact that human body in its constituent structure bears within it the signs of
sex and therefore by its very nature male and female, it should be noted that,
that a person is a “body” belongs to the structure of the personal subject than
the fact that in his somatic constitution he is also male and female. Pope
Asserts, that
“the meaning of "original solitude," which can be referred simply to
"man," is substantially prior to the meaning of original unity. The
latter is based on masculinity and femininity, as if on two different
"incarnations," that is, on two ways of "being a body" of
the same human being created "in the image of God" (Gn 1:27)[5]
Original Unity and
Communion of Persons
Although human person is unique among the created
things because of his original solitude, he/she was never created to be alone.
Rather man by his very nature is communitarian. This communitarian aspect of
the human person is illustrated in the Genesis first and foremost when Adam
could not find anything among the lower created species to be his partner (Gen
2:20) and secondly when the woman is brought
to the man he exclaims, ”This is last is bone of my bones and flesh of my
flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man (Gen
2:23-24). Thus the scripture concludes that “man (is even able to) leaves his
father and mother and cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh.” It is
through their spiritual and bodily union, they form a communion of persons.
The
creative account of the woman in Genesis shows the communion dimension of man
and woman in the dimension of “sleep.”
Going beyond the contemporary mentality that is so much accustomed to
the analysis of sub-conscious - and the
contents of it in sleep, even connecting it to sexual contents – the Genesis
narrative wants to convey to us the simple fact of life that man falls into the
deep “sleep” of desire in order to wake up male and female. In other words, “the analogy
of sleep indicates here not so much a passing from consciousness to
sub-consciousness, as a specific return to non-being (sleep contains an element
of annihilation of man's conscious existence), that is, to the moment preceding
the creation, in order that, through God's creative initiative, solitary
"man" may emerge from it again in his double unity as male and
female.” The biblical account confirms that deep within every human being there
is desire to dream of a “second self” This desire alone can stabilize the
person in his/her human identity in relation to the living beings (animalia) as
a whole, since it is through this desire human’s differentiation from
environment is made and at the same time the circle of the man-person is
broken, by the first “man” awakening from his sleep as “man and female”.
From
the simple Genesis text of the creation of the woman, “this at last is bone of
my bones and flesh of my flesh" (Gn 2:23), a text with a
few words but of great weight, pope goes further in removing the traditionally
misconceived and subsidiary relationship of woman to man, reestablishing
therefore the unique and complementary nature of man and woman. The archaic,
metaphorical and figurative expression “with the rib” is to be understood as
homogeneity of the whole being of both man and woman. Although the concept of
homogeneity primarily concerns itself to the somatic structure of both it also
concerns to the affirmation made by man that without her, his incarnation does not yet exists,
thereby making her equal and complementary, “a helper fit for him (with the
meaning of exact correspondence).” In this way says pope the woman is created
on the basis of same humanity. It is only in this homogeneity and
complementarity man could express great joy and exaltation, “this at last…” for
which he no reasons before, owing to the lack of a being like himself. Joy in
the other human being, in the second “self” establishes for us the full meaning
of original unity and communion of persons.
Original Nakedness and the Nuptial
meaning of the Body
“And
the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25). With
this expression from the Genesis account Pope John Paul II further illustrates
the original unity and their mutual communion in the primordial innocence of
human person. First and foremost this statement refers more to the subjectivity
of man and woman rather than to their corporeal status. Thus the expression, were
‘naked’ yet ‘not ashamed’ basically refers to their state of consciousness,
i.e., their mutual experience of the body.
“It describes the experience on the part of the man of the femininity
that is revealed in the nakedness of the body and, reciprocally, the similar
experience of masculinity on the part of the woman.” (Dec. 12:3). Through this
text the author of Genesis wants to stress experience of man in the “common and
pre-scientific sense, an experience of innocence and the acceptance of the
other as mutual self-gift without any utilitarian motive. In this stage of
primitive innocence the naked body actually showed Adam and Eve their call to
love, their call to spiritual and bodily communion. This call to communion was
meant to be expressed mutually through their bodies.
