Theology of the Body

God, Sex, and the Meaning of Life

Blaise Alleyne

Open in prayer (Option: "The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.' " (Rev 22:17) Come, Lord Jesus, open our minds and our hearts to the "great mystery" hidden in the depths of God from all eternity (see Eph 3:9). Give us the eyes to see an image of this "great mystery" in our creation as male and female and in our call to become "one body" in marital communion (see Gen 2:24). Give us the eyes to see the definitive revelation of this "great mystery" in our redemption as male and female and in our call to become "one body" with you in Eucharistic Communion (see Eph 5:31-32). Plant deep within our breast an abiding hope in the resurrection of our bodies, when all who respond to the wedding invitation (see Mt 22:1-14) will behold you face to face, and know you in the eternal consummation of the "Marriage of the Lamb" (see Rev 19:7). Amen.

Today, I hope you can see with new eyes, as we talk about God, sex, and the meaning of life.

Goals:

Every authentic human desire reveals a longing for God
The body makes visible the invisible
We are made for communion
My goal today with you is to connect the everyday to the eternal

(NEXT: Made for More video)

Four Loves

philia (friendship)

storge (affection)

eros (desire)

agape (selfless)

We use the word "love" in all sorts of different ways.

The Greeks had four words for love -- eros, agape, philia, storge

Which one of these is not part of our childhood experience?
Which one of these is felt most powerfully, most strongly?

If eros isn't a part of our childhood experience, it doesn't need to be a part of our childhood understanding of God. But if eros is felt most strongly... how could we have a mature understanding of God without understanding eros?

FIXME this is about having a mature understanding of the Catholic faith.

CCC, Chapter 1: The Desire for God "The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for."

orienting our desire

according to our design

so we can reach our destiny

Desire

"Our desires are really more important than we know"

Our society looks at the kind of social drama that happens in high school, and dismisses it as something less important. Sure, there's a bad side to the drama that we'd all be better off without. But there's a part of it that is more important than anything. That ache, that longing, is part of the universal human experience.

We long to be accepted and to be loved for who we are. We ask: Do I belong here? Am I accepted for who I am? Can I reveal what I truly feel without regretting it? Without being mocked? Without feeling stupid? Will anybody ever love me for who I am? This feeling of loneliness... is it permanent? Is it everywhere? Is there a place where I can belong as myself? Is there a person with whom I can belong as myself?

And her. I want to be near her. I want to think about her always. If only she would accept me, it wouldn’t really matter what anyone else thinks. But if only she cannot see me, what does it matter what anyone else sees? Will I always feel like this? Will I ever feel this way about anyone else again? How can I love someone else like this again? How could I live with this feeling again? Will I always have to feel this ache? Does anyone else feel this? Does anyone else understand me? Will anyone else ever feel this way about me?

What does this mean?

Pope Benedict said: "every desire that springs up in the human heart echoes a fundamental desire that is never fully satisfied." That is, every authentic human desire is ultimately a desire for God - for the infinite love that satisfies

ache, longing, longing for an infinite, unconditional love - a search for joy

(Next: I tried on happiness)

Design

Jesus answered, "Because of the hardness of your heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so." (Mt 19:8)

Where did we come from?

Note: this isn't a science textbook. Remember, it's poetry

"So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." (Gen 1:27) What does that mean?

Just as individuals? Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; ~~I will make him a helper similar to/fit for him'~~ (Gen 2:18) [original solitude]

"flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones" and the two become one flesh [original unity] — this is human sexuality as God intended it to be, union both physically and spiritually without any sin or brokenness

“Then the man said, 'This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh...' Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.” (Gen 2:23-24) - communion of persons / trinitarian image, sex as God intended it to be...

"And they were naked without shame" (Gen 2:25) [original nakedness] - they truly *saw* each other, not only a look, but they can *see* the other, in a sense, through the eyes of God

THIS is according to St. John Paul II the Imago Dei: communio personarum - self-giving and life-giving love

Remember, the body makes visible the person. If they truly see the other person, through the one flesh union and their sexual complementary, what does the body tell us about the person? What does the body tell us about what it means to be human?

What does your belly button tell you about what it means to be human? We came from somebody else (from our parents' sexual union, actually)

What do your genitals tell you about what it means to be human? (We are meant to be a gift for another person - not an object to be used, but a person, the gift of love)

This is the body: a witness to love as gift

God wants to marry us - this takes on new meaning here! This is what it means to be created in the image of God, as male and female

Can we not just look? But can we see the body with new eyes? Can we see the human person, created male and female, as sexual beings with our sexuality as an image of a Trinitarian God, a God who is a communion of life-giving and self-giving love between persons?

