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An
Introduction to John Paul II's Theology of the Body
Father Richard M. Hogan |
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Chapter 4
The Redemption of the Body
In the first cycle of the Theology of the Body (nos. 1-23) John
Paul II applied the phenomenological method to the study of the first
experiences (solitude and original unity) of the human race experienced by
Adam (humanity) and then by both Adam and Eve. In nos. 24-33 of the second
cycle (nos. 24-63), John Paul analyzes Adam and Eve's experience of
nakedness, especially their nakedness after sin. In nos. 34-43, the Pope
considers Christ's words about adultery, looking with lust, and adultery
in the heart. In nos. 44-46, John Paul distinguishes Christ's teachings
from the ancient Manichean point of view and from the interpretation of
the modern "masters of suspicion." We have considered the
remarks of Pope John Paul II on these topics in the previous three
chapters. [1]
In this chapter, we will examine John Paul's teaching in nos. 47-63.
These addresses can be divided into three distinct segments, although they
are part of the expansive second cycle (nos. 24-63). The first two
addresses, nos. 47-48, take up the question of the relationship between
the ethical (ethos) and the erotic (eros). This discussion
includes a consideration of spontaneous love between a man and a woman. In
nos. 49-59, the Pope uses a phrase from St. Paul, the "redemption of
the body," and demonstrates how Christ's appeal in his teaching on
adultery is made concretely possible in the human heart. The second cycle
concludes with four addresses (nos. 60-63) on the portrayal of the human
body in art.
I. Ethos and Eros
In the last chapter, the point was made that Christ does not merely
“accuse” the human heart of inclining to act contrary to human dignity,
contrary to the values revealed in the original experiences in the state
of innocence. Rather than just hurling an accusation, Christ calls us to
rediscover those values, to re-interiorize them, and then to live
accordingly. But it is almost impossible for “historical man,” i.e.,
for all of us wounded by original sin, to live as though we were not
wounded. Still, this is precisely what Christ asks us to do. But the
Lord does not only make the appeal. Simultaneously with the appeal,
Christ gives us the means of answering and fulfilling it: the Redemption
and the grace flowing from it. “Redemption is a truth, a reality, in the
name of which man must feel called, and ‘called with efficacy’.” Called
to what? Called “to rediscover, nay more, to realize the nuptial meaning
of the body and to express in this way the interior freedom of the
gift.”
With Christ’s help, we can live according to the values of human
dignity: we can love as we should and appreciate the great dignity and
value of ourselves and others in the mystery of the human body-person
unity.
However, if spouses realize “the nuptial meaning of the body” and
express the interior freedom of their gift to one another, it seems that
they must sacrifice spontaneity and what is usually called erotic love.
Erotic love in common speech connotes the bodily and emotional
attraction of a man to a woman and a woman to a man. As such, erotic
love can be equated with lust. Since Christ condemns lust, then He must
also have condemned erotic love. Christ’s judgment against lust would
also be a “negative judgment about what is ‘erotic’ and, addressed to
the human heart, would constitute at the same time a severe warning
against ‘eros’.”
In other words, it would seem that in following Christ’s appeal, spouses
give up all that is pleasurable, romantic, and stimulating in their
relationship.
However, Plato defined “eros” as an interior force that
attracts man towards what is true, good and beautiful. A lustful
attraction of a man to a woman or a woman to a man is a reduction and
even denial of what is truly good, and beautiful in the other. Lust
focuses on one value and misses the depth and breadth of what God has
implanted in every human being. Therefore, lust is a reduction of
another human being to one value. The one lusting misses the forest for
the trees, so to speak. And what is worse, to continue the analogy, the
one lusting wants to take the tree for his or her own use. In other
words, the one lusting wants to acquire the one value that he or she
does see, the sexual value, by taking and using it. Lust not only
reduces the other to one value, it also makes of the other a thing to be
used. “Eros,” as defined by Plato, is an attraction to the entire
constellation of goods present in the other and a profound desire to
treat the other in accordance with the dignity and value which those
goods together constitute. Christ’s appeal, far from denying erotic
love, is an appeal to act in accordance with true eroticism, i.e., to be
attracted to the fullness of values present in the other person. “The
form of what is ‘erotic’ should be at the same time the form of ‘ethos,’
that is, of what is ‘ethical’.”
