Theology of the Body Evangelization Team - TOBET
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Single Life as Life in the Spirit

Monica Ashour, MTS; M Hum

©2009

Introduction: Story and Overview

In this brief time, I would like to cover 2 Parts included in this talk:

·       PART ONE: I would like to show how we singles who are trying to live life in the Spirit need to focus on one essential thing: having a pure heart and allowing our bodily actions to correspond.

·       PART TWO: I will try to cover 2 basic points of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, then, discuss the Body and Sexuality and finally relate that to the single person, an icon for humanity, and thus, for God. And living life in the Spirit is necessary in order for us to be icons of humanity and God.

PART ONE

I          Pope John Paul’s Theology of the Body and Life in the Spirit

A)      Nothing from the outside defiles.

B)      “The 3 Fold Concupiscence: of the flesh, of the eyes, and of the pride of life” (Dec 17, 1980 cf. 1 Jn) (So, we ought not take A) as saying that we can watch anything, as the eyes can lead to the heart becoming impure and thus works of the flesh ensue).

C)      Works of the Flesh (sinful actions coming from an impure heart) are against the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The former is concupiscent man working; the latter, the Spirit co-creating with the person.

II         Purity of Heart—The Essential Engine for Life in the Spirit: The Theological Virtues

A)      Faith: “The openness of the human heart to the gift of God: the Holy Spirit” (JPII).

B)      Hope: The bringing of the Kingdom and the eschaton. “The resurrection means not only the recovery of bodiliness and the reestablishment of human life in its integrity, through the union of body and soul, but also a wholly new state of human life itself.” (JPII: Dec 2, 1981)

C)      Love: “Each person—in his body—possesses the capacity of expressing love, that love in which the person becomes a gift and—by means of this gift—fulfills the meaning of his being and existence” (Jan 16, 80) ref: Gaudium et Spes #24 (Vatican II document).

PART TWO

I.                  The Theology of the Body and its Relation to Sexuality and the Single Person

A.      The body as a sacrament

1.       The body reveals the individual person

2.       The body reveals God (communion of persons)—All people; complementarity of sexes

3.       The body reveals the meaning of life (we are meant to be gifts and by giving ourselves, we find the meaning of life).

B.       Sexuality has to do with going toward another.

1.       Desire for intimacy directed toward humans—not just male and female relationships. It cannot be done without a body.

a.       Even if no physical contact, there can the intimacy of presence (2 friends being in the same room, chatting).

b.       To share feelings, the body is still necessary—a hand to write, a mouth to speak, an arm to hug—all of these are related to sexuality.

c.       Physical intimacy—not just genital—is conveyed among friends in many ways, even with a simple touch on the shoulder.

2.       Desire of intimacy toward God

a.       Still need a body; we are not angels. Even in the Old Testament times, God revealed Himself through visible signs—cloud at night; manna; a voice spoken to the prophets.

b.       INCARNATION—The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity becomes human; He—in His body—reveals everything about God.

c.       SACRAMENTS—The Church who gives us the sacraments is the extension of Jesus’ mission. The sacraments are the primary way for a Christian to express his/her longing for God. We are closest to Jesus when we receive His very Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Eucharist.

3.       Practical Applications for the Single Person regarding Sexuality—desire for intimacy

a.       The single can never be a-sexual; we can never get rid of our body. Even in the afterlife, we—after a brief separation in death from our body—will have our same bodies, glorified.

b.       Concrete examples of moving toward another person to express our personhood

1. At work, looking over a spreadsheet/design/etc. with a colleague—male or female

2. Anytime we reach out to another, for example, by a phone call or invitation to see a movie or go to a restaurant.

3. Anytime we cook dinner for friends/family, visit our parents, write a letter, go to Mass.

4. We help give others themselves!! This is key.

     4. Misunderstandings/Inadequacies of the Sexuality of a Single Person

                           a. Society, unfortunately, sexualizes things which makes it uncomfortable for us to appreciate sexuality on various levels. We often confine our understanding to intercourse alone.

                           b. While those other-directed activities mentioned above deal with one’s sexuality, all of the hugs of friends, kisses from nieces/nephews/brothers/sisters, sharing with friends, etc. does not cut it. The fullness of the desire for intimacy is ever before us, but Pope John Paul encourages us to govern ourselves which gives freedom.         

II.                 The Single Life—An Icon of the 1st and 2nd Adam—Original Solitude

A.      Analogy--      The Body: Sexuality:: Original Solitude: Original Unity:: Single Life: Vowed Life

B.      The Single Life—in its earthiness—reveals particular characteristics of God

1.       Time—particular openness—shows God and His constant availability. (More time).

2.       Space—particular openness—shows God and His omnipresence. (Can travel/relocate).

3.       People—particular openness—shows God and His love of each human person completely. (Not committed to a particular person or group).

