#380 Exploring the Theology of the Body: Unraveling the Divine Design and Confronting Gender Ideologies

And St Athanasius , an early church father and a doctor of the church , said the son of God became man so that we might become God . You know , I make a while to guess at this , but I bet you , most of us , are a bit disconnected from this divine life that these saints are pointing us to .

Yet St John Paul II said there's an echo of this story , of this divine life that we're created for , inscribed in each human heart , in your human heart . And if you put on a proper lens , if I put on a proper lens , we can get in touch with this echo within us in such a way that we have that aha moment .

See , that's the genus of St John Paul II , the theology , the body . It connects our lived experience of life to the gospel in such a way that our life takes on a whole new meaning and helps us answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today . Who am I ? What's my purpose ? Why were we created male and female ?

How do I find happiness here on earth ? How do I find love that satisfies forever ? Hey , glad you're with me . I'll be right back for today's episode . I am glad to be back with Linda Piper all the way from Pennsylvania . This is audience number 56 of John Paul II's Theology the Body , which he presented on February 11 , 1981 .

You know this is our second episode , linda , since we took a short mid-summer break . Maybe we should review just a little bit , maybe I'll go backwards just a little bit For those of you popping in , or maybe just a little refresher doesn't hurt . John Paul II became pulp in 1978 . And this work , this theology the body , he called it man and woman .

He created them . A theology of the body . It was his first major work of his pontificate and he put a big emphasis on it . He began presenting this large body of work in 1979 . He ended it in 1984 . He got shot in 1981 , took a break , obviously , there and he did travel quite a bit .

But anyways , it's a series of 129 small talks that he gave when he was in Rome , when he was at the Vatican , and his Wednesday general audiences . So anybody could have went to these . It was public . And think about the name and maybe let's unpack this , linda , a little bit , because it's amazing the confusion that's going on today .

And just think about this . He calls it man and woman . He created them , which is a huge statement , just to say that right now , in this crazy time . And then a theology of the body , the study of God within the human body .

I mean it's amazing , right , that it's in the body , in and through the body , that the body reveals something of God and we're going to be talking about that today .

You know , when we think about this and I think it's so important , linda , as we're speaking about this , that we remind people again that what this does is gives us what we used to have , certainly in the Middle Ages and before that , which was a sacramental lens that we saw everything through creation and in fact , the ancient philosophers , from Socrates and

Aristotle , plato they saw creation and many , many others write about this all the way through , 400 years before Christ , 2000 years before Christ . It was amazing . They would look at creation and say what does that reveal about God ?

You think about the Rocky Mountains and the raw power and beauty , the danger and the challenges of a mountain , and we often hear the prophets in the Old Testament , like Moses , climbing the mountain to get closer to God , to pray and find God .

Flowers , you know these delicate flowers , with all the beauty and scent that comes from them , and the flower itself is the sexual organ . It's amazing of a plant so beautiful , the variety of creatures , and we have all these different animals walking around . But mankind was something different , not just biology , but part of the created universe , of course .

But God blew into him , right , this is right , from Genesis , chapter 2 , ru'ah , the Spirit of God . And we received God in a special way . We were filled to our faith . Our reason and free will made us the Amago de , made us in the image of God .

But it was this Ru'ah , this being filled with the Spirit , that really makes us human , gives us our human dignity , and this is that sacramental lens . And maybe I'll just finish this kind of intro . John Paul II grew up in Poland .

There was a time where the Nazis came in and then the Communists and they wanted to take down , really , and they lost for power . Right , and this is what we see over and over in history , to be like God's deciding what is good and what is evil . It's an old story .

John Paul said what they could not do in Poland , which was take down marriage and the family and also the church . He said the sexual revolution and this is what we see now in this techno economic revolution would take down marriage and the family and would take down the church .

And it's because they're linked that the body marriage and the family expresses the inner life of the Trinity , love itself . And so the cornerstone of the church is Christ himself , who did what . He came back into this story to bring this Ru'ah , this life that we've lost in the fall . So here's Jesus . You know the fall . We breathe this Ru'ah out .

Jesus comes in to restore that , to take on a body , bring our body united back with God . The sacramental image of that is seen on the crucifix where he pours this out . We see this . I was at Mass this morning . We see this happening right on the altar and this is my body given for you To restore that which we lost .

