Theology of the Body

1
Theology of the Body

• The Family and the Blessed Trinity
• Fr. Edward J. Richard, MS

2
Law and Morality

• If we compare the current trend in law with the
  traditional relationship between law and
  morality, the result of the interest in legal
  theory in social engineering has been a
  diminishment of familial cohesion and a
  reformulation of the notion of freedom, once seen
  as an inalienable right, to a radical idea
  unrelated to the human person as such

3
Evangelization

• Marriage preparation involves a process of
  evangelization which is both a
• maturation and
• deepening in the faith.
• If the faith is weak or almost nonexistent (cf.
  Familiaris Consortio FC 68), it must be
  revived.
• Thorough, patient instruction that arouses and
  nourishes the ardor of a living faith cannot be
  excluded.

4
Evangelization

• A "journey of faith,
• similar to the catechumenate"
• presentation of the fundamental Christian truths
• Marriage preparation
• a new evangelization for the future families.

5
Introduction

• Begins in December of 1980
• New Creation
• The inner man is the subject of the ethos of the
  body
• The historical man
• Man of concupiscence

6
The Ethos of Redemption

• Redemption informs the meaning of marriage even
  as one reads the Genesis texts
• What is at stake is the hope of everyday
• Incarnation, Redemption, Resurrection inform the
  definition of goods for married life today
• Redemption of the body-Romans 823
• The fulfillment of the spousal meaning of the body

7
In the Beginning

• Jesus encounter with the Pharisees Mt 193
• Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?
• Moses allowed divorce out of the hardness of your
  hearts
• It was not so in the Beginning.
• Contrasts
• the state of primitive innocence-integral nature
• with the state of human sinfulness-fallen nature

8
CommentaryGen 126-31

• Gods intention-to make man adam in his image
  and likeness
• The Creator seems to halt before calling him
  into existence, as if he were pondering within
  himself to make a decision Let us make man in
  our image, after our likeness
• The body-as image

9
Image-Royal Representative

• Selem-The Image in Exodus
• Gods intention in creating adam
• personal address
• The Sabbath
• unique and self-conscious
• self-determination

10
Original Innocence and Experiences

• Original Solitude
• Original Unity
• Original Nakedness
• These do not belong only to mans theological
  prehistory they are always at the root of every
  human experience.
• They are part of the revelation of the body

11
Original Solitude

• Gen 218
• It is not good that man should be alone I will
  make him a helper fit for him
• This is the second account of creation, Yahwist,
  creation of first man is different from the first
  woman
• The creation of the first man adam is defined
  as male is only after the creation of the
  first woman issah
• When Gods speaks, then, about the solitude it is
  reference to solitude of man as such, not just
  about the male

12
Original Solitude

• Man discovers his uniqueness
• A consciousness of himself through his body
• Solitude has two meanings
• One deriving from human nature as such
• It is a search about what it means to be human
  in search of his own identity
• One deriving from the relationship between male
  and female

13
Original Solitude

• But he is alone-distinguished from the animalia
  (other living beings)-he is different
• Consciousness of the body
• Man is a subject
• Because of awareness
• Because of his own body
• Because of his authorship of human activity
• Because the human body expresses a person

14
Original Solitude

• The human body-he is a body among bodies
• Man, thus formed, has a consciousness and
  awareness of the meaning of his own body, on the
  basis of the experience of original solitude.
  (TB, 39)

15
Original Solitude

• The alternative between death and immortality (if
  you eat of the tree, you shall die)
• Establishes the eschatological meaning of the
  body and humanity itself
• Distinct from other living beings
• Has a unique relationship, covenant with God
• These words reveal a dimension of solitude
  previously unknown

16
Original Unity - Gn 221-24

• It is not good that man should be alone I will
  make a helper similar to himself v. 18
• creation of woman
• He falls asleep in order to wake up male and
  female
• In Gen 223 we see the distinction between is
  and issah for the first time

17
Original Unity - Gn 221-24

• The original experience of Unity is founded on
  the mutual reciprocity between the two
• Distinction between male and female, both in
  solitude
• Sexual difference, yet somatic sameness
• Oriented toward a communion of persons

18
Original Unity

• The human person loves and expresses love in and
  through the body
• The creation of the woman
• Overcomes the frontier of solitude
• This, at last, is flesh of my flesh and bone of
  my bone
• Creation of woman fulfills the creation of the
  human person

19
Original Unity - Gn 221-24

• Gift
• mutual gift-Gn 224 A man shall leave his father
  and mother and the two become one flesh
• leads to communion of persons
• in every aspect of life
• through a total, reciprocal gift
• communion is foremost in image
• gift of God

20
Original Unity

• The distinction between male (is) and female
  (issah) introduced
• As embodied persons, their masculinity and
  femininity allow for unity of persons
• The reality of sex appears

