FR. ROBERTO CID In the second reading, St. Paul encourages us to offer our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, a spiritual worship. Our body is an integral part of our humanity. We are body and soul, matter and spirit, what we do with our bodies matter because it affects our being. As the Second Vatican Council teaches, “though made of body and soul, man is one. Through his bodily composition he gathers to himself the elements of the material world; thus, they reach their crown through him, and through him raise their voice in free praise of the Creator. For this reason man is not allowed to despise his bodily life, rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and honorable since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. Nevertheless, wounded by sin, man experiences rebellious stirrings in his body. But the very dignity of man postulates that man glorify God in his body and forbid it to serve the evil inclinations of his heart. Now, man is not wrong when he regards himself as superior to bodily concerns, and as more than a speck of nature or a nameless constituent of the city of man. For by his interior qualities he outstrips the whole sum of mere things. He plunges into the depths of reality whenever he enters into his own heart; God, Who probes the heart, awaits him there; there he discerns his proper destiny beneath the eyes of God. Thus, when he recognizes in himself a spiritual and immortal soul, he is not being mocked by a fantasy born only of physical or social influences, but is rather laying hold of the proper truth of the matter.” The times we live in are marked by a deep “anthropological crisis.” Technological changes lead to so many changes and so deep both at the collective and individual level that we seem to be disoriented. We struggle to understand the meaning of our humanity and that of our bodies. Additionally, contemporary culture is dominated by a utilitarian vision of reality affecting our relationship with our own body. We treat it as a mere instrument, instead of what it is, an essential part of our human nature. The ideologies in fashion reinforce a utilitarian and inhuman vision of our bodies. Some go to the extreme of denying that there is such thing as human nature and endeavor to cancel it so as to reach greater levels of “freedom.” Yet, to renege from our human nature and our humanity, far from making us freer, turns us into slaves of our passions and miseries. An unbridled sexuality, addictions, any excess contrary to virtue, destroys our freedom. Paradoxically, we can act against goodness and truth because we have received the gift of free will, yet to act in those ways enslaves us, makes us serfs of our passions and miseries. We need to rediscover our human ecology. There is great awareness today of the need to care for the environment, but very little is done to preserve our human nature. Pope Francis explained in his encyclical Laudato Si. on the care of our common home, that “human ecology also implies another profound reality: the relationship between human life and the moral law, which is inscribed in our nature and is necessary for the creation of a more dignified environment. Pope Benedict XVI spoke of an “ecology of man,” based on the fact that “man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will.” It is enough to recognize that our body itself establishes us in a direct relationship with the environment and with other living beings. The acceptance of our bodies as God’s gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father and our common home, whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation. Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential element of any genuine human ecology. Also, valuing one’s own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment. It is not a healthy attitude which would seek “to cancel out sexual difference because it no longer knows how to confront it”.” To rediscover our corporality and our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit and God’s gift to us is an urgent task, indispensable to overcome the crisis of humanity that we find ourselves in. It is only to the extent that each one of us becomes aware of the meaning and greatness of our common human nature, its calling, but also its limits, that we will be able to bear credible witness before the world and, thus, contribute, to the healing of hearts and the establishment of a lasting peace, “unarmed and disarming,” that fosters a culture of encounter, of life, a true civilization of love. |