Let's truly see the human body, the human person created in God's image. Where did you come from? What does it mean to be human? Who. Are. You? (Next: YOU)

Destiny

Where are we going?

FIXME these notes are bad and too complex... core point: "I was made by you, I was made for you, and I am unfulfilled without full communion" - the love that truly satisfies... paraphrase JPII Pt1Ch3 beatific vision and the aim of celibacy... communion and the love that satisfies, a fulfillment of our longing and desires...

What matters most to you? At the depths of your heart? After you remove sinful and broken desires? What is that core centre of authentic longing? Would Heaven not be a fulfillment of that?

According to JPII: This is the key to unlocking the whole Bible (5 words - starts with a marriage, ends with a marriage, etc etc), all of the Catholic faith

From beginning to end, the Bible tells the story of a marriage...
It begins with the marriage of creation in Genesis, with the call of the two to become one flesh...
Skip to the end of the story, Revelation describes heaven how? As a wedding. Who gets married? Christ and the Church
Right at the centre you have the Song of Songs, which is what? A book of erotic love poetry
All through the OT, one of the most common analogies is the spousal analogy - God as a lover loging for union with his beloved, the people of God (BXVI describes the "boldly erotic images")
In the NT, the love of the eternal bridgegroom is literally embodied when the Word is made flesh
Christ's ministry starts at a wedding
His call for us to "love one another as I have loved you"
How did Christ love us? Christ desired union with us so strongly, that he gave up his body or his bridge, the Chuch. He laid down His life in order to bring us back into communion with God
The whole purpose of the marriage of man and woman in Genesis is to point us to the marriage of Christ and the Church. The reason we're male and female, the reason we have these yearnings and desires for union, for love, is because we're looking for a union and a love that lasts forever. That union and that love that literally goes on eternally, is called the Marriage of the Lamb in Scripture.

We can summarize the whole Bible in five words: God wants to marry us - this is not some cheesy Fully Alive slogan, but a powerful truth burning with all the fire and all of the aching and longing for communion at the depths of our hearts... He wanted this eternal marital plan to be so plain to us, so obvious, that he stamped an image of it right into our bodies, and in the calling of the two to become one flesh

DOWN OPTION: And this is ultimatley Eucharistic, this is what we mean by the marriage between Christ and the Church... the communion of persons in one flesh is meant to be a SIGN leading us to the communion between Christ and the Church NEXT: Jason Evert Eph 5

The Catholic faith doesn't start with the rules. The rules are a product of understanding the truth about God and the human person. For sexuality, that means sexual morality is about first understanding the truth about God, Sex, and the Meaning of Life

Analogies: athletes, musicians, hockey and the rulebook versus the joy of the game

I wish I knew this in high school (elaborate) - my goal here is to give you the lens, to help you to see the body through the true lens of the Catholic faith - and I'm happy to take quesitons on ANY of the controversial stuff or anything to do with sexual ethics - but the rules flow from reverence and a proper understanding of the body and human sexuality... This is how JPII does moral theology in the TOB.

Recap: lust vs love, look vs see... this is about *reverence* for the gift and sacramet of our bodies and our sexuality, so that we can orient our desires according to our design to reach our heavenly destiny

A desire pointing us towards the infinite... sexual love needs the commitment of forever. This is how we are designed to be. This is *why* the Church says: free, total, faithful, fruitful. We are made for so much more than society is telling us. Our society isn't thinking too much about sex, they aren't thinking about sex enough - we need this full understanding of our human sexuality to even begin to see the profound awesome truth about God, Sex and the Meaning of Life

Every authentic human desire reveals a longing for God
The body makes visible the invisible
We are made for communion
My goal today with you is to connect the everyday to the eternal

This is the message at the heart of the Gospel... we starting with Chapter 1 of the Catechism ("The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will be find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for."). We can see this message also in the first words of Christ in the Gospel of John ("What are you looking for?" John 1:38) (DOWN for CW video)

blaise@blaise.ca

end in prayer, then AMA

Option: "The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.' " (Rev 22:17) Come, Lord Jesus, open our minds and our hearts to the "great mystery" hidden in the depths of God from all eternity (see Eph 3:9). Give us the eyes to see an image of this "great mystery" in our creation as male and female and in our call to become "one body" in marital communion (see Gen 2:24). Give us the eyes to see the definitive revelation of this "great mystery" in our redemption as male and female and in our call to become "one body" with you in Eucharistic Communion (see Eph 5:31-32). Plant deep within our breast an abiding hope in the resurrection of our bodies, when all who respond to the wedding invitation (see Mt 22:1-14) will behold you face to face, and know you in the eternal consummation of the "Marriage of the Lamb" (see Rev 19:7). Amen.