Day 48. Built To Be A Gift
Man … cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.
Gaudium et Spes
We continue our examination of St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. “Do you not know…?” This is Paul’s way of saying “Don’t you get it?” It’s a reproach, just as when a frustrated parent says “How many times do I have to tell you…?” In the passages we examined yesterday, St. Paul uses the phrase four times. His tone suggests that he’s reminding the Corinthians of something basic, something he feels they should have firmly grasped. Let’s examine each of these.
“Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”
St. Paul states his fundamental premise: since the Holy Spirit lives inside you through baptism, you have become holy, set apart for God just like the temple.
Can we hear this for ourselves too? God dwells in me. God dwells in you. How easily we take this for granted. God is no longer outside us, as he was in the old covenant. God is no longer beside us, as he was when Jesus walked upon the earth. God is now inside us, to assure our safe passage into everlasting life. “In him (Jesus) you also …were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the first installment of our inheritance toward redemption as God's possession” (Eph. 1:13, 14). The Spirit instructs us in the truths of the faith (Jn. 14:26), identifies us as sons and daughters of God (Rom. 8:16), teaches us to pray (Rom. 8:26), empowers us to overcome sin (Rom 8:3-4), and equips us with gifts called charisms to serve the Church (1 Cor. 12:7).
“Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?”
The Church is called many things in scripture: the bride of Christ, the house of God, the sheepfold. Still, when New Testament writers speak of the Church as “the body of Christ,” it is in a very different vein. It’s not a simile. We are not like the body of Christ. It’s a fact: We are the body of Christ. Through baptism we are incorporated into Christ. What we touch, Jesus touches. What we experience, Jesus experiences. Anything done to a baptized believer, for good or ill, is done to Christ himself. St. Paul (a.k.a. Saul) knew this well. On the road to Damascus, as he was leading a delegation from Jerusalem to arrest Christians, Jesus appeared to him saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4). Jesus didn’t say, “Why do you persecute my followers?” Jesus takes the affliction of his people as a wound in his own flesh.
Likewise, anything done by a baptized believer involves Christ. If we act sinfully, we are still acting as members of Christ though in contradiction to the mind of Christ. This close connection makes the offense much more offensive.
“…do you not know that anyone who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her?”
Here we have a lesson in the basics of human sexuality. In keeping with the mind of Christ, the Church teaches that the two-fold purpose of sex is union and procreation. Or, as one Catholic commentator said it: sex is for babies and bonding. St. Paul mentions the latter of these. Through sex, two persons become one. But he doesn’t say “person” he says “body.” We’ve already observed that our culture has lost the connection between body and person. My body, I am told, can be manipulated to suit my desires and preferences. If I don’t like my nose, I can change it. If I don’t want to look old, I can fix it. If I see my gender as different from my biological sex, I can change one to match the other. The body, it seems, is simply a biological mechanism to be rearranged whenever we see fit.
Returning to the Theology of the Body, recall what St. John Paul II wrote to cut across the grain of these popular “modern” ideas. He said that the body reveals the person. “(The body) is, therefore, in all its materiality…, almost penetrable and transparent in such a way as to make it clear who man is (and who he should be)….” [1]. Body, and soul, mind and emotions, will and heart all operate in a vital unity called “I.” So my physical body has something important to teach me about who I am at my very deepest levels. This is especially true in the contrast and complementarity of male and female bodies. Again, recall that critical point of recognition when Adam first saw Eve. “This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23). St. John Paul pointed out that “bones” is a semitic way of saying “being.” So Adam is saying, “Here is a body like mine; here is a being like mine” [2].
The nuptial meaning of the body, wrote John Paul II, is what we recognize in the contrast of our bodies, male and female. We perceive the capacity for self-gift. We see the possibility of union in our bodies, says the primordial couple in the garden, a union which opens us to interpenetration and communion on every other level of our persons. It is a union so profound that we are no longer two but one body.
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
Paul returns to his original premise, but adds a further point: You are not your own. Often I have seen this realization missing in those discerning a vocation. Paul considers this fundamental for all Christians, not least for one who is considering a life dedicated to the Church. So many, it seems, work from a faulty presupposition: “this is my life.” The Word of God says otherwise. If you are a dwelling place of the Spirit, then you are no longer your own. Your body is not your property. As one preacher said it, on the day you were baptized a sign was posted on your forehead: “Under new management.”
Does it disturb you to realize that you are no longer “calling the shots” in your life? Don’t be. God desires your happiness and your freedom, but he needs to lead you now in paths that you would not necessarily choose for yourself. He does this to bring you, ironically, to the very goals you seek. “In your will, Lord, is my peace.” Pray this frequently. It is a truth that will fill your soul and console all your unreasonable fears.
