Okay! This is — Okay, I'm super-pumped and what's the word? Caffeinated?
I'm not sure. Excited? I've been trying to make this video about the Theology of the Body and I've done it a thousand times now.
A thousand is an exaggeration but as I said, I'm amplified right now. I'm gonna try it one more time. Hopefully, it's a swing and a hit.
Maybe a base hit. Maybe . .
. second? Maybe third?
Maybe . . .
Maybe I'll make it all the way around the bases. Who knows? I'm trying.
Here we go. Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents. So people have asked often times like, "Could you just explain what the Theology of the Body is?
Like do a video on that. " And I said, "I can try. " Listen.
It is beautiful, complex, and massive. And so, I'm gonna have to like distill it to here are the elements of the Theology of the Body that I think can capture but not express fully what the what they call TOB: Theology of the Body is. Okay, so here are some of the main principles of Theology of Body.
Actually, the first thing we have to do is probably understand you say these terms, you say these words, like "Theology of the Body," what are you talking about? The Theology of the Body is a term given to these teachings of St. John Paul the Great that date back from, I think, 1979 to 1985, for about five years in there, right, he was giving these Wednesday audiences, which popes are known to do, for those five years, he gave about a hundred and thirty-five of these Wednesday audiences that have been collected and assembled and put together.
Now they represent John Paul II's thought regarding relationship with God, relationship with others, and the relationship, that unity we originally had, but we've lost and that Lord Jesus wants to restore, Basically, John Paul II was looking at this world around us and saying, Ah, there's so much brokenness, there's so much hunger for the Lord and he's already come and he's given us himself but we don't even understand our selves. So we need to have what they call an adequate anthropology, right? We don't even understand what I am as a human being so we need to have an adequate understanding of what a human being is.
An adequate anthropology. And also an adequate theology: understanding of who God is. And an adequate soteriology: understanding of how God saves us, but that's beside the point.
Anyways, so what are the main points of the Theology of the Body . . .
according to Father Mike? One is that God made this world and you on purpose and out of love. Two things that means at least: One is that he made this world on purpose.
That means it's not an accident. This world has meaning and you are not an accident, your life has inherent meaning. Number two, out of love, right?
So it wasn't like God was existing before everything and going like, "I'm lonely. I need someone to worship me" or "Oh, I need some affirmation. I'll create the world.
" No, no, no. God is completely content and full in his goodness and his joy and his love. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — this communion of persons and he willed to share that joy, willed to create creatures with whom he could share that love.
And so, God made this world and you on purpose and out of love. Number two, God made humanity in his image and likeness. And originally with this unity in a right relationship with him, with others, and with ourselves.
Number three, God made human beings in what they call a body-soul composite. What I mean by that is you are your soul and you are your body together. That's what a human being is.
Body-soul composite. Now that goes directly against some modern strains of thoughts or just recent, our culture says either you're an atheist materialist; you're just a collection of atoms, just a collection of cells. That's all you are, no more than that.
You just simply are a part of the universe, nothing supernatural about it. You're just stuff. Another worldview, would say that actually, that stuff, that's not really you.
The real you is your mind, is your psyche, is your soul. The real you has nothing to do with the body. The real you is the mind, is your spirit.
Both of those are partly true. The Christian view is no, you are your spirit — your soul, and you are your body together. That's what a human being is.
So another way to say it is, point three, you are your body. Number one, God made you and this universe, this whole world, on purpose and out of love. Number two, God made humanity in his image and likeness and originally with this unity with him, with others, and with ourselves.
Number three, is that you are your body. Now, if you are made on purpose and this world has meaning and if you made in God's image and likeness and if you are your body, then point four is, what you do with your body matters. John Paul II, he said this.
He said, "The body and it alone has the ability to make visible the invisible, the spiritual and the divine," right? So the body, it alone, can express what's invisible. What's invisible?
Your soul. What's invisible? Your spirit.