C.      The Single Life as an icon of the Original Solitude of the 1st Adam

1.       Uniqueness/One’s individual subjectivity

“Man is unique and unrepeatable above all because of his heart, which decides his being from within. The category of the heart is, in a way, the equivalent of personal subjectivity” (TOB, 12/3/80).

2.       Self-knowledge and self-determination

“It must be said that interior man has been called by Christ to acquire a mature and complete evaluation, leading him to discern and judge the various movements of his heart. It should be added that this task can be carried out and is worthy of man” (TOB, 11/12/80).

3.       Knowing what it means to be a body-person

“It is precisely at the price of self-control that man reaches that deeper and more mature spontaneity with which his heart, mastering his instincts, rediscovers the spiritual beauty of the sign constituted by the human body in its masculinity and femininity” (TOB, 11/12/80).

a. Understand the “movements of the heart”

b. Consider what masculinity and femininity means and how we live those out regardless of not being married.

c. Open one’s heart to the “collapse of the opened Heart”, the “content of Christianity” (Pope Benedict). That is, be a person of prayer.

d. Someone once said, “You can find a knife so sharp that it can cut the hardest diamond. You can find a fire so hot that steel can bend. But there is nothing that can penetrate a hardened heart.” We need to allow ourselves to be healed so that we can love.

e. Be an ecclesial person, a person guided by the heart of the Church. The Holy Spirit, as the CCC teaches, is the soul—the heart of the Church—we ought to reflect His purity by our bodily actions.

4.       Although this solitude is necessary and prior, it is not the end. We are not supposed to remain in such an original solitude. “It is not good for man to be alone.”

a.       Adam became ish and isha: “…the man (adam) falls into that ‘sleep’ in order to wake up ‘male’ and ‘female.’ It indicates a return to the moment preceding the creation, that through God’s creative initiative, solitary ‘man’ may emerge from it again in his double unity as male and female” (TOB)

b.       The “double solitude” that exists now and through the complementarity of the bodies, we know we are meant to be gifts, so as to enter into a communion of persons.

D.      The Single Life as an icon of the Solitude of the 2nd Adam, Jesus Christ.

1.       From all eternity, the Son is unique—He is not the Father nor the Holy Spirit—has total self-knowledge and self-determination, and now with the Incarnation, He knows what it means to be a body-person, and came for eternal communion with and for all.

2.       The culmination of the above is on the Cross where Jesus experiences the fullness of solitude in handing over his mom and best friend to each other and in breathing forth the Holy Spirit. The Single person certainly experiences such moments of isolation/solitude. “I shall lead you through the loneliness, the solitude; you will not understand; but it is My shortcut to your soul” (T. Merton).

3.       THE RESURRECTION—We are not to remain in isolation! Christ invites us to union with Him and His Body, the Church—now and in the beatific banquet for all eternity.