The
nakedness of Adam and Eve, far from being of little significance speaks volumes
of their purity of heart and the possibility of abundance of love they could
render to each other through this pure heart. Shame is the result of being
viewed as an object to be used by another person, the lack of shame in Adam and
Eve demonstrate to us they both received and gave to each other as a gift and
sought only to themselves to one another and not to use the other. In other
words they could behold each other with the vision of God. They read in each
other’s body, which was sign of the other person, the language of love, which
they welcomed and reciprocated.[6] He
writes,
"Nakedness"
signifies the original good of God's vision. It signifies all the simplicity
and fullness of the vision through which the "pure" value of humanity
as male and female, the "pure" value of the body and of sex, is
manifested. The situation that is indicated, in such a concise and at the same
time inspiring way, by the original revelation of the body as seen especially
by Genesis 2:25, does not know an interior rupture and opposition between what
is spiritual and what is sensible. It does not know a rupture and opposition
between what constitutes the person humanly and what in man is determined by
sex—what is male and female.[7]
And again,
Seeing each other, as if
through the mystery of creation, man and woman see each other even more fully
and distinctly than through the sense of sight itself, that is, through the
eyes of the body. They see and know each other with all the peace of the
interior gaze, which creates precisely the fullness of the intimacy of persons.[8]
Interior innocence which the
Adam and eve enjoyed as purity of heart made it impossible for them to see each
other and objects thereby utilizing them for the gratification of the other.
The fact that they were not ashamed means that they were united by awareness of
the gift. They were mutually conscious of the nuptial meaning of their bodies,
in which the freedom of the gift is expressed and all the interior riches of
the person as subject are manifested.
Thus
it is in the nakedness of each other, and the total expression of themselves to
each other in love man and woman come to know the ultimate goal of their body.
It is through their bodies it is self evident to them that they are called to
love, called to give themselves to each other. The very purpose and meaning of
life is this; to become a self gift of love to each other by imaging God who is
love. It is through this event of loving that we find the reason of our
existence. Our physical bodies were made precisely to show us this and the
means by which we accomplish this end.
The
human body, oriented interiorly by the sincere gift of the person, reveals not
only its masculinity or femininity on the physical plane, but reveals also such
a value and such a beauty as to go beyond the purely physical dimension of
sexuality. In this manner awareness of the nuptial meaning of the body,
connected with man's masculinity-femininity, is in a way completed. On the one
hand, this meaning indicates a particular capacity of expressing love, in which
man becomes a gift. On the other hand, the capacity and deep availability for
the affirmation of the person corresponds to it. This is, literally, the
capacity of living the fact that the other—the woman for the man and the man
for the woman—is, by means of the body, someone willed by the Creator for his
or her own sake. The person is unique and unrepeatable, someone chosen by
eternal Love.[9]
Together
with this nuptial meaning of the body the body manifests yet another important
function. It is the body alone that is capable of making visible what is
invisible: the spiritual and the divine. Human person as a historical being
appears on the stage of life as the highest expression of the divine gift. With
himself/herself the likeness of God is manifested with which he/she at the same
time transcends and dominates his/her visibility in the world. Pope asserts,
Thus, in this dimension, a primordial sacrament is
constituted, understood as a sign that transmits effectively in the visible
world the invisible mystery hidden in God from time immemorial. This is the
mystery of truth and love, the mystery of divine life, in which man really
participates. In the history of man, original innocence begins this
participation and it is also a source of original happiness. The sacrament,
as a visible sign, is constituted with man, as a body, by means of his
visible masculinity and femininity. The body, and it alone, is capable of
making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It was
created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden
since time immemorial in God, and thus be a sign of it.[10]
Human Body and the Gift of Freedom
It is in this nuptial meaning
of the body the gift of human freedom shines in its fullness. In his/her interior innocence human person was free not contaminated by the tendency to
sin, the temptation to act selfishly. In the process of giving themselves to
one another Adam and Eve were concerned only with loving each other. “Seeing
the truth about the other person, made in God’s image, and knowing that a
person can never be merely a means to an end, they did not act from self
seeking motivations but freely gave to the other in love.” Pope confirms:
This freedom lies at the basis of the nuptial
meaning of the body. The human body, with its sex, and its masculinity and
femininity seen in the very mystery of creation, is not only a source of
fruitfulness and procreation, as in the whole natural order. It includes
right from the beginning the nuptial attribute, that is, the capacity of
expressing love, that love in which the person becomes a gift and—by
means of this gift—fulfills the meaning of his being and existence. Let us
recall here the text of the last Council which declared that man is the only
creature in the visible world that God willed "for its own sake."