John Paul summarizes his point very well when he writes: “It is
necessary continually to rediscover in what is ‘erotic’ the nuptial
meaning of the body and the true dignity of the gift. This is the role
of the human spirit, a role of an ethical nature. If it does not assume
this role, the very attraction of the senses and the passion of the body
may stop at mere lust devoid of ethical value, and man, male and female,
does not experience that fullness of ‘eros,’ which means the aspiration
of the human spirit towards what is true, good and beautiful. . . . It
is indispensable, therefore, that ethos should become the constituent
form of eros.”
The problem with this notion, however, as the Pope notes, is that
ethical values require thought and consideration. Such thought and
consideration seems opposed to spontaneity—to letting oneself be led by
impulse--rather than by thought and reflection. However, in viewing the
matter this way, there is a misunderstanding of spontaneity. John Paul
teaches that the only spontaneity worthy of human persons is that which
springs from what he calls an “adequate hierarchy,” i.e., it is a
spontaneity not resulting from mere passion and emotion, but from free
will inspired by the knowledge of one’s own dignity and that of the
other. “It is precisely at the price of self control that man reaches
that deeper and more mature spontaneity with which his ‘heart,’
mastering his instincts, rediscovers the spiritual beauty of the sign
constituted by the human body in its masculinity and femininity. . . .
The human heart becomes a participant, so to speak, in another
spontaneity of which ‘carnal man’ knows nothing or very little.”
True spontaneous love always involves the recognition of one’s own
dignity and that of the other. It involves an awareness of the nuptial
meaning of the body and choices to act in accordance with that meaning.
We each need to become what the Pope calls “interior” persons so that we
will always conform our external acts to the interior demands of our
awareness of the nuptial meaning of the human body. We need to be like
“guardians” watching over a hidden spring, discerning which moves of
that spring are consistent with human dignity and the nuptial meaning of
the body and which are not. This discernment process gradually becomes
a consistent pattern which in time becomes almost second nature. Once
this happens, then there can be a true spontaneity which is the result
not just of passion and emotion, but a spontaneity from within based on
one’s own appreciation of human dignity and the nuptial meaning of the
body.
The sexual attraction is unbelievably strengthened and deepened
when it springs not just from passion and emotion, but from “the total
expression of femininity and masculinity.”
This truth partially explains how couples, long married and aging, are
more deeply in love than they were on the day of their marriage even
though others seeing such a couple cannot understand how they could
possibly by physically attracted to one another any more. When our
interior awareness and choices are in accordance with the nuptial
meaning of the body and this attitude has become almost second nature,
we are capable of an incredible spontaneous love which gives
unbelievable joy and pleasure to ourselves and those we love. Of
course, sin sometimes intervenes, but through the help of Christ’s
grace, we can achieve this loving spontaneity which the Pope holds out
before us.
II. Redemption of the Body
But this true spontaneous love demands a self-mastery which Christ
offers through the Redemption. Self-mastery allows the “innermost
layers of his [man’s] potentiality [to] acquire a voice, layers which
the lust of the flesh, so to speak, would not permit to show
themselves.” Self-mastery
means that we are able to give ourselves to another. Through
self-mastery we are able to choose our own acts independent of the
passions and emotions which sometimes rage within us. This self-mastery
frees us from any compulsion to follow the desires of the flesh. And
therefore, we are able to appreciate the true value of the other, not
just the value that sometimes our passion and emotions are drawn towards
(what the Pope has previously called the reduction of the other to one
value, namely the sexual one). In recognizing the true value of the
other, we appreciate our own value in a new way and we are free to
respond to these human values in the only appropriate way, i.e., with
love.
Self-mastery is an interior capacity which is capable of directing
the passions and emotions of the body instead of being directed by
them. Although this self-mastery has the body, the flesh, as its
object, it remains an interior capacity—a power which allows each of us
to direct our own actions in the appropriate way. Lacking this
self-mastery, we are directed by our emotions and passions. If we are
directed by our emotions and passions, then these influence or even
“take over” our minds and wills.