The second Adam that restored what the first Adam lost . There's where we're at , linda . Here's Christ comes back into the story . He blows in his resurrection , I remember right . He comes to the Apostles who were hiding and he breathes on them . It's the only second time you hear that in Scripture . He breathes on them . He restores that Ru'ah .

Then soon after that , we have the Pentecost and the Spirit comes upon them . Then they go out filled with the Spirit . This is humanity . This is the way we are . Our natural state is supernatural . That's really what we want to play out here today . It's amazing .

He tells us that our body has been created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden from eternity in God , and thus to be a sign of it . We look at Creation , jack , and most of us are in awe .

Just the other night we were sitting out looking at the stars and we actually saw some shooting stars and the panorama was just fantastic Looking at the mountains and all the things in nature that just cause us to reflect on Creation .

Yet we find that with the Theology of the Body , it is we , we , our human bodies , that are bringing the mystery that's hidden in God as a sign . How awesome is that . We are the pinnacle of that Creation In practical terms .

When we look at then , what is he teaching us in Theology of the Body as a whole , and how does it become something practical for me and my life ? I think it's important to understand that there's really like two big areas that all of this fits into . That's looking at my identity , who I am . What does it mean to be a human person ?

When I understand that , what does that mean for how I should live my vocation ? And so the Pope had this kind of organization , if you will , in his mind as he was presenting these very deep teachings to us . So your introduction is wonderful and I hope that helps our listeners kind of get reoriented , if you will , to what this is all about .

And you and I , in our discussions , find that every single audience teaches another little piece of that big picture and it is so applicable to the things we're seeing today which , as you said , with that breath , that spirit breathed into us , we've been working very hard , I think , to exhale that , to get rid of all of that .

We don't want God in our lives , and we're seeing the fruit of that in our culture and in the whole world actually today .

And we see that in the three necessary societies that the church would teach , and that's marriage and the family , the church , and then how we structure ourselves in our civil and also our economic , our politics , our laws , everything should be our laws , our politics , our politicians should be supporting marriage and the family .

And then freedom , freedom of religion , freedom of speech . We see all of those things taken down when we breathe out . It's amazing what we're seeing today , live and in person every day . But the most critical place and the place you really see this is with these gender ideologies .

You really see these young people who have no idea what we're talking about here and you think well , you mentioned the word practical . How do you make it practical in your life ? Well , I'll tell you what the way you make it practical in your life is . You start to see this , you know our whole creation as a sacramental sign .

You start to see your body as a sacrament and you connect , you reconnect to Jesus Christ himself , because you see what happens when we disconnect I often call it a cut flower and you see , these , these young people who are disconnected , who actually get so disconnected that they are fighting within themselves , and St Paul is going to talk about that .

You fight within yourselves . You actually lose your , not only your identity , your body's soul becomes disintegrated and pretty soon you're so uncomfortable that you think that you are in the wrong body . I mean , that's how uncomfortable we are and there's a reason for that . There's a reason for that .

Evil is real and these poor people , these poor young people , have no idea that the battle they're actually fighting and they give themselves over to these crazy people like this . You know Richard Levine , right , this the HHS .

You know he calls himself Rachel , but of course it's a man who dresses like a woman , who proclaims pride , not only pride for the , for the month , but he said let's make it a whole summer of pride . And of course we know , pride is one of the first of the seven deadly sins , don't we ?

It is that control Over my passions that is the only way I can find myself , coming out of this disconnection and reconnecting to To who I am , body and soul reconnected . And the disconnection , jack , goes all the way back to our title that you mentioned man and woman . He created them .

So if you take it all the way back to that beginning , we are denying that we are created man and woman , male and female , and that's what the gender Ideologies are rooted in a denial of that reality .

So we see the confusion and with that denial then everything falls apart marriage and family and Everything we've known to be true just falls apart and , as a result , society in chaos .

You know , it's amazing when we think , sometimes we hear a purity and virtue , we think , oh my gosh , you know , I have to be this , this , you know this , this kind of like a Quaker , or maybe not even a Quaker , right , maybe a what would be the analogy we can use ?