It then added that man "can fully discover his true self only in a
sincere giving of himself".[11]
The gift of freedom should be
understood in the sense of mastery of oneself (self-control). “From
this aspect, it is indispensable in order that man may be able to
"give himself," that he may become a gift, that he will be able
to "fully discover his true self" in "a sincere giving of
himself" (referring to the words of the Council). Thus the words,
"They were naked and were not ashamed" can and must be understood
as the revelation—and at the same time rediscovery—of freedom. This freedom
makes possible and qualifies the nuptial sense of the body.”[12]
Shame, Lust and Concupiscence
If human person was created in
this primordial innocence from where does shame, lust and concupiscence, with
its consequent objectification of the other entered the heart of the human
person? Disobedience or sin is the root cause of deviations. Shame enters the
world through sin. Turning his back on God, man no longer saw with God’s vision
and loved with God’s love. Man and woman began to look at each other not any
longer as persons to be loved, but as an object to be used. The break in
relationship with God was also the cause of the break of relationship with
each other. Total and uncompromising trust and self –gift were now replaced
by shame.
The third chapter of Genesis shows without any doubt
that shame appeared in man's mutual relationship with woman. By reason of the
shame itself, this relationship underwent a radical transformation. It was
born in their hearts together with the lust of the body. Thus, the analysis
of original shame enables us at the same time to examine what relationship
this lust remains in with regard to the communion of persons. This communion
was granted and assigned from the beginning as the task of the man and woman,
owing to the fact that they had been created "in the image of God."
Therefore, the further stage of the study of lust, which had been manifested
"at the beginning" through the man and woman's shame, according to
Genesis 3, is the analysis of the insatiability of the union, that is, of the
communion of persons. This was to be expressed also by their bodies,
according to their specific masculinity and femininity.[13]
Shame not only alienates human person from one another but also it
alienates him/her from God. In sin human person castes away not only the gift
of love and freedom to each other rather he also casts away God himself from
his heart. Pope writes,
This motivation clearly
includes questioning the gift and the love from which creation has its origin
as donation. As regards man, he receives the "world" as a gift and
at the same time the image of God that is, humanity itself in all the truth
of its male and female duality. It is enough to read carefully the whole
passage of Genesis 3:1-5, to detect in it the mystery of man who turns his
back on the Father (even if we do not find this name applied to God in the
narrative). Questioning in his heart the deepest meaning of the donation,
that is, love as the specific motive of the creation and of the original
covenant (cf. Gn 3:5), man turns his back on God-Love, on the Father. In a
way he casts God out of his heart. At the same time, he detaches his heart
and almost cuts it off from what "is of the Father." Thus, there
remains in him what "is of the world."
Casting away God and the other from
ones heart creates in man’s heart an alternative to love and self – gift
viz., lust or what Jesus calls adultery in the heart. Lust “is the deception
of the human heart in the perennial call of man and woman - a call revealed in the mystery of creation - to
communion by means of mutual giving.”[14]
In fact lust is nothing but a disordered sexual desire. In the beginning
sexual desire was experienced as the desire to make a gift of oneself to the
other and to be united with the other in God’s image. Now because of sin, man
is constantly tempted to desire the other as an object for his own pleasure.
Lust also has the internal
effect, that is, in the heart, on the interior horizon of man and woman. It
obscures the significance of the body and hence the very nature of the person
itself. By means of lust a certain
woman begins to exists for a certain man not as a subject of personal attraction
or as a subject of communion, but exclusively as the object for the potential
satisfaction of sexual need. Thus Femininity is seen above all else as an
object for the man. It ceases being a specific language of the spirit. It
loses its character of being a sign. I would say that it ceases bearing in
itself the wonderful matrimonial significance of the body. It ceases its
correlation to this significance in the context of conscience and experience.