The virtue of purity allows us to attain the appropriate
self-mastery which, in turn, yields an interior freedom. Christ
illustrates this point very well when He speaks of “adultery in the
heart.” “When Christ,
explaining the correct meaning of the commandment ‘You shall not commit
adultery,’ appealed to the interior man, he specified at the same time
the fundamental dimension of purity that marks the mutual relations
between man and woman both in marriage and outside it. The words: ‘But I
say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already
committed adultery with her in his heart’ (Mt 5:27-28), express what is
opposed to purity. At the same time, these words demand the purity
which in the Sermon on the Mount, is included in the list of beatitudes:
‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’ . . . Christ
sees in the heart, in man’s inner self, the source of purity.”
The self-mastery attained through purity results in freedom and
yields one set of actions “from the heart” and the lack of that freedom
because of a lack of self-mastery yields a different set of actions
“from the heart.” However, Christ also uses purity to mean more than
just the absence of sexual sins. Purity can mean the absence of all
“dirt,” of all sin, and the source of all moral good. So Christ
can say that “the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart,
and they defile. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder,
adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness, blasphemy.”
Purity of heart results in the opposite of these acts: affirming the
dignity of life, life-long permanence and fidelity in marriage,
chastity, respecting people’s property, respecting the reputation of
people, and affirming the one true God and not false gods.
St. Paul also uses purity in the general sense. He contrasts the
flesh and the Spirit: “For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and
the Spirit against the flesh.”
Flesh in the Pauline letters is opposed “not only and not so much to the
human ‘spirit’ as to the Holy Spirit who works in man’s soul (spirit).”
The works of the flesh according to St. Paul are: “immorality, impurity,
licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts
of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy,
drinking bouts, orgies, and the like.”
On the other hand, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
St. Paul’s list of the sins of the flesh is very similar to Christ’s
list of sins which defile: “The things that come out of the mouth come
from the heart, and they defile. For from the heart come evil thoughts,
murder, adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness, blasphemy.”
All the works of the flesh defile, i.e., are opposed to purity. All the
works of the spirit, i.e., the Holy Spirit, are pure. Purity does not
only designate chastity and the absence of sexual sins, but the absence
of all sins which “defile.”
Purity is also equated with life. “For if you live according to the
flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of
the body, you will live.”
There is a contrast here between death of the body and moral death, the
death resulting from sin. Death of the body (of the desires of the
flesh) leads to true life, life according to the Holy Spirit, life in
the Kingdom of God. Giving in to the desires of the body, i.e., letting
the desires of the body live and rule, leads to true death, the death
which denies us any participation in the Kingdom of God.
Purity results in true freedom. Freedom is very important in St. Paul
because freedom from compulsion, either interior (the desires of the
flesh) or exterior (the Law of the old covenant) gives us the power to
love and the entire Gospel message is fulfilled in love: "You shall love
your neighbor as yourself."
St. Paul contrasts, self-mastery, purity, freedom, life according to the
Spirit, love, and life in the Kingdom of God, on the one hand, with a
lack of control, defilement, a lack of freedom, life according to the
flesh, an absence of love, and spiritual death, i.e., exclusion from the
Kingdom of God. Put in this fashion, the choice for all of us seems
obvious.
It is very important to note that the Lord and St. Paul are not
intending to suggest that there is a fundamental conflict between human
flesh and the human soul imbedded in all human persons from the
beginning. It is not what Andrew Marvell suggested in his wonderful
poem, “A Dialogue Between the Soul and Body,” that the soul is enslaved
by the flesh and the body is ruled by a tyrannical soul. As the Pope
writes, “It is not a question here only of the body (matter) and of the
spirit (soul) as of two essentially different anthropological elements
which constitute from the ‘beginning’ the very essence of man. But that
disposition of forces formed in man with original sin, in which every
‘historical’ man participates, is presupposed.”
The clearest statement of this problem in Scripture is probably from the
author of Romans: “I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do
not want.”
But we can win this struggle within each of us through the power of
the Holy Spirit. We can choose the good, the holy, by “an effort of the
will, the fruit of the human spirit permeated by the Spirit of God. . .
. . In this struggle between good and evil [between the desires of the
flesh, on the one hand, and the requirements of purity, self-mastery,
and true freedom, on the other] man proves himself stronger through the
power of the Holy Spirit.”
