Theology of the Body

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I was told that some Trad. Catholics don’t like Theology of the Body too much.
 
I haven’t actually read it…but I’ve heard really good things about it.
 
Haven’t read all of the actual TOB, but studied Christopher West’s explanations. It’s pretty basic at times, unlike the original Theology of the Body. We need it especially considering all of the ridiculous garbage that mainstream media is presenting us.
 
Theology of the Body said:
5. The questions raised by modern man are also those of Christians—those who are preparing for the sacrament of marriage or those who are already living in marriage, which is the sacrament of the Church. These are not only the questions of science, but even more, the questions of human life. So many men and so many Christians seek the accomplishment of their vocation in marriage. So many people wish to find in it the way to salvation and holiness.

The answer Christ gave to the Pharisees, zealots of the Old Testament, is especially important for them. Those who seek the accomplishment of their own human and Christian vocation in marriage are called, first of all, to make this theology of the body, whose beginning we find in the first chapters of Genesis, the content of their life and behavior. How indispensable is a thorough knowledge of the meaning of the body, in its masculinity and femininity, along the way of this vocation! A precise awareness of the nuptial meaning of the body, of its generating meaning, is necessary. This is so since all that forms the content of the life of married couples must constantly find its full and personal dimension in life together, in behavior, in feelings! This is all the more so against the background of a civilization which remains under the pressure of a materialistic and utilitarian way of thinking and evaluating. Modern bio-physiology can supply a great deal of precise information about human sexuality. However, knowledge of the personal dignity of the human body and of sex must still be drawn from other sources. A special source is the Word of God himself, which contains the revelation of the body, going back to the beginning.

How significant it is that Christ, in the answer to all these questions, orders man to return, in a way, to the threshold of his theological history! He orders him to put himself at the border between original innocence, happiness and the inheritance of the first fall. Does he not perhaps mean to tell him that the path along which he leads man, male and female, in the sacrament of marriage, the path of the “redemption of the body”, must consist in regaining this dignity, in which there is accomplished, simultaneously, the real meaning of the human body, its personal meaning and its meaning “of communion”.
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I challenge anyone to tell me what any of this actually means…it is really incomprensible, IMHO.

Gorman
 
I too have not read the book but, I have read some good reviews of it and plan on reading it.
 
gorman64 said:
I challenge anyone to tell me what any of this actually means…it is really incomprensible, IMHO.

Gorman
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Basically it’s stating that people in general are seeking the meaning of and a completion in marriage. To seek it from a total scientific approach will always come up short. Rather, we have to look at marriage and the design of male and female in light of the Christ, Who leads us back to the fact that we are originally designed to give God glory by love. Marriage is a redemption in that the man and woman must look at each other as souls that were created in innocence and belong to God.
 
I have the Book, but I have not read it. There is a newer translation out there I am thinking of getting.
 
gallo said:
Basically it’s stating that people in general are seeking the meaning of and a completion in marriage. To seek it from a total scientific approach will always come up short. Rather, we have to look at marriage and the design of male and female in light of the Christ, Who leads us back to the fact that we are originally designed to give God glory by love. Marriage is a redemption in that the man and woman must look at each other as souls that were created in innocence and belong to God.
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I challenge anyone to tell me what any of this actually means…it is really incomprehensible, IMHO.

Gorman
 
gorman64 said:
I challenge anyone to tell me what any of this actually means…it is really incomprehensible, IMHO.

Gorman
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It means that we aren’t just sex driven animals, but human beings with feelings and marriage is God’s design to keep man and woman out of lustful sin and in a sincere commitment to each other…:rolleyes: :confused: 🤷
 
I’d vote but my option isn’t up there… I read Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West and lemme tell ya… THAT was an easy read. Totally made sense and I was able to breeze through it pretty quickly and still understand it. After reading that three paragraph quote above, I’d be lost within the first paragraph. I started to grasp it towards the end but the last REEEEALLLY long run on sentance had me confused again. But PJPII had great works and I just feel so stupid when I read some of them because he was just so dang intelligent, kwim?

So if someone else is like me and feels kinda intimidated by reading anything from PJPII yet would like to read Theology of the Body, I’d highly suggest reading Christopher West’s book first, then TOB. It might help. :o
 
Taken from Allocution of Pope Pius XII to Midwives, Vatican, October 29, 1951, Pope Pius XII

catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=3462
Would this lead, perhaps, to Our denying or diminishing what is good and just in personal values resulting from matrimony and its realization? Certainly not, because the Creator has designed that for the procreation of a new life human beings made of flesh and blood, gifted with soul and heart, shall be called upon as men and not as animals deprived of reason to be the authors of their posterity. It is for this end that the Lord desires the union of husband and wife. Indeed, the Holy Scripture says of God that He created man to His image and He created him male and female, and willed—as is repeatedly affirmed in Holy Writ—that “a man shall leave mother and father, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh”.

