Joy Is Where the Battle Is Fought

We must always keep in mind that all Satan can do to attract us is plagiarize the joys God created for us in this world to foreshadow the joys of heaven. All the authentic pleasures of the world are in some ways sacramental, whereas all the counterfeit pleasures of this world are in some way sacrilegious. This is where the battle is fought: between sacraments and their counterfeits, between icons and idols, between signs and anti-signs. One foreshadows an eternity of fulfillment and communion, the other an eternity of emptiness and alienation.

+ Christopher West, Theology of the Body Explained, 355.

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Behind Every False God …

`For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.

+ Ephesians 5:31-32

[T]here’s an important element of truth in our society’s idolatrous obsession with sex. Behind every false god we discover our desire for the true God gone awry. The sexual confusion so prevalent in our world and in our own hearts is simply the human desire for heaven gone berserk. Untwist the distortions and we discover the astounding glory of sex in the divine plan. “For this reason … the two become one flesh.” For what reason? To reveal, proclaim, and anticipate the eternal union of Christ and the Church.

+ Christopher West, Theology of the Body for Beginners, 57.

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The Body Has Value and Dignity

For those who desire purity, the sexual body is not the evil with which we must contend. Far from being evil or even tainted, the body, and sexual union itself, contain a value and dignity that we can barely fathom. But we must fathom this value and dignity if we are to live according to the true ethos of Christ’s words.

+ Christopher West, Theology of the Body Explained

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Battle for Purity – Battle for Joy

We must always keep in mind that all Satan can do to attract us is plagiarize the joys God created for us in this world to foreshadow the joys of heaven. All the authentic pleasures of the world are in some ways sacramental, whereas all the counterfeit pleasures of this world are in some way sacrilegious. This is where the battle is fought: between sacraments and their counterfeits, between icons and idols, between signs and anti-signs. One foreshadows an eternity of fulfillment and communion, the other an eternity of emptiness and alienation.

+ Christopher West, Theology of the Body Explained, 355.

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Something More

The heart longs for “something more” than life can offer under sin’s influence. To tap into that desire for “something more” is to tap into that “echo” deep within our hearts of God’s original plan for us. Despite formidable foes that seek to snuff it out, that yearning cannot and will not be repressed. It is a yearning to live in the grace of our eternal election in Christ. It is a yearning to live in the eternal embrace of the Marriage of the Lamb. Nothing else can satisfy. Nothing else can fulfill. And all else is destined to pass away.

+ Christopher West, Theology of the Body Explained, 354-355.

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Prayer for Sexual Integrity

Lord, I thank you for the gift of my sexual desires. I surrender this lustful desire to you and I ask you please, by the power of your death and resurrection, to “untwist” in me what sin has twisted so that I might experience sexual desire as you intend—as the desire to love in your image.

Lord, help me to discern the movements of my heart. Help me to distinguish between the great riches of sexuality as you created it to be and the distortions of lust. I grant you permission, Lord, to slay my lusts. Take them. Crucify them so that I might come to experience the resurrection of sexual desire as you intend. Grant me a pure heart.

Come, Holy Spirit, come! Convert our hearts from lust to love. Impregnate our sexual desires with divine passion so that, loving as God loves on earth, we might one day rejoice in the consummation of the “marriage of the Lamb” in heaven.

Let it be, Lord, according to your will. Mary, woman of glory and star of the new evangelization, pray for us. Amen.

+ Christopher West, Theology of the Body Explained

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Theology of the Body: Hope in Resurrection

Christ’s resurrection is a reality “ingrafted” in our humanity. Even though our bodies are sown “in weakness” and are “perishable,” we bear in ourselves at the same time, “the interior desire for glory.” God put it there “in the beginning”—not to frustrate us by dashing our hopes, but to lead us to fulfillment in him. All hopes, therefore, must be placed in our resurrection. Then the body that we experience as perishable will be raised imperishable. The body we experience as weighed down in dishonor and weakness will be raised in glory and power. For what is sown a physical body is raised a spiritual body.

+ Christopher West, Theology of the Body Explained, 268

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Theology of the Body: The Task Given to Us

The Creator has assigned the body and the gift of sexuality to man as a task. It is the task of discovering the truth of our humanity and the dignity of the person. It is the task of embracing our redemption and growing in purity so that we can fulfill ourselves and bring joy to others through the sincere gift of ourselves – the sincere gift of our bodies which affords a true interpersonal communion. This is lived out particularly in marriage, but marriage is not the only way to live the sincere gift of self.

+ Christopher West, Theology of the Body Explained

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Battle for Dignity

Man is capable of experiencing his own dignity. He does so precisely when he exercises his freedom to choose the good, true, and beautiful. When someone acts against lust rather than allowing lust to act against him, he activates his self-determination and, hence, “what is essentially personal in him.”

This is the battle for the dignity of our own personhood: will we act for the good; or will we forfeit our self-determination and let evil act upon us?

+ Christopher West, Theology of the Body Explained, 196

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The Dignity of the Body

For those who desire purity, the sexual body is not the evil with which we must contend. Far from being evil or even tainted, the body, and sexual union itself, contain a value and dignity that we can barely fathom. But we must fathom this value and dignity if we are to live according to the true ethos of Christ’s words.

+ Christopher West, Theology of the Body Explained

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