Lust arising from concupiscence of the flesh itself, from the first moment of
its existence within the man—its existence in his heart—passes in a certain
sense close to such a context. (Using an image, one could say that it passes
on the ruins of the matrimonial significance of the body and all its subjective
parts.) By virtue of axiological intentionality itself, it aims directly at
an exclusive end: to satisfy only the sexual need of the body, as its precise
object.[15]
Through the fall, now human
person enters into a perennial tendency to sin, a loss of original innocence,
and a constant desire to fall rather than always seek good and thereby
concupiscence becomes the inborn nature of human person. St. Paul calls it as
the battle of the flesh against the spirit. It is often associated with the
“lust of the flesh.” It is through this tendency human person looses the
interior freedom of the gift to which the nuptial meaning of the body was
initially connected. As a consequence person’s self control is reduced and
thereby the promotion of the union of communion of persons jeopardized. The
relationship of gift is now reduced to the relationship of appropriation. It
darkens the horizon of the inward vision and deprives the heart of the
clarity of desires and aspirations. As a result the heart which was supposed
to be the seat of love, peace and serenity now becomes a battle ground
between love and lust. Pope states:
Concupiscence entails the
loss of the interior freedom of the gift. The nuptial meaning of the human
body is connected precisely with this freedom. Man can become a gift—that is,
the man and the woman can exist in the relationship of mutual self-giving—if each
of them controls himself. Manifested as "coercion sui generis of
the body," concupiscence limits interiorly and reduces self-control. For
that reason, in a certain sense it makes impossible the interior freedom of
giving. Together with that, the beauty that the human body possesses in its
male and female aspect, as an expression of the spirit, is obscured. The body
remains as an object of lust and, therefore, as a "field of
appropriation" of the other human being. In itself, concupiscence is not
capable of promoting union as the communion of persons. By itself, it does
not unite, but appropriates. The relationship of the gift is changed into the
relationship of appropriation.[16]
Redemption and the creation of New Man
Although human person lost its
original innocence due to his fallenness, that is not the end of the story of
historical human person. The great good news of the gospel message is that
though man was once a slave to sin is now redeemed through the death and
resurrection of Christ. The power of the death and resurrection of Christ
gives the human person the power to live as he intended to live in the
beginning. Thus the end goal of the theology of the body for John Paul II is
to see the destiny of man through the lens of the redemption because it is
only through the power of the Holy Spirit man can really live a life worthy
of his call and his dignity as a person, made in God’s image and likeness.
Pope writes,
Christ's words …do not
allow us to stop at the accusation of the human heart and to regard it
continually with suspicion. But they must be understood and interpreted above
all as an appeal to the heart. This derives from the nature of the ethos of
redemption. On the basis of this mystery, of the redemption of the body, we
cannot stop only at the accusation of the human heart on the basis of desire
and lust of the flesh. Man cannot stop at putting the heart in a state of
continual and irreversible suspicion…. Redemption is a truth, a reality, in
the name of which man must feel called, and "called with efficacy."
Man must feel called to rediscover, nay more, to realize the nuptial meaning
of the body. He must feel called to express in this way the interior freedom
of the gift, that is, of that spiritual state and that spiritual power which
are derived from mastery of the lust of the flesh.[17]
The goal of creation of the
human person is the realization of the supreme love contained in God himself.
To this end he is called as a person in the truth of his humanity and
therefore also in the truth of masculinity or femininity, in the truth of his
body. He is called in that truth which has been his heritage from the
beginning, the heritage of his heart, which is deeper than the sinfulness
inherited, deeper than lust in its three forms. The words of Christ, set in
the whole reality of creation and redemption, reactivate that deeper heritage
and give it real power in man's life.[18]
Purity of Heart and Growth in Holiness
A person can be liberated from
the clutches of sin and from the resultant bodily desires only by living a
life in the spirit. The constant happiness experienced by the primordial man
in his creative innocence can only be attained by participating in the inner
glory that God alone opens up for a believer. This is the gift Jesus promises
when he says “blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God (Mt. 5:8).