You know , this holy little person running around and and the reality is , we're called to be like the mountain . You know , we're called to be a combination of a flower and a beauty and the scent , and the mountain . That's , that's , that's powerful and and brings this raw strength in .

You know , you know , at the end of the day , we're children of the light , aren't we ? We're children of the light , we're children who actually are , become people of love . When you connect to God himself , you don't become smaller , you know , you become much larger .

And it's amazing what happens , you know , I think sometimes I think of a small circle , that these people , that with all these ideologies , we blew , you know , we blew out , and what happens is you live in a small circle and and , of course , you take up a lot of that space and you become obsessed with everything and you yell and you scream and you're Angry

because somebody's moving in , and your turf , of course , because you don't have any room . As soon as you open yourself to the spirit , that circle gets much larger . Now I don't take up much space in there anymore . It's not because I shrunk , right , it's it's . It's that the my circle got much bigger . I included God in here . I included so much more .

When we think about purity and virtues . We are opening ourselves up to the spirit . We're opening wide right . And does it take self mastery and discipline ? Yes , of course , because we're free . We're free to lust and use and abuse people or we're free to love them .

You know we're not , we're not becoming smaller , we're cutting the chains and we're open up to that Greatness .

If we really open ourselves up , it's the heavens , it's those stars that you were talking about , I mean that's where it opens right . Yes , you know . Yes , think about this you .

You look into this materialistic world and you see the things in the world and instead of seeing them as something , as a gift to you , all of creation , you start to grasp it , you start to want it , just to keep it for yourself . And then , finally , the pride of life . Isn't that something that this is pride month and all pride summer ?

These people have no idea Of who they are or where they're going . I mean , I dress like a woman , uh , and , and I'm and I , and , if you listen , uh to to rich , uh , levine Levine , if you listen to him , he's offered these . You know mutilation of children , really , you know Putting kids on puberty black , because I , it was astounded .

I heard an interview the other day and he said you know what , uh , at a puberty and adolescence is something very powerful I'm paraphrasing but very powerful .

That happens to you and what happens if you're in the wrong body when you go through that , then you need to be on puberty block because you need to stop that process , because that really can take you into and I'm thinking this is insanity , as a puberty is a disease .

Now I'm just going to read linda , because john paul brings up a couple readings , one from one thessalonians and one from one Corinthian , so important . This is one thessalonians four and he's . He quotes verses three to five .

For this is the will of god , your sanctification , that you abstain from immorality , that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor , not in the passion of lust , like heathens who do not know god . And you , it's amazing , right , and you think about that . And why ? Why ?

Why , because we have become the temple of the holy spirit , life in the spirit , god . Actually , linda , we have to really make this image come alive for ourselves and for people . What's practical , you , you said in the beginning , what's practical is that I become a temple of the holy spirit . I breathe this in the gift that god wants to give us .

You breathe in . If you didn't believe this before , look around at what is going on in the world and just say you know what ? This is true , this is really true . I mean at one point this could have been an intellectual exercise , but no more . I mean , this has become the very dna you start to realize . This is the dna of who we are , isn't it ?

You know , we're talking and focusing on an understanding of the dignity of the body and the dignity of the human person being made in the image of god . And I look at a person like Richard and it appalls me that there isn't the sense of how he has attacked and afflicted his own body .

And as a woman , I feel attacked in a sense that my dignity as a woman and what we look like , how God designed our bodies , is being almost in a way , mocked , and it's very difficult for me .

And then it goes a step further with your people who are drag queens and you know these sisters of perpetual indulgence , you know , goes even another step further , and all of it , to me , is such an attack on our dignity , but in particular on women .

It's like I feel that they're just mocking who we are and just trying to strip us completely of whatever dignity we may still be trying to hold on to in this society .

And so I think this is very real , that we discuss how the opposite , what you just described for us is that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and that gift of purity actually is related to the gift of piety from the Holy Spirit , which is reference for God's design , most particularly for our bodies as male and female .

So we see that the gender ideologies and where they're taking it is kind of like the grand slam of mocking that whole creation of male and female and the dignity of each of us as a man and as a woman .

You know , rich Levine looks like a man , you know , I mean he's not fooling anybody except for himself . These athletes , like you know what's Leah Thomas , right , and I mean this is a man , you know right , with a man bulge and the whole thing . You know he , he , he doesn't look anything like a woman , not even close . And and and yes , we're just mocking .