All this is therefore true and desired by God. But, on the other hand, it must not be divorced completely from the primary function of matrimony—the procreation of offspring. Not only the common work of external life, but even all personal enrichment—spiritual and intellectual—all that in married love as such is most spiritual and profound, has been placed by the will of the Creator and of nature at the service of posterity. The perfect married life, of its very nature, also signifies the total devotion of parents to the well-being of their children, and married love in its power and tenderness is itself a condition of the sincerest care of the offspring and the guarantee of its realization.

To reduce the common life of husband and wife and the conjugal act to a mere organic function for the transmission of seed would be but to convert the domestic hearth, the family sanctuary, into a biological laboratory. Therefore, in Our allocution of September 29, 1949, to the International Congress of Catholic Doctors, We expressly excluded artificial insemination in marriage. The conjugal act, in its natural structure, is a personal action, a simultaneous and immediate cooperation of husband and wife, which by the very nature of the agents and the propriety of the act, is the expression of the reciprocal gift, which, according to Holy Writ, effects the union “in one flesh”.

That is much more than the union of two genes, which can be effected even by artificial means, that is, without the natural action of husband and wife. The conjugal act, ordained and desired by nature, is a personal cooperation, to which husband and wife, when contracting marriage, exchange the right.
Therefore, when this act in its natural form is from the beginning perpetually impossible, the object of the matrimonial contract is essentially vitiated. This is what we said on that occasion: “Let it not be forgotten: only the procreation of a new life according to the will and the design of the Creator carries with it in a stupendous degree of perfection the intended ends. It is at the same time in conformity with the spiritual and bodily nature and the dignity of the married couple, in conformity with the happy and normal development of the child”.

**Advise the fiancée or the young married woman who comes to seek your advice about the values of matrimonial life that these personal values, both in the sphere of the body and the senses and in the sphere of the spirit, are truly genuine, but that the *Creator ***has placed them not in the first, but in the second degree of the scale of values.
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Isn’t this just a whole lot clearer?

Gorman
 
tamccrackine said:
I’d vote but my option isn’t up there… I read Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West and lemme tell ya… THAT was an easy read. Totally made sense and I was able to breeze through it pretty quickly and still understand it. After reading that three paragraph quote above, I’d be lost within the first paragraph. I started to grasp it towards the end but the last REEEEALLLY long run on sentance had me confused again. But PJPII had great works and I just feel so stupid when I read some of them because he was just so dang intelligent, kwim?

So if someone else is like me and feels kinda intimidated by reading anything from PJPII yet would like to read Theology of the Body, I’d highly suggest reading Christopher West’s book first, then TOB. It might help. :o
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Since I am the Poll creator I would think your response would be “I think its great”
 
Theology of the Body is a lens through which Catholic Theology can be understood.

If it is a lens that can help you understand, then wonderful.

If it is not something that can help you understand Catholic teachings, that is fine too. There is no need to mock the author by mocking his work.

Just you cannot understand the deep theological perspectives of the author does not invalidate them. Most people cannot read St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Augustine without resorting to commentaries. Christopher West is probably the most famous of the first batch of commentators who are unpacking the writings of the late Holy Father.

But again, if it does not help you, do not mock because it is both faithful the Church teachings and **does **help many others.
 
I ordered Theology of the Body EXPLAINED by Christopher West. I’ve been reading it but… I’m kind of having a hard time understanding it. :confused: I get some of it but I am mostly lost. lol
 
Jart said:
I ordered Theology of the Body EXPLAINED by Christopher West. I’ve been reading it but… I’m kind of having a hard time understanding it. :confused: I get some of it but I am mostly lost. lol
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That’s because it makes no sense at all.
 
Nothing to like. This is an oxymoron.
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:ehh:

What’s so oxymoronical about it (if that’s even a word :rolleyes: )?

If you mean “theology” and “body” are oxymorons, I beg to differ. God made our bodies in His image. Our bodies are temples. We hold inside ourselves Christ’s body and the Holy Spirit! God gave us attraction to one another and gave us sex. Just like anything else in this world, our bodies can be used in a good and holy way or in a bad and sinful way. JP2 was helping us to know how to use our bodies in the way that is most pleasing to God.

❤️
 
gorman64 said:
Taken from Allocution of Pope Pius XII to Midwives, Vatican, October 29, 1951, Pope Pius XII

catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=3462

Isn’t this just a whole lot clearer?

Gorman
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They’re both clear…unless you don’t want them to be. Many don’t want St. Thomas to be clear, either. How many times I have heard people say how confusing the Summa is! Yet, he is perhaps the clearest theologian in all of history.
 
How does TOB not many any sense? I haven’t read Chris West’s TOB Explained, but I have read the beginners book and have seen some of his lectures. He quotes Love and Responsibility extensively, as well as the late Pope’s talks on what it means to be created male and female – and everything is painfully clear.

It seems like any disagreement with TOB (without explanation) seems to stem from not liking JPII much in the first place. At least this is the feeling I’m getting.
 
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