Novena Prayer
Jesus says: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
Pier Giorgio responds: What wealth it is to be in good health, as we are! But we have the duty of putting our health at the service of those who do not have it. To act otherwise would be to betray that gift of God.
Let us pray: Blessed Pier Giorgio, help me to seek God’s righteousness, His plan for my life and for the salvation of the world. Show me the way to self-surrender, so that I may desire nothing more than to be of service to the Lord and His Kingdom. Lead me to the table of love, where I will be satisfied.
Blessed Pier Giorgio, I ask for your intercession in obtaining from God, Who is righteous and just, all the graces necessary for my spiritual and temporal welfare. I confidently turn to you for help in my present need: (in your own words, ask for the Lord to give you greater charity in all of your relationships and to purify them from all self-interest).
A Book of Prayers in Honor of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, by Rev. Timothy E. Deeter
Make it My Own
Daily Discernment Workbook
WORLD VIEWS
1. I am Not My Own
Our lives are entrusted to us by God. Everything we possess, therefore, is a gift. God is generous and does not begrudge us the full use and enjoyment of his gifts. However, he requires us to remember where the gifts come from and to imitate his stewardship and generosity in our care and use of his gifts. The following statements are examples of attitudes that fail to recognize God’s claim on what’s “ours.” Can you spot the gift the speaker is forgetting he or she doesn’t possess apart from God? Here are the options, choose the one that best applies:
My plans are not my own.
My time is not my own.
My body is not my own.
My money is not my own.
Karen seemed upset on the phone and I’m pretty sure she needed to talk, but I can’t just rearrange my day because my sister is having issues.
For years I had to use steroids to be competitive. I’m not happy to admit it, but everybody was doing it and it gave me the edge I needed in body building competitions. So I think that may be why my wife and I can’t have kids now. I knew that kind of thing could happen, but it was a risk I chose to take.
Aw crap! Homeless guy coming this way. I’m crossing the street before he gets close and asks me for money.
I’m putting off having kids until my 30’s. My career is my priority right now and I think I’ll want the experience of being a mother later in life. Right now I’m having too much fun.
Attitude Adjustments. I re-write each of the statements above as somebody would say them if she or he understood “all I have is a gift, and I am made to be a gift to others.”
A QUOTE TO NOTE
2. Entitled America
Americans are very individualistic, so it’s difficult for someone who grew up in this culture (or one influenced by American ideas) to value things as gifts. We tend to think we deserve them! Spiritual writer Joseph Tetlow, S.J. describes the unique American way of seeing the entitled self.
Americans have to labor to perceive gifts as gifts. We tend, first, to feel that we must decide whether anything that comes to us is indeed gift to us at this time and in these circumstances. And then we tend to feel either that we originate whatever is in our life or self or, if we do not originate it, that we are entitled to it.
We must not be oblivious to the spiritual implications of this inculturated conditioning in self-perception. Master Ignatius identifies something closely related to it – Hey, this is mine! It’s really me! I have a right to this! – as the steps of the Enemy’s standard, not yet sin but already a wide-open liability to sin. He calls this mindset pride. Americans prefer to call it authenticity and approve it in the naïve belief that whatever rises from the self is authentic and whatever is authentic is good [3].
Agree or Disagree? Do I agree with Tetlow’s assessment of the American situation? Do I find any of what he says directly applicable to me?
BREAK OPEN YOUR BIBLE
3. Good Stewardship of My Body
Caring for our bodies is a good way to thank God for his goodness to us, but it can also become an obsession. Here’s what the Bible teaches us about finding the right balance between staying healthy in body and staying faithful in spirit. Under each passage, I write the lesson it teaches in my own words.
Sirach 30:15-16
Sirach 37:26-30
Matthew 6:25-33
1 Timothy 4:1-5
1 Timothy 4:7-8
1 Timothy 5:23
My Take-away. Which of these do I need to apply to my own approach to physical or spiritual health? What’s one specific thing I can work on today?
Conclude with
“Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be.
World without end, Amen.”
[0] lead quote - Gaudium et Spes, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, #24
[1] Original Unity of Man and Woman, Catechesis on the Book of Genesis by St. John Paul II, published by Daughters of St. Paul, Brookline, MA, 1981; from General audience 10/24/79, (JPII drew from his own works, later titled “Love and Responsibility” and “Theology of the Body,” for these general audiences) p. 56.
[2] Ibid. p. 68. footnote 4.
[3] Joseph A. Tetlow, S.J., The Most Postmodern Prayer, American Jesuit Identity and the Examen of Conscience, 1920-1990, Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, January, 1994, ed. 26/1, pp. 33, 34