Quotations from Pope John Paul ll’s Theology of the Body

  1. The Body : Sexuality :: Original Solitude : Original Unity (Nov. 7, 1979). (My extrapolation).
  2. “Precisely this consciousness (the sense of one’s body), through which humanity is formed again as the communion of persons is deeper than the individual as male and female” (November 14, 1979).
  3. “This knowledge, that is, the study of the human identity of the one who, at the beginning, is ‘alone’ must always pass through duality, ‘communion’” (Nov. 21, 1979).
  4. “(The body—male and female) proves how deeply man, with all his spiritual solitude, with the never-to-be-repeated uniqueness of his person is constituted by the body as ‘he’ or ‘she’”.
  5. “absolute originality”-term referring to each person
  6. “As the expression of self-determination, choice rests on the foundation of his self-consciousness” (Nov. 21, 1979).
  7. “Naked and unashamed” (Gen 2:25) is the key term which expresses that there is “no interior rupture and opposition between what is spiritual and what is sensible” (Nov. 21, 1979).
  8. “The concept of ‘giving’ can not refer to a nothingness. It indicates the one who gives and the one who receives the gift, and also the relationship that is established between them” (Nov. 21, 1979).
  9. “Each person—in his body—possesses the capacity of expressing love, that love in which the person becomes a gift and—by means of this gift—fulfills the meaning of his being and existence” (Jan 16, 80) ref: Gaudium et Spes #24 (Vatican II document).
  10. “Freedom is mastery over self” (Jan 16, 1980).
  11. “The affirmation of the person is nothing but acceptance of the gift, which by means of reciprocity, creates the communion of persons” (Jan 16, 1980).
  12. “The giving and the accepting of the gifts interpenetrate, so that the giving itself becomes accepting, and acceptance is transformed into the giving” (Feb. 6, 1980).
  13. “Man brings to the world his particular likeness to God” (Feb 20, 1980).
  14. “The body in its masculinity and femininity has been called ‘from the beginning’ to become the manifestation of the spirit.” (October 22, 1980).
  15. “Thus, the ethos of the redemption of the body is realized through self-dominion, through temperance of the ‘desires’, when the human heart makes an alliance with this ethos, or rather when it confirms this alliance through its own integral subjectivity: when the person’s deepest and yet most real possibilities and dispositions show themselves, when the deepest layers of his potentiality acquire a voice….” (Dec 3, 1980).
  16. “Purity is a requirement of love. It is the dimension of the inner truth of love in man’s ‘heart’” (Dec 3, 1980).
  17. “Purity as ‘Life according to the Spirit’” (The whole section of Dec 10, 1980).
  18. “Moral purity has its wellspring exclusively in man’s interior: it comes from the heart” (Dec 10, 1980).
  19. “[Referring to Mt 15:18-20: ‘What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and that is what makes a man unclean’], Here Christ speaks about every moral evil, every sin, that is, about the violations of the various commandments, and he lists ‘evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, blasphemy’ without limiting himself to a particular kind of sin. It follows that the concept of ‘purity’ and of ‘impurity’ in the moral sense is a rather general concept, not a specific one; thus, every moral good is a manifestation of purity and every moral evil a manifestation of impurity” (Dec 10, 1980).
  20. “St. Paul observes another contradiction in the Christian, namely, the opposition and at the same time the tension between the ‘flesh’ and the ‘Spirit’(written with a capital “S,” that is, the Holy Spirit): “I say to you, live by the Spirit and do not satisfy the desires of the flesh; for the flesh has desires contrary to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, so that you do not do what you want” (Gal 5:16-17)” (Dec 10, 1980).
  21. “The ‘flesh,’ in the Letters of St. Paul, indicates not only the ‘outer’ man, but also the man ‘interiorly’ subjected to the ‘world.’” (Dec 17, 1980). Note: sarx=flesh; soma=body (Greek)
  22. “Paul speaks, on the one hand, about ‘works’ born from the ‘flesh’…and on the other hand, about the ‘fruit of the Spirit,’ that is, God’s action in man” (Dec 17, 1980).
  23. “If mastery in the sphere of ethos manifests and realizes itself as ‘love, joy, peace patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-mastery’—as we read in Galatians—then behind each of these realizations, these forms of behavior, these moral virtues, stands a specific choice, that is, an effort of the will, a fruit of the human spirit permeated by the Spirit of God, which manifests itself I choosing the good” (Dec 17, 1980).
  24. “In this struggle between good and evil, man proves to be stronger thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit who, working within the human spirit, causes its desires to bear fruit in the good.” (Jan 7, 1981).
  25. “The ‘redemption of the body’ (Rm 8:23)…has a ‘cosmic’ dimension… but at its center stands man: man constituted in the personal unity of spirit and body. It is precisely in this man, in his ‘heart’ and thus in all his behavior, that the redemption of Christ bears fruit, thanks to the powers of the Spirit that bring about ‘justification’ is, that is, that cause justice to ‘abound’ in man, as in the Sermon on the Mount insistently teaches (Mt 5:20), that is, to ‘abound’ in the measure God himself wills and expects” (Jan 7, 1981).
  26. “Such mastery, or, as Paul writes, ‘putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit,’ is an indispensable condition of ‘life according to the Spirit,’ that is, of the ‘life’ that is the antithesis of the ‘death’ about which he speaks in the same context.” (Jan 7, 1981).
  27. “If, in fact, ‘the whole law’ (the moral law of the Old Testament) ‘finds its fullness’ in the commandment of love, the dimension of the new ethos of the Gospel is nothing other than an appeal to human freedom, an appeal for its fullest realization and in some way for the fullest ‘use’ of the powers of the human spirit.” (Jan 14, 1981).
  28. “…the freedom that becomes the source of new ‘works’ and of ‘life’ according to the Spirit.” (Jan 17, 1981).

Quotations from Pope Benedict XVI

  1. To be able to live, we must be able to say Yes to the thou of the other, to affirm his being there. This Yes is a creative act, a new creation. Biological birth is not enough: the individual can accept his own I only by virtue of the approbation of his being that comes from another—from a thou. This Yes of one who loves him bestows his existence on him in a new and definitive way. He receives from it a kind of new birth without which his birth will remain forever incomplete and will set him in opposition to himself. To confirm these words, we need only ponder the life history of those who have been abandoned by their parents in the first months of their existence and have never encountered a love that affirms and encompasses their life. It is only the rebirth of being loved that completes our birth and opens to us the realm of meaningful existence. This insight can help us to understand in some measure the secret of creation and of redemption. It helps us to understand that love is creative and that God’s love is the power that created being out of nothing, that is the true “ground” on which all reality rests. It also helps us to understand a little better that God’s second Yes, which was raised up on the Cross, is our rebirth and that it is only this rebirth that makes us truly “living” persons. Finally, the suspicion may arise that, having been thus affirmed by God, we have been called by him to share in his Yes. It is our task to further creation, to be co-creators in the Yes of love by bestowing existence upon the other in a new way—by letting the gift of being become at last a true gift. (Cardinal Ratzinger,  Auf Christus Schauen, 90-91)