The understanding of freedom portrayed in St. Paul’s works and
implicit in Christ’s teaching is not the common understanding of freedom
prevalent today. Most people would regard freedom as the right to do
what one pleases. For most people, freedom means an absence of any
constraint—the right to do as one pleases at any particular time. In
this view, freedom means the right to follow any impulse at all,
including those of the flesh. St. Paul addresses this notion of freedom
when he writes: “For you were called for freedom, brothers. But do not
use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh; rather, serve one
another through love.” By
giving in to the flesh, i.e., by living according to the flesh, we allow
our freedom to be “taken over” by our passions and emotions. We are no
longer free in the sense that we direct our passions and emotions,
rather they direct us. They constitute, in effect, an interior
compulsion which deprives us of true freedom. If we cannot say “No,” our
“Yes” does not mean anything.
In Mozart’s famous opera, Don Giovanni, Don Giovanni declares
his freedom to do what he pleases. However, this freedom translates into
murder, fornication, adultery, lying, and eventually physical death, as
well as spiritual death (the unrepentant libertine descends at the very
end of the opera into the fiery pit of hell). The great composer
contrasts Don Giovanni’s claim of freedom with the actual situation: Don
Giovanni is chained by his passions and in effect, after a long life of
following those passions, is subject to them even when, one suspects, he
would rather not follow them. He has not the strength to ignore his
passions and so he is not free and his “Yes” is meaningless.
True freedom does not exist without self-mastery. Freedom requires
that we be free of any interior compulsion. Self-mastery enables us to
free ourselves from any compulsion arising out of our passions and
emotions. We are able to act in accordance with truth and love, i.e.,
according to what we know in our minds and choose in our wills. We are
able to act in freedom. Our bodies are supposed to speak the language of
personhood. They only do this when they express and manifest what we
know and choose because our power to know (the mind) and our power to
choose (the will) are the capacities which make us persons. Our bodies
can only manifest what we know and choose if we are free from any
compulsion arising out of passion or emotion.
As we have said, true freedom is the result of purity. St. Paul
teaches that purity “is manifested in the fact that man ‘knows how to
control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of
lust’.” “Control” clearly
indicates a capacity, a power, not to give in to lust or unchaste acts.
In traditional Catholic theological language, this means that purity is
a virtue which has as its purpose a negative goal: the control of
lustful desires. But it also leads to “holiness and honor” for the body.
As the Pope writes, “It can consequently be admitted that control of
one’s body . . . ‘in holiness and honor’ confers adequate meaning and
value on that abstention.”
In other words, purity allows us to hold our bodies in holiness and
honor—the holiness and honor which God gave the human body when He first
created Adam and Eve. Therefore, purity should not be seen as something
simply negative, but as a virtue which is essential if the nuptial
meaning of the body and the dignity of the human person, body and soul,
is to be recognized and acknowledged.
It should be noted that the holiness and honor of the body is the
meaning (the value) given it by God in Creation. This meaning must be
recognized and acknowledged by all human persons, not only for
themselves, but also for all other human beings. The recognition of the
true value of the body occurs in the mind, a spiritual (non-material)
power of human persons. It is clear, then, that the holiness and honor
due the human body because of the way God made it, is recognized and
acknowledged through the interior powers of human persons and
specifically, through the virtue of purity.
Achieved through purity, the recognition and acknowledgement of human
dignity in the body-soul unity of the human person, is concretely
expressed in and through the body. St. Paul writes: “The parts of the
body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts
of the body that we consider less honorable we surround with greater
honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater
propriety.” As the Pope
writes, “There are in the human body ‘unpresentable parts’ not because
of their ‘somatic nature’ . . . but only and exclusively because there
exists in man himself that shame which perceives some parts of the body
as ‘unpresentable’ and causes them to be considered such.”
The shame we (all of us who suffer from original sin and its effects)
feel is the result of the discord in the body caused by original
sin—what the Pope called earlier the “constitutive break with the human
person, almost a rupture of man’s original spiritual and somatic unity.”
