Week 1 - What is Theology of the Body?

Week 1
What is Theology of the Body?

The body, in fact, and it alone is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world, the mystery hidden since time immemorial in God, and thus to be a sign of it.
John Paul II Feb. 20, 1980

"Brace yourself! If we take in what the Holy Father is saying in his Theology of the Body, we will never view ourselves, view others, view the Church, the Sacraments, grace, God, heaven, marriage, the celibate vocation…we will never view the world the same way again."
Christopher West

What is TOB?

1. Pope John Paul II’s explanation for the real meaning of love, sex, and God’s plan for human relationships

2. TOB is the working title of 129 short talks

3. This was the first major teaching of his pontificate…hmmm…interesting :)

4. It is a biblical reflection on the meaning of the body, sexual desire, and love

5. In a nutshell: the physical human body has a specific meaning and is capable of revealing answers regarding fundamental questions about us and our lives:

• What is the meaning of life?
• Is there a real purpose to life and if so, what is it?
• Why were we created male and female? Does it really matter?
• Why did God give us desires for love?
• What is the purpose of the married and celibate vocations?
• What exactly is "Love"?
• What does chastity really mean and is it truly possible to be pure of heart?
• What is God’s plan for my life?

6. Over the course of these next couple of months you will discover the beauty and purpose of your sexuality and why it is a major part of our ability to love.

7. Despite what you may have heard, the Catholic Church teaches and believes that human sexuality is good, beautiful, and really important. The Church teaches that our sexuality points us to heaven!

8. In TOB you will learn what Jesus’ love on the cross and sexual love have in common

9. You will learn about how to get to heaven and have a taste of it on earth, how to love as God calls, and that we will be set free by living God’s plan for our lives

When we see the truth about our bodies and the truth about sex, we change our lives not as a result of persuasion, guilt, fear of pregnancy or disease, or because we have to, but because God’s view of love is everything the human heart longs for.

Jason Evert

Why is the Body a “Theology?”
1. What is the MOST IMPORTANT question you could ask yourself? Answer: What is the meaning of life?

2. God has given us profound clue, stamped in our very bodies.

3. Many people grow up thinking that spirit = good, body = bad. This is sooo wrong!

4. JP II says that God created the physical body as a “sign” of his own divine mystery!

5. The word theology means a “study of God”

6. Theology of the Body is a “study of God” through the body!

The Body and the Spiritual Battle
1. How many slang terms can you come up with to describe your elbow?

2. Now, how many slang terms can you come up with to describe those things that make you different from the person of the opposite sex?

3. If God created the body and sexual union to proclaim his own eternal mystery of love, why don’t we typically see them in this profound way?

4. Ponder this for a moment: If the body and sex are meant to proclaim our union with God, and if there’s an enemy who wants to separate us form God, what do you think he’s going to attack?

5. If we want to know what is most sacred in the world, all we need to do is look for what is most profaned.

6. It is not that society’s answer to sex and our bodies reveals too much, it is that it doesn’t reveal enough!

7. Past generations took the repressive view of sex - saying it was "bad."

8. The present generation takes the indulgent view of sex - saying "do it whenever, wherever.

9. These are both wrong! We need a fresh, bold, approach that reveals the beauty in God’s plan for sexuality and the joy in living it!

10. To understand sex and all that encompasses it, we must look at it with a REDEMPTIVE view! yesssssssss……….…!

The Bible: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told
1. What are some of the analogies or parables that the Bible uses to express God’s love for us?

2. From beginning to end, the Bible itself is a story about marriage. How?

3. It begins with the Book of Genesis and the marriage of Adam and Eve

4. It ends in the Book of Revelation with the “wedding of the Lamb” – which is the marriage of Christ and the Church

5. Throughout the Old Testament, God’s love for his people is described as the love of a husband for his bride. Hosea: “I have betrothed myself to you forever…”

6. Read the Song of Songs…juicy stuff!!

7. Using these books of the Bible as two bookends to interpret everything else that’s in between, what is God’s ultimate plan? To marry us!

8. How did God reveal this eternal plan to us in a way that we couldn’t miss? In our bodies!

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You Decide:
In whose vision of life do you think true happiness is found?

Wheezer, from the song “Tired of Sex”
“I’m tired, so tired. I’m tired of having sex. So tired. I’m spread so thin. I don’t know who I am. Monday night I’m makin’ Jen. Tuesday night I’m makin’ Lyn. Wednesday night I’m makin’ Catherine. Oh, why can’t I be makin’ Love come true?"

VS.

Pope John Paul II

"Selflessness in Love…does more than any other to perfect the person who experiences it, brings both the subject and the object of that love the greatest fulfillment."

______________________________

It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.

It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.

Pope John Paul II, World Youth Day, Rome 2000