21
Original Unity

• The two discover the immense joy of loving union
  expressed through their bodies
• Unity comes through reciprocal donation
• Through intellect and will they have dominion
  over their bodies allowing for the expression of
  authentic love

22
Original Unity

• The two ways of being human turn out to be
  oriented toward a communion of persons

23
Original Unity

• God did indeed create the human body to express
  the person. Therefore, God gave the minds and
  wills of our first parents a certain control over
  their bodies. They were able to express their
  persons in through their bodies because their
  bodies, unlike ours, were under the rule of their
  minds and wills. Consciousness, efficacy,
  freedom, transcendence, and truth were expressed
  in and through their bodies. In other words,
  they were integrated. The wills of our first
  parents did not have to struggle against the
  desires of their flesh. Our first parents had no
  need of will power as we do. The experience of
  original unity was possible for our first parents
  because both, within themselves, were completely
  in harmony. There was no opposition, as there is
  in us, between the mind and the will, on the one
  hand, and the body, on the other. Hogan,
  Covenant of Love, 48.

24
Original Unity

• The concept of gift
• The key to sexuality
• A total gift of self in a reciprocal relationship

25
Original Unity

• The summit of the creation account
• A communion of persons, husband/wife
• In every aspect of life
• Through total, reciprocal self-gift
• Communion of persons image the limitless
  communion of the divine Persons

26
Original Unity

• Gen 224 One flesh
• This is why a man leaves his father and mother
  and the two become one flesh
• Muliple dimensions
• Ethical-marriage, one and indissoluble
• Sacramental-St. Paul (Eph) and the prophets
• Incarnate communion of persons
• Emotional-Happiness in communion

27
Original Nakedness

• Gen 225
• Both of were nakedbut they felt no shame in
  front of each other
• The point of departure for the experience of
  historical man is the state of original
  innocence
• By reference to the beginning Christ
  establishes the idea of continuity and connection
  between the two

28
Original Nakedness

• The fundamental message
• Authentic gift of self the experience of joy and
  innocence
• They are free with regard to themselves
• The absence of shame is not a lack of
  insufficient development.
• There is rather a particular fullness of
  consciousness and experience

29
Original Nakedness

• The gift of self
• The reciprocal experience of the other
• The absence of shame underlines the peace and
  tranquility of the interior gaze mutually
  bestowed
• Their serenity shows their interior harmony with
  Creators plan by their union
• Gift emphasizes the quality of the relationship

30
Original Nakedness

• They are free with regard to themselves
• Their interior harmony manifests their freedom to
  give themselves
• To do this they must be masters of themselves
• They are free and can give without falling prey
  to self-seeking
• With no presence of shame, they are fully
  conscious of the meaning of the body that comes
  from the typical perception of the senses.

31
Remember this? Freedom and Morality

• Human Being

Virtues
The Goal of Human Life
32
Freedom The ability to choose the Good

• Human freedom is the God-given ability to choose
  the means to our ultimate end
• The End (telos) presupposes a nature
• Morality is about the means toward fulfillment of
  our nature

33
Original Nakedness
Human Nature (image of God)
Freedom
Gift of Self
34
The Hidden Meaning of Vision

• God saw everything that he had made and indeed
  it was very good. 131
• Nakedness signifies the original good of the
  divine vision.
• It has an inner dimension of the share in the
  vision of the Creator himself.
• They realize the full meaning of the body from
  the heart of their communion

35
A Spousal Meaning of the Body

• The vision yields the truth about the body
• Man appears in Creation as one who, in the midst
  of the world, has received the other as a gift
• Being-gift
• Reciprocal total self-gift
• A person is a being who gives himself/herself
• The origin of the definition of person is the
  Creators gift

36
Spousal Meaning of the Body

• Conjugal Significance of the Body
• Not content with original solitude
• Open to communion
• Total gift of self is gateway to communion

37
Summary of Original Meaning of Sexuality

• Conjugal significance of the body
• Body has a nuptial meaning
• man comes into being with consciousness of
  this finality of his own masculinity-femininity
• Aware of his procreative capacity as male and
  female, they are free from the constraint of the
  body and sex

38
Summary of Original Meaning of Sexuality

• The nature of Freedom
• Freedom is the fundamental characteristic of a
  person that makes possible the truth of the gift
• It makes the language of the body true
• Our freedom is our capacity for giving

39
The Fall

• In Light of the Sermon on the Mount
• Matt. 527-28 Whoever looks to Desire

40
The Fall

• The Sermon on the Mount
• You have heard it said, you shall not commit
  adultery, I say to you that anyone who looks with
  desire at a woman has already committed
  adultery with her in his heart.