The shame resulting from the discord in the human body, its
“constitutive break,” has a twofold effect. The shame points to a
realization of a specific lack, the lack of a certain value, namely
that, the human body should express the human person and after sin it
generally does not. At the same time, shame aims at preserving that
same value. Shame is not a pleasant feeling and so we try to rid
ourselves of the cause of shame. In the case of the body, we try to
recover what was lost. This is done in part through the virtue of
purity which is expressed in the body by a certain modesty, i.e., by
granting honor to the “less presentable parts of the body” by covering
them.
The
opposite of honoring the body is sinning against it. “Avoid immorality.
Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral
person sins against his own body.”
Sexual immorality, i.e., carnal sins, “bring with them ‘profanation’ of
the body: they deprive the man’s or woman’s body of the honor due to it
because of the dignity of the person.”
This dignity of the body rests not only on God’s act of Creation, but
also on the Incarnation. When Christ took on human nature, including a
human body, he made human nature (including the human body) worthy of
the divine. “Human nature, by the very fact that is was assumed, not
absorbed, in him [Christ], has been raised in us also to a dignity
beyond compare. For, by his Incarnation, he, the son of God, in a
certain way united himself with each man.”
Even more to the point, we not only dishonor our own body in
committing sexual sins. We also dishonor the Holy Spirit. The virtue of
purity is a gift of the Holy Spirit. If we have this gift, the Holy
Spirit dwells within us. “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?” By sinning
against our bodies, we sin against the temple of the Holy Spirit. We
also sin against our own dignity, given when God created us, and
enhanced by the Incarnation.
The realization and acknowledgement of the body, created by God,
worthy of union with God Himself in the Incarnation, and as the temple
of the Holy Spirit, is aided by the gift of piety. Piety is one of the
seven gifts of the Holy Spirit present together with purity through the
gift of sanctifying grace. Piety “seems to serve purity in a particular
way, making the human subject sensitive to that dignity which is
characteristic of the human body by virtue of the mystery of Creation
and Redemption. Thanks to the gift of piety, Paul’s words: ‘Do you not
know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you . . . You
are not your own’ (1 Cor. 6:19) acquire the eloquence of an experience
of the nuptial meaning of the body and of the freedom of the gift
connected with it . . .”
The nuptial meaning of the body is the awareness in the consciousness
of all human beings that they are called by their very being, by the way
they were created as enfleshed images of God and as masculine and
feminine, to love as God loves and express that love in and through
their bodies. Piety helps us acquire the awareness of the dignity of our
bodies as a physical means of expressing God-like love. Therefore,
piety leads us to an awareness of the nuptial meaning of the body.
Piety then is one of the most important supernatural gifts for the
partial recovery of the original meaning of the body in the state of
innocence. It is one of the key gifts which allow us to follow Christ’s
instructions given in his answer to the Pharisees when they ask him
about divorce. In this
answer, Christ invites his listeners and all of us who suffer original
sin and its effects to love in and through our bodies as Adam and Eve
did. Such an invitation is possible only with Christ’s help. The gift
of piety, given through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, is one of the
key elements in that help offered to us by Christ. Through piety, we
are able to realize the unfathomable dignity of the human body, a
prerequisite if we are to express a genuine God-like love through that
very same body.
With this point about piety, the Pope has come full circle in his
analysis of the theology of the body. It is appropriate that this
discussion of piety occurs towards the end of the second cycle of the
Theology of the Body series.
In no. 58, of the Theology of the Body series, John Paul II
summarizes his whole endeavor in the first two cycles (nos. 1-63):
through Christ’s teaching on marriage and lust “the man of original
innocence is, in a way, recalled to the consciousness of the man of
lust. But Christ’s words are realistic. They do not try to make the
human heart return to the state of original innocence which man left
behind him at the moment when he committed original sin; on the
contrary, they indicate to him the way to purity of heart which is
possible and accessible to him even in the state of hereditary
sinfulness. This is the purity of the ‘man of lust,’ who is inspired,
however, by the word of the Gospel and open to ‘life according to the
Spirit’ (in conformity with St. Paul’s words), that is, the purity of
the man of lust who is entirely enveloped by the ‘redemption of the
body’ carried out by Christ.”
“Purity is not just an abstention from unchastity, or temperance, but it
also, at the same time, opens the way to a more and more perfect
discovery of the dignity of the human body, that body which is
organically connected with the freedom of the gift of the person in the
complete authenticity of his personal subjectivity, male or female.”
