By Jack Chui
The Australian Catholic University is hosting a Theology of the Body series of videos by Christopher West over 8 Wednesday nights which I just started going to. Writing my thoughts of each week on this blog will be a good way keep my learning and share with everyone what I learn / take out especially for those who don't have a chance to attend one of these sessions.
I've watched the videos before in STAY when it we did it over 8 weeks or so, but this time I have the accompanying study guide so I can write notes as I watch the video with others rather than just listen and take in what's being said. It helps me focus more because watching without taking notes or studying for me can make it hard to concentrate. I'm attending again because I'd like to know more about sex (who doesn't...?), relationships and all the challenges that go with it - its just interesting =)
So on to it. I'm not going to recount everything - that would be too long, just the things that struck me and that I took out.
The first talk is like all first talks an introduction, but one which I jogged my memory of the things I took out from the only other time I watched it. What is the Theology of the Body (TB) all about? In one word - sex. Christopher West agrees that the world revolves around it, and so does the Church in fact - where would we all be without sex? TB was started as a series of talks in the 1990's by the late Pope John Paul II which tries to explain the truth about sex (the way the Church sees sex). But its quite complex and very deep, that it took 10 years for someone like Christopher West to study all 129 talks and bring it to the mainstream church in a way that more people (us low laity people =P) can hopefully understand it. That will be my aim for the next 8 weeks.
The aim is to understand what God intended sex to really be and therefore what His whole creation is meant to be. Unfortunately its not obvious as it probably should be because our understanding of sex is a bit 'corrupt' (lacking a less blunt word to use here). Chris West summed up his Catholic education on sex in just 3 words - Don't do it! I think a lot of us cradle Catholics can relate to that. So most of us would then get our sex education from places like MTV to sum it up as a central place. So this TB is to be a breath of fresh air that's to counter the progressive direction society is heading and putting out there - the truth (as I see it and believe it to be). To quote the notes "If the task of the 20th century was to rid itself of the Christian sexual ethic, the task of the 21st century must be to reclaim it".
Not to stay on this point any further, but I can understand a bit how the world has progressed as it has on sex. Its not easy to talk about sex (its hard for me just to type those words) and the Church has had an even harder time talking about it. Would the world be in a different place had the Church been more open about sex --- I don't think so. I'm well aware that we're fighting a losing battle. But God doesn't give up on us - and neither does the Church =)
The truth of sex is not obvious because God is not obvious. God is a mystery - we will never be able to understand God because we're so far below Him. We can't see God, but what we can see is Jesus - God in human form. Our bodies / human flesh is the very "logic" of Christianity. God is revealed through our bodies.
God reveals the 'mystery' to us in the bible. There are many images of God's love in the bible, but the 'spousal' image is used far more than any other. The bible begins and ends with marriages - Adam & Eve and Christ & His Church. God's eternal plan is to "marry" us - He stamps this image of love and communion in our very being by creating us male and female - to become one flesh. This man and woman idea which God designed is a replication of "love" as God sees it or wants to reveal to us. Its the same model as His Trinitarian love between Father and the Son which produces the Holy Spirit. Our body proclaims a great mystery - it reveals the meaning of the universe. We were built and designed for love and the union of man and woman is to proclaim the image of God.
What I learn - While sex is a great thing, it's unlikely that God's idea of love when we reach heaven is going to be the best unending orgasm. Its going to be much much better than that! In a way we can't imagine. But for us little creatures (great at the same time to Him) with our limited understanding, sex (as part of a relationship) is a foretaste of the love that God has for us all in the end. How exciting .!.!.!
Still more questions to be answered but they can't all be done in the first talk. To be answered in future!
Feel free to leave questions or thoughts in the comments section =)
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