What's invisible? Your psyche. The body can express that and so what I do in my body matters.
Because point five — this is amazing, this blows my mind. Jesus reveals the innermost secret of God. The innermost secret is that God is an eternal exchange of love: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, right?
He's a communion of persons. At the very core, the very heart of who God is, his innermost secret is that he is love. Go back to point two: who is made in God's image and likeness?
You are. What does that mean about you if God's deepest innermost secret is he's love and you're made in God's image means you're made for love. On purpose, in his image and likeness, in your body, what you do with your body matters, God is love, therefore, your deepest identity would be to love and what are we called to do?
We can only love truly or falsely. Basically our body has a language. In that language, we'll either tell truth with or we'll tell lies with.
In how we interact with other people, we'll either love them truly, honestly, genuinely or we'll be tempted to use them and actually act on that temptation to use them. You know whenever I'm using another person, whenever anyone's using another person, it could be in a thousand different ways, right? It's almost always a lie.
So it's always a lie. I'm telling a lie with my body, whether that's with my mouth part of my body, my eyes part of my body my body part of my body but it's always connected to telling a lie with my body. So again, let's recap.
Universe, you — on purpose and out of love. Image and likeness, originally having this unity with God, with others, and with ourselves. Number three, you are your body.
Number four, what you do with your body matters, if you are your body. Number five, God is love, therefore you also, your deepest identity is you're made for love. Point six is that Jesus came to restore the brokenness that happened with the fall, that brokenness we all experience which is we experience a brokenness in our relationship with God even though we're made for that originally, it was lost, it was broken with God, with others, and even in ourselves.
Jesus Christ came to restore that and he did it in many, many ways but in least two ways: one, he showed us that, okay, in and through his body, what did he do on the cross? His body is telling the truth, "This is my body for you. " I'm offering this up to the Father.
I'm doing this for you, this self gift. Self gift, not possessiveness but this desire to be a self gift. And secondly, by giving us his Holy Spirit, he made it possible that we could actually live in the way that he lived.
On our own, we can't, right? On her own, without grace, it's just like white-knuckling this whole thing. I mean like, "I don't know if I can hang on any longer!
" But Jesus Christ not only was the model, he made it possible to open the doors to heaven but he also gave us his Holy Spirit that is giving us the the fuel to move forward. And to what Christopher West says, he talks about Theology of the Body all the time is so good. He's so good at it.
"To untwist what's been twisted by sin. " So Jesus and the Holy Spirit, what do they do? They restore that relationship with God.
They can heal that relationship with other people and they can even restore, to a certain degree in this life, this inner integrity that we're made to have. And when we walk with Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, our relationship with the Father is reestablished, our relation with others is healed, and the relationship with ourself is brought into order. This is some of the great news about the Theology of the Body.
And then you translate that and apply it to relationships and you translate it and apply it to your prayer life and you translate it and apply it to how you just get up and go to work every day or how you exercise or how you drive — anywhere or how you look at other people, how you talk to other people, how you suffer in your body. If you are your body and what you do with your body matters, then you suffer like Jesus suffered, then, wow, that has power to it now. See, the Theology of the Body can be applied in so many different ways but I think we have to again understand some of those first tenants, first principles.
What are they again? One, God made this universe and you on purpose and out of love. Number two, you are made in God's image and likeness, which we learned is love and so that means you're made for love, originally with that unity with him, others, and ourselves.
Number three, you are your body. Number four, if you are your body, what you do the body matters. Number five, Jesus reveals that God is love.
Number six, Jesus restores, makes it possible for us to have that relationship with him, with others, and that inner unity once again, as long as we walk with him. We can't be perfectly healed in this life, but, in this life, there is so much gift of God's grace that we can begin walking and continue to walk every single day with the Theology of the Body, which means to walk every single day, as human beings, redeemed by God's grace. From all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name's Father Mike.
God bless.