The more and more perfect discovery of the dignity of the human body
occurs through the supernatural gift of piety. Acting in accordance
with our own dignity and that of others, we find great joy. “The
satisfaction of the passions is, in fact, one thing, and the joy that
man finds in mastering himself more fully is another thing, since in
this way he can also become more fully a real gift for another person.”
In an even clearer statement of his thesis, John Paul writes, “The
Creator has assigned as a task to man his body, his masculinity and
femininity: and that in masculinity and femininity He, in a way,
assigned to him as a task his humanity, the dignity of the person, and
also the clear sign of the interpersonal ‘communion’ in which man
fulfills himself through the authentic gift of himself.”
If the body is a “task,” the task needs to be known. This task, given by
Christ, is re-affirmed by the teachings of the Church today. Further,
if the task is to be fulfilled, there are some requirements. One of them
concerns the responsibility of art in representing the human body.
III. The Human Body in Art
A musician once said that art was the grandchild of God.
God creates human persons and human beings fashion art. But art is the
grandchild of God in another way as well. God created the world and art
takes from the world materials for its craft: stones for architecture,
sounds for music, colors for painting, etc. Art also takes from the
world subjects for itself. The painter portrays landscapes or animal
scenes. The architect takes pleasant shapes found in Creation and molds
them together to create buildings. God created the world and the artist
fashions his work from the created world.
However, the most interesting subject for art, any art, is the human
person because the the human person is the most fascinating and
intriguing being created by God on earth. It is interesting that some
of the most respected master works of human art are representations of
the human person: Michelangelo’s David, Leonardo da Vinci’s
Mona Lisa, Mozart’s operas Le Nozze di Figaro or Don
Giovanni, Shakespeare’s tragedies, etc. All these masterworks have
the human person as their subject. Further, since art is perceived
through the five senses, the artistic masterworks concerned with the
human person always represent the visible, material aspect of the human
person, the human body.
In representing the human body, art divorces the body from the person.
In making it a subject of art, the artist takes the human body and, as
it were, uproots it from its meaning, i.e., from its role as the sign
and the means of a personal self-donation of the person (whose body is
represented) to another person. As the Pope puts its, in art “the human
body loses that deeply subjective meaning of the gift, and becomes an
object destined for the knowledge of many.”
In another passage, the Pope makes the same point: he writes that in
artistic representations of the human body “that ‘element of the gift’
[present in the human body] is, so to speak, suspended in the dimension
of an unknown reception and an unforeseen response, and thereby it is in
a way ‘threatened’ in the order of intention, in the sense that it may
become an anonymous object of ‘appropriation,’ an object of abuse.”
Put another way, the human body speaks the language of personal
self-donation, of one person to another person. When the body is taken
from the person and made an object to be viewed by many, it can lose its
meaning: it can cease to speak the language of personal self-donation.
In the situation after original sin, the sense of shame helps all of us
subject to original sin and its effects to understand that the human
body does not always speak the language of personal self-donation. The
very same sense of shame also leads us to try to preserve this precious
gift of the Creator. Shame together with purity and piety helps us to
hold the body in holiness and honor and thus we cover our “less
presentable parts.” Of course, art often wishes to represent the
unclothed human body. The depiction of the unclothed human body in art
can thus be a violation of the holiness and honor due the body. Is every
attempt at depicting the unclothed human body such a violation? No. Art
only violates the integrity of the body-person unity “when in the work
of art or by means of the media of audiovisual reproduction the right to
the privacy of the body in its masculinity or femininity, is violated .
. . when those deep governing rules of the gift and of mutual donation,
which are inscribed in this femininity and masculinity through the whole
structure of the human being, are violated.”
A talented and trained artist who looks at the human body with purity of
heart can represent the unclothed human body in such a way that can lead
the viewer “through the body to the whole personal mystery of man. In
contact with these works, where we do not feel drawn by their content to
‘looking lustfully’ . . . we learn in a way that nuptial meaning of the
body.” Great works of art
with the unclothed human body as their subject matter tell the whole
truth about the body as the sign and means of the gift of one person to
another person. They penetrate to a certain degree the mystery of the
human person, which is the reason why they fascinate and interest us. At
times, we can look at a particular work of art, sometimes for hours and
not grow tired. The reason is that the work of art conveys to us the
aspects of the full truth about the human body-person—the truth about
ourselves.
