Theology of the Body Introduction

Good morning!

Just the other day I was sitting in adoration and wondering to myself “If I had only twenty to thirty minutes to talk to you, what would I want to tell you? The answer came to me pretty quickly; I would take the one chance I have to influence your lives to talk to you about the most important thing in the whole world, LOVE.

When I say love, a wide range of ideas may have popped into your head. You may have thought about the bond you have with your family, or the feeling you have for a friend, maybe you have lost someone close to you in your life and you thought of a longing desire to be with that person. These are all wonderful ideas. Unfortunately, I know that when I was your age the first thing into my mind would have been “Oh great, another cheesy, fluffy, mushy, feel good talk”… blahhhh.

The love I’m going to talk to you about today is not mushy, nor is it a feeling; instead the love I want to talk to you about is a Person. In fact, the love I’m going to talk to about is three persons, who also share one nature. The love I’m going to talk to you about today is the very love of God the Trinity.

So, just how does the love of the Trinity work? Well, the Trinity is made of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the Trinity the Father is constantly making a gift of himself to the Son, and the Son is in return, constantly making a gift of himself back to the Father. This gift of self, or another way to say it is this love, between the Father and the Son is so great and so complete that it is another person. This person, the love of the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit. This is the relationship of God, three persons, united through a gift of themselves to each other for all eternity.

When God the Father makes a gift of himself to the Son and when God the Son makes a gift of Himself to the Father there love has four primary attributes. We in TOBET like to refer to these attributes as the 4 F’s. And no this does not refer to my grades my first semester of high school. The four F’s are FULL, FREE, FAITHFUL, and FRUITFUL. In light of this, we can say that God’s love in the Trinity is Free. God’s love in the Trinity is Full, Gods love in the Trinity is Faithful and God’s love in the Trinity is Fruitful. Let’s examine these more closely.

How is God’s love in the Trinity Full? When the Father makes a gift of himself to the Son, he holds nothing back. He makes a complete gift of himself in every way. It is the same way when the Son returns this gift to the Father.

How is God’s love in the Trinity Free? No one is forcing the Father to make a full gift of himself to the Son, and no one is pressuring the Son to make a full gift of himself in reply to the Father’s love. The gift of love in the Trinity is unconditionally free.

How is the love of the Trinity faithful? God the Father will never cease making a gift of himself to the Son and God the Son will never cease to make a gift of himself to the Father. God’s love is eternally faithful.

And finally, how is God’s love in the Trinity fruitful? This is where God the Holy Spirit comes in. God the Father’s love for the Son is so great and God the Son’s gift of self to the Father in return is so complete that the constant love between them actually and eternally bears fruit in a third person of the Trinity, and therefore, God’s love in the Trinity is fruitful.

Now, I just hit you with a lot of info, so let’s take a step back and review b/f moving on.

First, God the Trinity is made of 3 persons Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who are completely united by their love for one another. Second, the love within the Trinity is Full, Free, Faithful, and Fruitful.

The Trinity as I have just described is truly a beautiful thing, and I want to share with you some good news. You are made in the image and likeness of the Trinity, you are made in the image of God. This is a remarkable thing. God the Trinity, your Creator, has crafted you with such exquisite dignity that you are made in His image. This is stated in Genesis when God the Father says “Let us make man in our image”.

So what does it mean that you are made in the image and likeness of God the Trinity? This means that you are called to love as God loves. You are called to make a gift of yourself to another person in nuptial love.

Nuptial love is most likely a new term for you. Nuptial love can take two forms: Nuptial love is a calling to make a gift of yourself either through marriage or through celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of God. A common way to restate this is that you are called by God to either celibacy to show the world that the Church is Christ’s Bride. This means that you dedicate your sexuality to God alone. The other vocation is to marry another person and to be a living sign of the marriage between Christ and His Church. This means that you dedicate your sexuality to God through another person. Again, the love between a man and his wife or the love of a celibate person giving themselves directly to God should both image the love of the Trinity. This means that the love of spouses and the love demonstrated by celibates should be Free, Full, Faithful and Fruitful. Let’s look at this more closely.

