Theology of the Body and Diocesan Ministry

Life-changing!” That’s how one of my former students described her experience with Pope Saint John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. “After my divorce, I was pretty down and got into some ‘bad habits,’ then I came across the Theology of the Body — it transformed how I was living, and certainly how I approached dating.” She credits this powerful teaching with much of the happiness in her current marriage.

Her experience is not uncommon – another (formerly married) student told me when she first heard about Theology of the Body (TOB), she thought “that can’t be right –– people can’t actually live that way.” She is now open to consecrated life, though still open to marriage. Two other friends have since entered religious orders, prompted in part by what they learned about celibacy when they first heard the TOB.   Each of them reports thinking “that’s it !” when the teaching on celibacy was introduced to them. Still another told me how surprised he was when this catechesis was presented to him –– he was expecting a condemnatory tone, a list of prohibited actions and desires, and was startled to hear such a “positive and uplifting teaching” about human love and sexuality.

What is this revolutionary teaching? In simplest terms, it is a presentation of the Church’s perennial catechesis on the nature of human sexuality, love, marriage, sin and redemption.  Digging a little deeper, it is a development of Church teaching, rooted in a profound vision of human anthropology, and what it means to be in the ‘image and likeness’ of God.

God exists as a communion of persons, eternally united in giving and receiving love between themselves. We ‘image’ God (Who is pure spirit) as male and female persons, who have male and female bodies. Just as God exists as a life-giving ‘union and communion of persons’ (three persons united in one God), men and women are called to union as a life-giving union and communion of husband and wife (two persons united in ‘one-flesh’). The union of husband and wife foreshadows the union we will have with God, and with each other, in the communion of saints, in heaven. The life of consecrated celibacy also foreshadows this union in heaven, as it will be utterly different (and infinitely better) than any form of earthly union.

In my own work in ministry, I have found the Theology of the Body particularly helpful in three areas.

The first is “immediate’ marriage preparation, which is what most people think of when they hear ‘marriage prep;’ it is for couples engaged to be married. TOB helps present them with a vision of human and divine love that most of them — Catholic or not — have never heard, yet find arresting in its beauty. Of course they all want their marriages to work, even if they start off on the wrong foot (most are cohabiting and/or contracepting) — this teaching gives them an ideal to shoot for, and a rationale for abstaining till marriage, for those who are open to it.

“Proximate” marriage prep is for people who are of dating age, whether they are 15 or 55. TOB is especially helpful with younger (under 25) people –– again, most of them have never heard this message. It’s radically different from what the world often tells them (“your worth is determined by your looks, wealth, prestige and/or sexual availability”, “relationships are about what you can get from the other”). Many of them find it a startlingly positive view, and have transformed their dating relationships based on this new (to them) teaching.

The most intriguing to me has been in the area of marriage enrichment. It is not necessary to know the Theology of the Body for a happy marriage, but it is necessary to live it. Many couples live marriages that are less than what they could be, because they’ve never really heard what the Church teaches. It has been surprising to me, and gratifying, to see how many ‘mature married couples’ can still grow deeply in their marriage, and their love for each other, when they understand more fully what Christ and His Church are  calling them to.

Pope Paul VI noted that “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers.” The genius of the TOB is that it draws on universal human experiences and desires; people hearing it become their own witnesses to the truths it states about human fulfillment and happiness, because they have sought these things – they are desires ‘written on the human heart’ – though often without knowing what or why they were seeking, or where to look.

Papal biographer George Weigel has called TOB a “theological time bomb set to go off with dramatic consequences sometime in the third millennium of the Church.” As we enter into this Jubilee Year of Mercy, the Theology of the Body is offered as a much-needed antidote to contemporary utilitarian views of sexuality. May this ‘explosion’ continue to ripple throughout the Church and the world.