Of course, it is not only the artist who has the responsibility to use
his or her talent and skill to depict the full truth about man, so also
the viewer needs to look with an eye for the beauty, dignity, and
holiness of the subject portrayed. Even the greatest work of art can be
viewed in an inappropriate way. In other words, even Michelangelo’s
David could be reduced to one value, the sexual one, by someone
looking for only that one isolated value. Obviously, both the subject
matter of the artist, i.e., the individual who “posed” for the artist,
and the artist are violated by such a “use” of the art work. Of course,
the one looking also violates himself or herself. But if living human
persons can become objects in the mind of another, so also can even the
greatest work of art. Therefore, in representing the human body in art,
the meaning of humanity is in a way entrusted to both the artist and “to
every recipient of the work.”
With these last reflections on the depiction of the human body in works
of art, John Paul concludes his extensive second cycle of the
Theology of the Body series. In the first cycle (nos. 1-23), he
analyzed the words of Christ in response to the Pharisees’ question
about divorce. In the second cycle (nos. 24-63), he took up Christ’s
words in the Sermon on the Mount about adultery, lustful looks, and
adultery in the heart. The third cycle (nos. 64-72) takes up the words
of Christ in response to the Sadducees who come to him and put the
question about the woman who married seven brothers (each brother, in
turn, died). The Sadducees ask: “At the resurrection whose wife shall
she be?” The first words
of Christ about divorce, especially with Christ’s reference to the
“beginning” led the Pope to an analysis of Adam and Eve before sin.
Christ’s teaching regarding adultery led the Pope to consider the state
of historical man, the state of all of us subject to original sin and
its effects. The words of Christ about marriage and the resurrection
allows John Paul to discuss the way we will be in heaven after the
resurrection of the body. The first cycle considered the human
body-person before sin. The second cycle considered the human
body-person after sin. The third cycle will consider the human
body-person reigning gloriously with God in heaven at the end of the
world. There are then three ways that the human body expresses the
person: in the state of innocence before sin (the distant past); in the
state of sin on earth (present state); and in the resurrection (the
future). The next chapter will take up the remarks of John Paul II on
the body-person unity which will be found in heaven after the
resurrection.
[1] See Chapter 1: "An Introduction to John Paul II’s Theology
of the Body," Chapter 2: "The Nuptial Meaning of the Body,"
Chapter 3: "Sin and Shame."
[2] See no. 46, Theology of the Body, October 29, 1980: "Power of
Redeeming Completes Power of Creating," L’Osservatore Romano
(English Edition), vol. 13, no. 44.
[3] See no. 47, Theology of the Body, November 5, 1980: "’Eros’
and ‘Ethos’ Meet and Bear Fruit in the Human Heart," L’Osservatore
Romano (English Edition), vol. 13, no. 45.
[4] See no. 47, Theology of the Body, November 5, 1980: "’Eros’
and ‘Ethos’ Meet and Bear Fruit in the Human Heart," L’Osservatore
Romano (English Edition), vol. 13, no. 45.
[5] See no. 48, Theology of the Body, November 12, 1980:
"Spontaneity: The Mature Result of Conscience," L’Osservatore
Romano (English Edition), vol. 13, no. 46.
[6] See no. 48, Theology of the Body, November 12, 1980:
"Spontaneity: The Mature Result of Conscience," L’Osservatore
Romano (English Edition), vol. 13, no. 46.
[7] See no. 48, Theology of the Body, November 12, 1980:
"Spontaneity: The Mature Result of Conscience," L’Osservatore
Romano (English Edition), vol. 13, no. 46.
[8] See no. 49, Theology of the Body, December 3, 1980: "Christ
Calls Us to Rediscover the Living Forms of the New Man," L’Osservatore
Romano (English Edition), vol. 13, no. 49.
[9] See Matthew 5:27-28.
[10] See no. 50, Theology of the Body, December 10, 1980: "Purity of
Heart" L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 13, no.
50.
[11] See Matthew 15:18-19.
[12] See Galatians 5:17.
[13] See no. 52, Theology of the Body, January 7, 1981:
"Opposition Between Flesh and the Spirit" L’Osservatore Romano
(English Edition), vol. 14, no. 2.