Purity is virtue where by one lives in purity of conscience and desires only
to love other and never to use the other. It is the presence of the holy
Spirit alone can give the body its proper human dignity and grace. It is the
result of the redemption carried out by Christ for the believer. In purity of
heart man personalizes his gift and lives with God in the fullness of life.
Purity as the virtue,
therefore is the capacity of controlling one's body in holiness and honor.
Together with the gift of piety, as the fruit of the dwelling of the Holy
Spirit in the temple of the body, purity brings about in the body such a
fullness of dignity in interpersonal relations that God himself is thereby
glorified. Purity is the glory of the human body before God. It is God's
glory in the human body, through which masculinity and femininity are
manifested. From purity springs that extraordinary beauty which permeates
every sphere of men's common life and makes it possible to express in it
simplicity and depth, cordiality and the unrepeatable authenticity of
personal trust. [19]
Growth in Holiness and the Resurrection of the Body
Human person is not destined
just to live in this world alone. When we believe that on one hand we will be
resurrected with him one day we also believe that we will see him face to
face. Thus our union with God in love and the experience of the resurrection
are but one event for which every human person is finally destined. The pope is
of the opinion that our bodies were created not just for a finite purpose of
union with another person but also to share our spiritual union with God
which is the ultimate goal of human existence. In this way the real nuptial
meaning of the body is fulfilled in the marriage Feast of the Lamb. In heaven
we will be in communion with all of the saints and all of us together participate
in the communion of Persons in the Holy Trinity.
Marriage… belongs exclusively to this age…. In the
resurrection they lose, so to speak, their raison d'être…. According
to Christ's words reported by the synoptic Gospels, the resurrection means
not only the recovery of corporeity and the re-establishment of human life in
its integrity by means of the union of the body with the soul, but also a
completely new state of human life itself…. Human bodies, recovered and at
the same time renewed in the resurrection, will keep their masculine or
feminine peculiarity. The sense of being a male or a female in the body will
be constituted and understood in that age in a different way from what it had
been from the beginning, and then in the whole dimension of earthly
existence.[20]
Pope further elaborates the condition of the resurrected body and
fullness of life enjoyed by the human person as a self donation to each
other. Pope affirms that “in that condition, man,
male and female, finds at the same time the fullness of personal donation and
of the inter-subjective communion of persons, thanks to the glorification of
his entire psychosomatic being in the eternal union with God.”[21] This
is the state which we call spiritualization. Spiritualization does not mean
however that spirit will dominate the body but rather it will fully permeate
the body. In other words the resurrection will consist in the perfect
participation of all that is physical in man in what is spiritual in him.
Virginity for the sake of the Kingdom
After analyzing the finality
of the human body, Pope goes on to explain the expression of the human body
in our day today practical living, viz., Religious life and sacrament of the
marriage. If the meaning of life consists in making a gift of self to the
others and thus we are called to live in communion of persons the question
arises; are we not all called to marry? Pope answers the question in the
affirmative but with a derivation wherein he finds the foundations for the
religious celibacy. All are called to marriage, but not necessarily in the
physical sense. Some are called to marriage as we usually understand. Others
are called to be the spouse of Christ or spouse of the church and live a
celibate life for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Pope states,
On the basis of the same
disposition of the personal subject and on the basis of the same nuptial
meaning of the being as a body, male or female, there can be formed the love
that commits man to marriage for the whole duration of his life (cf. Mt
19:3-10). But there can also be formed the love that commits man to a life of
continence for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven (cf. Mt 19:11-12).[22]
Men and women, who live this commitment and
live a celibate life, make themselves a sign to the world that the end goal
of us all is the union with God. They remind us by their lives that we will
all fully participate in this union in heaven. Their gift of self to the
world bears spiritual fruits through the power of the Holy Spirit. Pope
asserts,
It is a charismatic sign. The human
being, male and female, who, in the earthly situation where people usually
marry (Lk 20:34), 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), because God will be "everything
to everyone" (1 Cor 15:28). Such a human being, man and woman, indicates
the eschatological virginity of the risen man. In him there will be revealed,
I would say, the absolute and eternal nuptial meaning of the glorified body
in union with God himself through the "face to face" vision of him,
and glorified also through the union of a perfect inter-subjectivity.[23]
In fact,
while accepting the complementary nature of both marriage and celibacy for
the kingdom pope goes a step forward to say that the nature of both these
gifts is conjugal that is expressed through the total gift of oneself. Both
types of love tend to express that conjugal meaning of the body which from
the beginning has been inscribed in the personal makeup of man and woman. The
conjugal love which finds its expression in continence for the kingdom of
heaven must lead in its normal development to paternity or maternity in a
spiritual in a way analogous to conjugal love, which matures in physical
paternity and maternity, and in this way confirms itself as conjugal love.