And when you see this , you see how far we fall in that the , that there are many people that are standing up for men to mock women like this , and you just go , wow , we have really lost this . And so when you get read one Corinthians , now one Corinthians six , this is starting at verse 16 . Think about this . This is the power of this .

Do you not know that he who joins myself to a prostitute becomes one body with her ? Now we talk about , you know , the difference between lusting and love , between the body detached or attached to the three fold concupiscence .

This is the importance of it , this is that gets gets back to that sacramental image and that sacramental lens that when you join yourself , st Paul says to a prostitute , you become one with her . Do you not know that you become one body with her ? This is the sacramental sign . This is what our sexuality was for . Our sexuality was to become one .

You know again . You know , all the organs in our body are almost the same , except for what our sexual organs , all our systems in our body , bodies , the circulatory system , the muscular system , the nervous system , the digestive system , they all work on their own . The one that doesn't work on its own is the reproductive system .

So , reproduction and to bring the fruit of new life into the world , this is what God does and this is how he creates our bodies to do this . For , as it is written , the two shall become one , but he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him . So this is what we're talking about here .

We're saying when you open yourselves up to the fruit of the spirit , when you open up to what ? When Jesus pours himself out , what does he do ? Again ? He took our humanity . He connects it , unites it to divinity , he takes it upon himself . Jesus Christ himself has taken our humanity back into God , and then he pours this out to us . We become one with God .

This is why we need to stay pure . This is what we need our sanctification for . So St Paul goes on to say shun immorality . Every other sin which a man commits is outside his body , but the immoral man sins against his own body . This is what we've been talking about .

St Paul could have written this today for the gender dysphoria and just to finish , you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you , which you have from God . You are not your own and you were bought with a price . So glorify God in your body . Wow , what a difference . What a difference .

In our paragraph number three of our audience , number five , 56 , the Pope talks about this and he says that profaning of the body is depriving yourself of the reverence that is due because of the dignity of the person .

What is decisive for the dignity of the human body and Paul's eyes is not only the human spirit , thanks to which man is constituted as a personal subject , but much more so the supernatural reality of the indwelling and continuous presence of the Holy Spirit in man , in man and woman , in his soul and in his body , as the fruit of the redemption accomplished by

Christ . So in my book I have stars and underlining here that such an important idea that it is the fruit of the redemption accomplished by Christ . So saying in other ways exactly what you just said .

But that virtue of purity is only authentic when we have that sincere appreciation for the tremendous value and dignity of the body and that it's not based on fear or devaluation of sexuality . So the puritanical idea is kind of , you know , repressing and putting our sexuality aside . That's not authentic purity or modesty .

It's having that openness to the gift of the Spirit so that I have that true appreciation for that dignity of the body and therefore I'm capable of living that life in the Spirit . Isn't that wonderful , jack . It's just so awesome to think through this and to think what God had really intended for us in the way we are to live .

St Paul makes it very clear too you know , why do I do evil when I try to do good and why when I try to do good , right , and I can't do it ? Well , why ? Because we're not infused . You know , we're not infused with the Holy Spirit .

So , while we want to practice this virtue , while we want to do the best we can on our own , this is going to take grace and it was always supposed to take grace In the beginning . This is the way it was . We were created , male and female . John Paul would say , getting back to the sacramental lens , the primordial sacrament .

And what is the primordial sacrament ? It's marriage . It's marriage and being open to life that brings the inner life of the Trinity into the created world . We're the only ones that can do this . This now is linked directly , as it wasn't a beginning drink . It was linked directly to God , this Ru'ah .

Now , it's linked directly to the church , which is the body of Christ , which is Christ again pouring himself out to us .

This Ru'ah , this , linda , is why I am so when I think about the Synod of Synodalities we won't go here right now so much but when I see this as this Trojan horse , the Father James Martins and the Cardinal Supaches and Gregory's and Mackleroy's Pope Francis is putting all these people in place . He brought them , he actually picked them himself and to do what ?

It's the Trojan horse ? It's going to come right in and what does it want to do ? It wants to separate this beauty that we're talking about again . For those of you who don't know Father James Martin , he just spews heresy . In fact , he's a very pro-LGBTQ , ia , ss plus , and so what he even says in Scripture is not .