Love in marriage and celibacy should be Full, makes sense of the Church’s teaching that people cannot get a divorce, it also explains why the Church would frown on such things such as his and her bank accounts (won’t have to go to work…won’t have to wash dishes). The gift of a celibate person should be full, in that it, like marriage, is also a permanent gift of ones life in service to God, holding nothing back. A celebate person should expect to serve God’s people with all of their strength.

Love in marriage and celibacy should also be Free. This is why there is no such thing as a shotgun wedding, if both spouses are not free then you cannot get married because they are not entering into the love of marriage, which is the love of the Trinity. Another way that people can fail to be free would be cohabitation before marriage or a sexual addiction of any kind. The fact that the gift must be free is also the very reason why high pressure techniques used by people to attempt to “recruit” men and women to be priests and nuns will never be effective. Both marriage and celibacy require a free choice on the part of the person taking the vows.

Love in marriage and celibacy should also be faithful. This is not only the faithfulness required in the obvious, but also includes the faithfulness that Jesus talks about when he says that if a man so much as looks a woman lustfully then he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

And finally, Love in marriage and celibacy should be fruitful. In marriage this comes in the form of openness to children and also in the form of unitive love between the spouses. The celibate person is also called to be fruitful, instead of biological children which is a blessing reserved for marriage, the celibate person is called to father or mother many spiritual children.

So to summarize these last thoughts as well, you are made in the image and likeness of God, and you are called to image Him in nuptial love. Nuptial love, either marriage or celibacy, images the love of God in the Trinity in as much as it is Full, Free, Faithful, and Fruitful.

When we understand marriage as a call to image God the Trinity, this allows us to understand the Church’s teachings on the highpoint of married love, the marital embrace. One of the most surprising statements I ever heard was that “the Church is not down on sex!”. In fact, the Church’s teaching on sex is so careful and specific not because it is an evil thing, but instead because of its immeasurable holiness. The Church understands that we are called to image the Trinity in our sexuality most of all. This is why the Church teaches that the marital embrace should also always be Full, Free, Faithful, and Fruitful, otherwise it does not image God’s love. Let’s briefly explain some of the Church’s teachings surrounding the marital embrace in light of what I just said.

If it is to image God, the gift of oneself in sexual activity of any kind must be Full. This again is why divorce is wrong as is contraception because it means withholding the gift of your fertility. Now we can see why premarital sex distorts the image of God as well. If a person is going to be sexually active, they cannot make a full gift of themselves without the lifelong vows of marriage.

If it is to image God, the gift of self in sexual activity must also be free. This is one of the many reasons why rape is such a travesty. Rape is when a man does not believe that a woman will make a free gift of herself to him in marriage and therefore he takes by force what he does not believe she will give. A very common form of disrespecting a person’s freedom is when someone attempts to manipulate or pressure a person into some action that they would not normally choose to do when they are not under such pressure. This pressure shows up in the form of peer pressure or the distasteful statement “if you really loved me you would…” you can fill in the blank.

If it is to image God the gift of self in sexual activity must also be faithful. This is found clearly in the old testaments commandment “Thou shall not commit adultery and shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.” God loves us no matter what, and to image this love, we must be faithful to our spouse most of all in the greatest gift of ourself to them through sex.

And finally if it is to image the love of God in the Trinity, sexual activity must also be open to life. This is why the Church teaches that contraception is always absolutely evil.

So to summarize these last thoughts as well, God has created the marital embrace as a holy action pleasing in the sight of the Lord because it is a powerful instrument of his love on earth. The Church is not down on sex but instead seeks to teach about the purpose sex to uphold its God given dignity. Inside of marriage, the marital embrace images the love of the Trinity in as much as it is Full, Free, Faithful and Fruitful.

Let’s end in a prayer…

Steven Vining can be contacted at svining@tobet.org