For its part, physical procreation also fully responds to its meaning only if
it is completed by paternity and maternity in the spirit, whose expression
and fruit is all the educative work of the parents in regard to the children
born of their conjugal corporeal union.[24]
Continence
for the kingdom of God finds its conjugal expression yet in another way. It
becomes an expression of love by a celibate to its divine Spouse in the total
gift of oneself. In this self giving it acquires the significance of nuptial
love. Although it is externally seen as self renunciation but subjectively
made above all out of love as a self gift of love. Pope says,
It is natural for the
human heart to accept demands, even difficult ones, in the name of love for
an ideal, and above all in the name of love for a person. Therefore in that
call to continence for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, first the disciples
themselves, and then the whole living Tradition of the Church, will soon
discover the love that is referred to Christ himself…has given himself to
them to the very limit, in the Paschal and Eucharistic mystery….In this way,
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. It is a
giving of oneself understood as renunciation, but made above all out of love.[25]
Sacramentality of Marriage
We have already seen that the
fundamental principle of the theology of the body is that the body is
intended for love, to be given in love. The body of a man or a woman does not
make sense in itself. It is only by contemplating the other in the beauty of
sexual differences, one realizes that one is called to be a gift to another.
Sexual differentiation is both the original sign of the gift that each is to
the other and the awareness of the gift as it is lived. Thus self giving love
is the meaning of our existence and it is already there in our sexuality
making the meaning of the body nuptial. The nuptial meaning of the body is
the body’s capacity to express love: that kind of love precisely in which the
person becomes a gift and – by means of this gift – fulfills the very meaning
of his being and existence.[26]
If the nuptial meaning of the
body is the self-gift of each other then complementarity of man and wife is
the first fact of life. In any marriage there can never be and possible any
tinge of dominance or objectification. Using the text of the letter to
Ephesians Pope further clarifies bond and respect of love between husband and
wife as it should be between Christ and the church. Pope write,
Marriage is the most
ancient revelation (manifestation) of the plan in the created world, with the
definitive revelation and manifestation, the revelation that "Christ
loved the Church and gave himself up for her" (Eph 5:25), conferring on
his redemptive love a spousal character and meaning.[27]
Pope further
states,
The analogy used in
Ephesians, illuminating the mystery of the relationship between Christ and
the Church, contemporaneously unveils the essential truth about marriage.
Marriage corresponds to the vocation of Christians only when it reflects the
love which Christ the Bridegroom gives to the Church his Bride, and which the
Church… attempts to return to Christ. This is redeeming love, love as
salvation, the love with which man from eternity has been loved by God in
Christ…. Marriage corresponds to the vocation of Christians as spouses only
if that love is reflected and effected therein.[28]
Together with
the concept of mutual love and respectful submission in experiencing love,
another topic that Pope John Paul II wanted to develop in the theology of the
body was that of the gift of paternity and maternity. In the marital bond of
love man and wife come to know each other as the self gift of love through
the sexual relationship. In this self gift of love the original joyful
exclamation of man “at last this is the bone of my bone…” is further heard
and realized in the event of becoming one flesh. The result of self gift is
the emergence of the third gift: children. The gift of children is a special
gift given to man and wife thereby participating in the divine mystery of the
everlasting love of God. [29]
Marriage act
in its very constitution, says pope, signify two elements: it "unites
husband and wife in the closest intimacy" and together "makes them
capable of generating new life," and both the one and the other happen
"through the fundamental structure. Therefore it is very important for
the human person to read at the same time the "twofold
significance of the marriage act" and also the "inseparable
connection between the unitive significance and the procreative
significance of the marriage act."[30] Here we
are dealing with nothing other than reading the language of the body in
truth.
