Theology of the Body
The day after his wedding, after having consummated his marriage the night before, a man was in tears after receiving the Eucharist. When His new bride asked he said: “For the first time in my life I understood the meaning of Christ’s words, “This is my body given for you.”
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church we read these words “The flesh is the hinge of salvation.” We believe in God who created us, we believe in the word made flesh, we believe in the resurrection of the body.
Many Christians grow up believing their spirit to be good and their body to be bad. The idea that the human body is bad is actually a heresy known as Manichaeism. Actually Christianity says “the body is so good that you can’t even fathom it.”
In the sacraments we bathe the body with water in baptism, anoint the body with oil in baptism, confirmation, holy orders and the anointing of the sick, we eat and drink the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, we have the laying on of hands in holy orders and the anointing of the sick, we confess with our lips and man and woman are joined in one body in marriage. When Pope John Paul speaks of the body as a sacrament, he means it is a sign that makes visible the invisible mystery of God. For him all the sacraments have a “nuptial” character since their purpose is to unite Christ the bridegroom with his bride, the church
Christianity is the religion of God’s union with humanity. It’s the religion of the Word made flesh! In the body of Jesus ‘we see our God made visible and so are caught up in love of the God we cannot see. (CCC. N. 477)