41
Sermon on the Mount

• Mt 517 Do not think that I have come to abolish
  the Law or the Prophets I have not come to
  abolish but to fulfill
• The appeal is to the inner man.
• Desire refers to something born immediately in
  the heart Mt 527-28
• We are directed to the threefold structure of
  concupiscence

42
The Fall

• 1Jn 216-17
• For all that is in the world, the concupiscence
  of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes and
  the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is
  of the world. And the world passes away, and the
  concupiscence of it, but he who does the will of
  God abides forever.

43
The Fall

• Gen 3
• The woman saw that the tree was good for food,
  and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and
  desirable for gaining wisdom(5)
• Then the eyes of both of them were opened and
  they realized that they were naked. So they
  sewed fig leaves together to make themselves loin
  cloths. (7)
• Where are you? I heard you in the garden and I
  was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid
  myself. (9-10)

44
The Fall

• The Fruit of the Breach of the
  Covenant-Concupiscence
• The covenant was broken in the heart
• Concupiscence comes from the world

45
The Fall

• It comes from doubt about the original gift
• 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 35), 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. (111)

46
The Fall

• Nakedness and shame are new to the consciousness
• Gen 310
• I was naked and I hid myself
• The need to hide shows the depth of shame they
  feel before each other
• A sense of fear of God has matured which was
  previously unknown
• Nakedness reveals that they are deprived of
  participation in the Gift.

47
The Destruction of Unity

• In Original Innocence nakedness represented
  acceptance of the body
• First sign of presence of Man in the world
• Confirmed as a person
• Faithful witness and verification of solitude in
  the world
• Transparent component of self-giving, masculine
  and feminine
• Unquestionable sign of the image of God

48
I Hid Myself

• Loss of the original certainty of the image of
  God expressed in the body
• Loss of the right to participate in the divine
  vision of the world and the joy that came from
  living the truth about the body
• The body has ceased drawing power on the power of
  the spirit which raised him to the level of Image
  of God
• Now humiliation is mediated by the body

49
The Fall

• Body contains a center of resistance
• A breakdown of spiritual and somatic unity
• Body is no longer subordinated to the spirit
• Concupiscence is a specific threat to the
  structure of self-mastery
• He is ashamed of his body owing to the state of
  his spirit, not so much of his body, but
  precisely because of concupiscence.

50
The Fall

• Domination in interpersonal relations
• Concupiscence causes a distortion
• The simplicity and purity of the original
  experience disappear
• The capacity of full and mutual communion ends
• The heart holds within itself desire and shame

51
The Fall

• They find themselves divided, even opposed
• Gen 316 Your desire shall be for your husband
  and he shall rule over you
• They are still called to union and unity, but are
  also threatened by the insatiability of that
  union and unity. It does not cease to attract
  man and woman precisely because they are persons
  called from eternity to exist in communion.
• Sexual shame is connected to the failure to
  satisfy the aspiration to realize in the conjugal
  union of the body the mutual communion of persons.

52
Corruption of Bodys Spousal Meaning

• Domination-Communion of persons is replaced by
  mutual relationship of possession of the other as
  object of desire
• In the heart, masc. and fem. mutual relations are
  no longer the expression of the spirit that seeks
  personal communion
• Spousal meaning is not suffocated but habitually
  threatened

53
Contrast

• Gen 316
• Your desire shall be for your husband, but he
  will dominate you

• Matt 527-28
• Whoever looks at a woman to desire hermakes her
  into an adulteress in his heart

The man ought to have been from the beginning
the guardian of the reciprocity of the gift and
of its true balance.
54
The Look is the Threshold

• Christ teaches us to see the look as the
  threshold of the interior truth.
• When one looks to desire he experiences the
  detachment from the spousal meaning of the body
  which is the basis of the communion of persons
• Looking to desire devalues the body the
  procreative meaning, rooted in the spousal
  meaning, ceases, also.
• In the heart, the authentic meaning of the body
  proper to the person is obscured.

55
Communio personarum (community of persons)

• The form of the new man can emerge from this way
  of being and acting, to the extent to which the
  ethos of the redemption of the body dominates the
  lust of the flesh and the whole man of temperance
  and mastery of desires, that is, at the very
  root, already in the purely interior sphere. The
  ethos of redemption contains in every areaand
  directly in the sphere of the lust of the
  fleshthe imperative of self-control, the
  necessity of immediate continence and habitual
  temperance.

56
Pius XI Casti Connubi 1931

• This mutual inward molding of husband and wife,
  this determined effort to perfect each other, can
  in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism
  teaches, be said to be the chief reason and
  purpose of matrimony, provided matrimony be
  looked at not in the restricted sense as
  instituted for the proper conception and
  education of children, but more widely as the
  blending of life as a whole and the mutual
  interchange and sharing thereof.