From this
dual significance of marriage act there arises a great truth: harmony of
human love with respect for human life. It is a great matter of concern on
one hand and a question of parental responsibility. It is evidence that in
these matters the divine law takes precedent over the human predicament.
However, our faith teaches us that it is God alone who makes all things
possible and to the one who believes in Him he is the final answer to all
life’s questions. Pope says,
Now it is true that like
all good things which are outstanding for their nobility and for the benefits
which they confer on men, so this law demands from individual men and women,
from families and from human society a resolute purpose and great endurance.
Indeed it cannot be observed unless God comes to their help with that grace
by which the good will of men is sustained and strengthened. But to those who
consider this matter diligently it will indeed be evident that this endurance
enhances man's dignity and confers benefits on human society"[31]
Conclusion
The original and fundamental
significance of the human body is that it is created as a person and called
to life in communion with each other. Only in the self-gift of each other
this end of the human body could be attained. Marriage and procreation in
itself do not determine definitively the original and fundamental meaning of
being a body or of being, as a body, male and female. Rather Marriage and
procreation merely give a concrete reality to that meaning in the dimensions
of history. The resurrection indicates the end of the historical dimension.
The words, "When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are
given in marriage" (Mk 12:25), express univocally not only the meaning
which the human body will not have in the future world. But they enable us
also to deduce that the nuptial meaning of the body in the resurrection to
the future life will correspond perfectly both to the fact that man, as a
male-female, is a person created in the "image and likeness of
God," and to the fact that this image is realized in the communion of
persons. That nuptial meaning of being a body will be realized, therefore, as
a meaning that is perfectly personal and communitarian at the same time.[32]
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[1] See the Lenten reflections
of the year 2011 of Fr. Reneiro Cantalamessa, a papal preacher on Pope Benedict
XVI’s encyclical Deus Caritas Est.
[2] John Paul II, Theology of the Body, Wednesday Audiences November 14, 1979, no. 3.
[3] Theology of the body, October
10,1979, no. 4.
[4] Theology of the Body,
October 24, 1979, no.1.
[5] Theology of the Body,
October 24, 1979, no.4.
[6] Anasthasia M. Northrop,
Theology of the body in John Paul II, page 12.
[7] Theology of the Body,
January 2, 1980, no.1
[8] Theology of the Body,
January 2, 1980, no.1
[9] Theology of the Body,
January 16, 1980, no.4
[10] Theology of the Body
February 20, 1980, no.4.
[11] Theology of the Body,
January 16, 1980, no. 1.
[12] Theology of the Body,
January 16, 1980, no. 2.
[13] Theology of the Body, June
4, 1980, no. 1.
[14] Theology of the Body, 17
September, 1980, no. 1.
[15] See Theology of the Body,
September 17, 1980, no. 4
[16] Theology of the Body, July
23, 1980, no. 6
[17] Theology of the Body October
29, 1980, no. 4.
[18] Theology of the Body October
29, 1980, no. 6.
[19] See Theology of the Body,
March 18, 1981. No. 3.
[20] Theology of the Body,
December 2, 1981, nos. 1,3,4.
[21] Theology of the Body, March
10, 1982, no.1
[22] Theology of the body, April
28, 1982, no. 6.
[23] Theology of the Body, March
24, 1982, No. 1.
[24] See Theology of the Body,
April 14, 1982, no. 5 and 6.
[25] Theology of the Body, April
28, 1982, no. 1.
[26] See Antony Chundelikkat, Theology of the Body in John Paul II,
Bandra: St. Paul’s Publications, 200,. 76.
[27] Theology of the Body,
September 8, 1982, no. 1.
[28] Theology of the Body, August
18, 1982, no. 2.
[29] See Chundelikkat, 106 . See also Theology of the
Body July 11, 1984, no. 3.
[30] Theology of the Body, July
11, 1984. No.6
[31] Theology of the Body, July
25, 1984. No. 2.
[32] Theology of the Body,
January 13, 1982. No. 4.
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