[14]See Galatians 5:19-21.
[15] See Galatians 5:22-23.
[16] See Matthew 15:18.
[17] See Romans 8:13.
[18] See Galatians 5:14.
[19] See no. 51, Theology of the Body, December 17, 1980:
"Justification in Christ," L’Osservatore Romano (English
Edition), vol. 13, no. 52.
[20] See Romans 7:19.
[21] See no. 51, Theology of the Body, December 17, 1980:
"Justification in Christ," L’Osservatore Romano (English
Edition), vol. 13, no. 52.
[22] See Galatians 5:13.
[23]See no. 54, Theology of the Body, January 28, 1981: "St. Paul’s
Teaching on the Sanctity and Respect of the Human Body," L’Osservatore
Romano (English Edition), vol. 14, no. 5. In this quotation, John Paul is
citing 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, 7-8. I have chosen to cite the scriptural
quotation from the Wednesday audiences because John Paul’s formulation
is essential to his point. In the New American Bible, 1 Thessalonians
4:3-5 reads: "This is the will of God, your holiness: that you
refrain from immorality, that each of you know how to acquire a wife for
him self in holiness and honor, not in lustful passion as do the Gentiles
who do not know God."
[24]See no. 54, Theology of the Body, January 28, 1981: "St.
Paul’s Teaching on the Sanctity and Respect of the Human Body," L’Osservatore
Romano (English Edition), vol. 14, no. 5.
[25] See 1 Corinthians 12:22-23.
[26] See no. 55, Theology of the Body, February 4, 1981: "St.
Paul’s Description of the Body and Teaching on Purity," L’Osservatore
Romano (English Edition), vol. 14, no. 6.
[27] See no. 28, Theology of the
Body, May 28, 1980: "A Fundamental Disquiet In All Human
Existence," L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 13, no.
22.
[28] See Cor. 6:18.
[29] See no. 56, Theology of the Body, February 11, 1981: "The virtue
of Purity is the Expression and Fruit of Life According to the
Spirit," L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 14, no.
7.
[30] Pope John Paul II, Redeemer of Man, Redemptor Hominis, no. 8.
[31] See 1 Corinthians. 6:19.
[32] See no. 57, Theology of the Body, March 18 , 1981: "The Pauline
Doctrine of Purity as ‘Life According to the Spirit," L’Osservatore
Romano (English Edition), vol. 14, no. 12.
[33] See Matthew 19:4.
[34] See no. 58, Theology of the Body, April 1, 1981: "Positive
Function of Purity of Heart," L’Osservatore Romano (English
Edition), vol. 14, no. 14.
[35] See no. 58, Theology of the Body, April 1, 1981: "Positive
Function of Purity of Heart," L’Osservatore Romano (English
Edition), vol. 14, no. 14.
[36] See no. 58, Theology of the Body, April 1, 1981: "Positive
Function of Purity of Heart," L’Osservatore Romano (English
Edition), vol. 14, no. 14.
[37] See no. 59, Theology of the Body, April 8, 1981: "Pronouncements
of the Magisterium Apply Christ’s Words Today," L’Osservatore
Romano (English Edition), vol. 14, no. 15.
[38] Monsignor Richard J. Schuler, St. Paul, MN, viva voce to the
author.
[39]See no. 61, Theology of the Body, April 22, 1981: "The Ethos of
the Human Body in Art," L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition),
vol. 14, no. 17.
[40] See no. 62, Theology of the Body, April 29, 1981: "Art Must Not
Violate the Right to Privacy," L’Osservatore Romano (English
Edition), vol. 14, no. 18.
[41] See no. 61, Theology of the Body, April 22, 1981: "The Ethos of
the Human Body in Art," L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition),
vol. 14, no. 17.
[42] See no. 63, Theology of the Body, May 6, 1981: "The
Ethical Responsibilities in Art," L’Osservatore Romano (English
Edition), vol. 14, no. 19.
[43]See no. 63, Theology of the Body, May 6, 1981: "The Ethical
Responsibilities in Art," L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition),
vol. 14, no. 19.
[44] See Mark 12:23.
March 10, 2003 ---- Fr. Richard Hogan
NEXT
Chapter 5
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