He said what makes Scripture true , what makes tradition true ? And you wonder why is he in the church ? Nobody has to believe anything . There are people walking away from the church left and right in today's time . We've all had these deflated lungs , we've all breathed out , but why do you want to stay in the church ? Well , that's the question .

And the question is because he wants to really diabolically take down the church , otherwise you just walk away . Why do you become a priest ? Why do you become a cardinal ? Why do you want to become the Pope ? If you don't really believe in what we're talking about , just walk away . But they can't walk away because they aren't there to do this .

The bottom line , what's behind this all , is Satan . Again in Genesis 3 . Did God really say you can't eat from that tree if the knowledge is good and evil ? Of course you can eat from that tree of the knowledge and good , evil , and you won't die . You'll be like God's and you can decide what is good and what is evil .

And that's exactly what you see James Martin doing . Right , he's gonna decide , not the Bible , not the tradition . And again , I just ask you , linda , you know I mean , why does he stay in a church ? Ah , because there's something behind all this . We have to see through it . We have to just like we're looking through the sacramental lens .

We want to say , okay , what is the mountains ? What are the flowers ? What do they reveal about God ? We have to look at these men and what they're doing within the church and saying what are they doing ? What is that sacramental analogy ? What are they saying about God ? And they're twisting and distorting ?

If our bodies Right coming together as a man and a woman open to life , if that is a sacramental sign of God , what would they do with our bodies ? To , to , to ape again , to ape this Trinitarian love story ? Well , they would change at all what they and that's what they want to do .

It's very disconcerting to many of us to see what is happening , but I think if we stick with the understanding that Christ has Guaranteed that , you know , satan will not prevail against his church , but he's counting on us to play a role in that , and I think learning and understanding theology , the body and when it all fits into what we see happening , you know

, what can I do as an individual , becomes clear that I have to be a part of the Battle against the ideologies . You know , jack , there was something I know we're getting close to the end that I wanted to bring up that I think is Just an awesome point about everything that we've discussed so far . We're in paragraph 4 , towards the end , on this audience .

The Pope is talking about the fact that , because Jesus took on a body , the body of the God man , it has the effect of a supernatural elevation in every human being .

It's like we've all been upgraded , if you want to use our modern way of thinking , that we've all been upgraded , that every Christian must take into account his behavior towards his own body , understanding that we have this supernatural Upgraded because of that spirit and that living in the life of the spirit is how we experience it .

It's the redemption of the body , bringing with it that new measure of holiness for us to consider . So it's not just pie in the sky that we're talking about Although the stars in the sky are all a part of it but we're talking about how do I view my own body and then how do I view others ?

And we have that supernatural dimension and because it is a spiritual war , we are capable of fighting these battles .

The crops are all coming up and I , you know , we had it like an almost an early drought in the beginning and things weren't growing . You just see the power of that . You know that just the rain coming in . You know , and even the power of water , what it can do .

You know we're flooding and take down things and yet it can bring life and and all of creation Saint Paul would talk about . It's just waiting for this redemption of the body .

so important , because when we see what I was going to say right before you said that was when you start to see marriage and the family coming apart and the church Coming apart and then our whole nation coming apart , it's important to remember that I am the solution and so I think you know , just follow up with that , linda .

See , we really need to walk into the spirit because we can change and , if nothing else , we still win , because we win personally as we're walking into the spirit and as we're bringing this truth into the world , don't we ?

So we're just scratching the surface of what this really means For all of us , and it'll be exciting as we move forward , to see how he brings this up again , because we know he does that . He kind of spirals through and brings it up again .

So I'd like to leave , for my part , this idea of if I'm going to appropriate the power of my faith , I can only do that through the church and through the sacraments , in order to get stronger each day .

You can lose on listening to any of them , but I would even go back and listen to the first few . That we did a long time ago , and I don't even know how long ago .

A year ago , I guess we started right , it's been about a year yeah so go back about a year , try to find some of those earlier ones , and it's really beautiful when John Paul started to talk about in the beginning and what that model looked like . And that's what Jesus does to bring us back Into that , into that beauty of that model . Hey , god bless you .

Thanks , linda , thanks for being with us everybody . Bye , bye .