This lecture has opened me up to a whole new understanding of marriage. I mean I had heard similar teachings in undergraduate studies through some really awesome professors, but it’s nice knowing a source text for these teachings, since I was attempting to teache these things to my church when i was a baptist pastor and was really lacking in primary sources. My girlfriend and I have talked extensively about the Theology of the Body as I have been reading it, and it’s been a wonderful experience.
In any case, blogging about this lecture has been both eye opening and revelatory, yet comforting and familiar. The concepts are not new to me, so much as they are being properly articulated now. Working through the Christopher West article was a lot of fun, and drawing certain preliminary conclusions was certainly worthwhile. To reiterate, I don’t agree with everything West has said, nor do i endorse him as a final authoritative source. However, I do think he accurately conveys what the Holy Father is trying to say for the most part. Michael Waldstein who translated the work into a new English translation, and whom I have personally met and sat in class with, endorses West’s interpretative work here.
Waldstein, who is an amazing man of considerable talent offers some interesting and penetrating insight into West’s work, and asks us to focus on larger issues of the Theology of the Body. I am partial to West for as many reasons as I am considering his work one voice among many. I certainly do not think he is a final authoritative voice, but he’s a good primer and his work won’t lead converts or cradle Catholics wrong. I think his reading is very “democratic” as Alice Von Hildebrand put it, but this I found to be acceptable rather than to be decried. Also, given that this post is not about the West article anymore, and that I’ve reiterated my point, let’s move along.
Reading the actual lecture itself was highly rewarding, and I am at a loss for words to express how liberating this exercise in reading the Holy Father is. Just a few final personal thoughts on the matter of the lecture “On the Unity and Indisollubility of Marriage” will here follow. Notice that already we have seen Pope John Paul establish matrimony and the teachings of Jesus on Genesis as normative for the rest of the lectures. We can see why ‘Male and Female He Created Them‘ is a valid title for the series.
This vision of the political power of embodiment and the prophetic nature of human sexuality is astounding, refreshing and vivid. It’s only been the first article and a preliminary survey, but it’s been a moving experience for me. If there is anything to be said about the TOB it is this: It is fundamentally challenging in its simplicity. It is simple, precise and yet profound. It teaches nothing new, so much as theologically establishes and develops ancient anti-gnostic and pro-Christian views of the body and its dignity.
I have to agree with Alice Von Hildebrand that the Theology of the Body is nothing new, so much as it is a development of the ancient affirmations of the Church. It is fundamentally apostolic. Its voice speaks as one with the teachings of the early church fathers, and many of the writings of St. Paul and Jesus Our Lord Himself.
Blogging about the Theology of the Body has made me, in my opinion, a more humble future spouse to my girlfriend, and far more appreciative of everything about her, most especially the sanctity of our togetherness. I had a vision and understanding of this, but it seems that the more I read the writing of the Holy Father, the more sense it makes, the more flesh it takes on, the more glory-bearing and vocationally active I see not only this relationship, but my own body. I am indeed seeing how the divine mystery of our vocation is inherently tied into the paschal mystery and every other mystery.
Life itself finds fulfillment in the sacraments and the way they lead us on into God Himself. I have already begun to learn to see my body as spoken for and that has been one of the most rewarding changes that has begun to happen. I appreciate my girlfriend and the already-not-yet claims she has on me through our intentionality towards marriage. I feel that I have come to see our relationship as a pre-marriage in all the right ways.
The Theology of the Body has made it so that, even in these brief readings the vocational nature of bodies has begun to take on new form in my thought life and imagination. I have always appreciated her, from day one, and yet, I feel that even though I felt I gave my all before, I have since working through the Theology of the Body since mid August of 2010 come to give even more.
I see myself doing more than I thought possible, and yet, it is easy. I see this as a charism, a gift, and a grace to me. I see the calling that I have to give to her, to be for her as light and easy and full of value and worth. I won’t speak for her, but I recognize a deeper sense of the vocation of marriage. I thought I knew what it would entail, and I do, but there’s a deeper dimension that has come out from reading the Theology of the Body. Reading this lecture has affirmed the Church’s teachings in a way that is wonderfully easy to bear, and yet dramatically challenging in all the right ways.
I guess all I have to really say that I have not yet said is the ineffable gratitude I feel for Pope John Paul II only grows as I read and reread the lecture. It is simple, foundational, basic, yet in this it is profound, and challenges everything in late modern society and especially its view of the body. That the body should have a dignity at all is fundamentally revolutionary to this culture. It is not a matter of revolution in the Church, it’s a matter of revolutionizing society.
All in all, thanks for reading, and make sure to subscribe to the blog and leave comments as you see fit. Any readership and dialogue is helpful along the way. -Eli
A Journey with the Holy Father 