Introduction to the Theology of the Body

Transcription

1 Introduction to the Theology of the Body Kino Institute CC109 Diocese of Phoenix 29 October 2013 WEEK FIVE Bl. Pope John Paul II s Catechesis on Human Love Mary said, Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word. Luke 1:38 Memorare Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen. The Annunciation, 1898 Henry Ossawa Tanner 1

2 OUTLINE 6:30 Prayer 6:40 Quizzes 7:00 The Sign of the Body 7:10 The Marian Dimension 8:00 BREAK 8:15 The States of Life 8:30 Ephesians 5 9:00 Evaluations 9:15 Questions? Do whatever He tells you. Week ONE: History & Foundations WHY DID HE WRITE THIS? Week TWO: Encountering Love HOW IS LOVE REVEALED TO US? 1-4 Week THREE: Redemption of the Heart HOW DO WE GROW IN LOVE? 5-7 Weeks FOUR & FIVE Beauty of Love: Splendor of the Body WHERE IS GOD LEADING US?

3 The Sign of the Body: Part I (Casti Connubii, Humanae Vitae) The Sign of the Body: Part II The Vocation to Love in the States of Life The Sexual Difference Masculine + Feminine 3

4 The Marian-Feminine Dimension The Church sees in Mary the highest expression of the feminine genius and she finds in her a source of constant inspiration.. Bl. John Paul II s Letter to Women June 1995 If you want to kill a person, aim at his heart. If you want to destroy marriage, the family, the Church, and society in general, wage war on femininity. The ravages that feminism has caused can be explained only by the fact that once women are unfaithful and betray their mission, the whole of society is shaken to its very roots. Alice von Hildebrand Man and Woman: A Divine Invention (2010) Letter on the Collaboration between Men and Women passivity = passion, suffering, to bear, to carry a burden Welcoming (receptivity, interiority, perception) Listening (attentiveness, silence, contemplation) Waiting (patience, perseverance) Praise (gratitude, glorifying) Humility Faithfulness The Marian-Feminine Dimension Mary is totally dependent on God and completely directed towards him, and at the side of her Son, she is the most perfect image of freedom and of the liberation of humanity and of the universe. Bl. John Paul II Redemptoris Mater, March 1987 Mary is the model of the Christian life. Pope Benedict XVI Angelus, 3 October 2010 Mary s fiat - not a cute little Italian car but Latin for let it be done - changed the course of salvation history. We have the renewed possibility of eternal life because Mary said yes! to God s plan for her life. Her fiat is the beginning of every fiat given to God, and every fiat given to God is enriched by hers. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 4

5 The Marian-Feminine Dimension DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Think about Mary s receptivity - her openness - and perfect obedience to the Lord. She reveals the complete and fulfilling freedom that is possible when we hear and respond to God s will. Are we as receptive to the Lord as Mary is? What holds us back? What prevents us from hearing the Lord? What stands in our way of giving everything, our *whole* selves, to the Lord in the way that Mary does? (Why) do we fear Him taking away our freedom? 1. Mary s total self-gift is an example for both women and men. How? Why? 2. What do Mary s words at Cana They have no wine (to Jesus), and Do whatever He tells you (to the servants) reveal to us about her? About her relationship with Jesus? 3. Mary shows the greatness and beauty of God s project for each human being: to become holy and immaculate in love, in the image of our Creator (BXVI, 8 December 2007). Discuss the meaning and significance of the Blessed Mother s purity amidst today s unchaste, hyper-sexualized (i.e. pornified) culture. Mary said, Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word. Luke 1:38 Love has the inner form of a vow. Hans Urs von Balthasar The Christian State of Life Audience, 14 November 1979 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. [ ] Furthermore, the communion of persons could be formed only on the basis of a double solitude of man and of woman, that is, as their meeting in their distinction from the world of living beings (animalia), which gave them both the possibility of being and existing in a special reciprocity. The concept of help also expresses this reciprocity in existence, which no other living being could have ensured. All that constituted the foundation of the solitude of each of them was indispensable for this reciprocity. Self-knowledge and self-determination, that is, subjectivity and consciousness of the meaning of one's own body, was also indispensable. 5

6 Love has the inner form of a vow. Hans Urs von Balthasar The Christian State of Life Familiaris Consortio 11 ~ Catechesis (Pt.I, Ch.3, No.2) God created man in His own image and likeness: calling him to existence through love, He called him at the same time for love. God is love and in Himself He lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in His own image and continually keeping it in being, God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion. Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. As an incarnate spirit, that is a soul which expresses itself in a body and a body informed by an immortal spirit, man is called to love in his unified totality. Love includes the human body, and the body is made a sharer in spiritual love. Christian revelation recognizes two specific ways of realizing the vocation of the human person to love: marriage and virginity or celibacy. Either one is an actuation of the most profound truth of man, of his being created in the image of God. RSV 21: Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22: Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. Ephesians 5:21-33 Part II: The Sacrament 28 July : For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24: As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. *the language of the body hupotassō ὑποτάσσω subject subordinate submissive NAB 21: Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22: Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. 23: For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the church, he himself the savior of the body. 24: As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything. kephalē κεφαλή sustainer source 6

7 Final Essay Suffering has a special capacity to reveal love. Evaluations And I saw the river over which every soul must pass to reach the Kingdom of Heaven and the name of that river was suffering; and I saw the boat which carries souls across the river, and the name of the boat is love. St. John of the Cross 7

8 QUESTIONS? Veritatis Splendor 48 [ ] The person, including the body, is completely entrusted to himself, and it is in the unity of body and soul that the person is the subject of his own moral acts. [ ] And since the human person cannot be reduced to a freedom which is self-designing, but entails a particular spiritual and bodily structure, the primordial moral requirement of loving and respecting the person as an end and never as a mere means 8