  2. The act of faith is a deeply personal act, anchored in the innermost depths of the human I. But precisely because it is so personal, it is also an act of communication. In the depths of its being, the I is always related to the thou and vice versa: that true relationship that becomes “communion” can be born only in the deep places of the human I. the act of faith is a participation in the seeing of Jesus, a dependence on Jesus. John, who reclines next to Jesus at the Last Supper, is a symbol of what faith actually means. Faith is communion with Jesus and, consequently, a liberation from the repression that is opposed to truth, a liberation of my I from its preoccupation with self, a liberation that sets me free to respond to the Father, to speak the Yes of love; that sets me free to say Yes to being, free from that Yes that is our salvation and that overcomes the “world”. It follows, then, that faith is, in its innermost essence, a “being with”, a breaking out of the isolation that is the malady of my I. The act of faith is an opening of oneself of the whole world, a breaking open of the door of my subjectivity, which Paul describes in the words: “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in e” (Gal 2:20). The I that has been redeemed finds itself again in a greater new I. In this new I, for which faith has liberated me, I find myself united not only with Jesus, but with all who travel the same road. In other words, faith is necessarily ecclesial faith. It lives and moves in the we of the Church, one with the universal I of Jesus Christ. In this new person, the wall between me and the other has fallen, the wall between me and the depth of being. In this new person, I am a contemporary of Jesus and all the experiences of the Church belong to me, have become my own. (Cardinal Ratzinger Auf Christus Schauen, 39-40)

  3. It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). By its very nature, being a Christian means conversion, and conversion in the Christian meaning of the word is not just a changing of some of our ideas, but a process of dying. The boundaries of the I are broken open, the I loses itself in order to find itself again in a more noble form that encompasses heaven and earth, past, present, and future, and so touches truth itself. This “I, but no longer I” is the Christian alternative to nirvana. We might even say that the Holy Spirit is this alternative. He is the power behind the openness and the fusion into that new form that we call the body of Christ or the Church. It is surely evident here that this fusion is no trifling matter. It is possible only for one who possesses the courage to be converted, to let himself be broken open like the grain of wheat. The Holy Spirit is fire; one who does not want to be burned ought not approach him. But such a one must then realize that he is sinking into the deadly loneliness of the closed I and that any communion sought by avoiding the fire is, in the last analysis, but a game, an empty illusion. A saying of Jesus that is not found in the Bible has been handed down to us by Origen: “Whoever is near me is near fire.” It points out in an inimitable way the interrelationship of Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Church. (Cardinal Ratzinger, Bavarian radio broadcast, May 15, 1986)

  4. What that (Mary being venerated and blessed) becomes clearer when we observe that Luke draws a parallel between the Mother of the Lord and the ark of the covenant. She bears the living Word; in Augustine’s fine phrase, she was already the Mother of God spiritually before she became his Mother physically. (Cardinal Ratzinger,Gottes Angesicht suchen, 40-41)

Quotations from Caryll Houselander’s The Reed of God

  1. We do not know where or what or how heaven is, but this we know, and it is very nearly all that we know about heaven. In heaven Our Lady is with God. Our Lady’s body is there, and the Body of Christ is there: and Our Lady’s soul and the soul of Christ and His divinity. We can realize this only in so far as we realize it through its effect upon the world. There, before God, is humanity, our humanity; but innocent humanity in all its primal loveliness; humanity with which the Spirit of God is in love. And she is ours! Therefore, it is always Advent, always spring: The life and birth and death and resurrection of Christ always goes on upon earth, an unending circle of light. Because even now, and always, the fiat is uttered, and the Love of the Spirit of Life is consummated in the Child Bride; the earth is continually made new; we are continually born again. This is what really matters most of all to everyone: the power to be made new. Not simply beginning again, dragging along with the old scars, the old crippling wounds, the old weakness dragging at the will; limping with the weariness of yesterday, sore with the heartsickness of the last defeat, bitter with the still smarting grievance against one another. Not that, but real newness, being born again. A new will, a new heart, new vision, new love—indeed, new life. …To be born again: that is exactly what Christ has promised to us; not only once, but just as often as our inner life grows old and jaded and dies. But newness, flowering spring, shadowless morning, are not born of what is decaying, corrupt and fetid. They are born only of virginity, virginity which is newness, virginity complete as fire and water. (126-127)

Monica Ashour can be contacted at mashour@tobet.org

The Theology of the Body Evangelization Team can be reached at info@tobet.org