Since my entire adult life has been enriched by the insights of the Theology of the Body (TOB), I found it natural to go to this source-text for help in processing the racial crises in which we are immersed. It was not hard to find basic principles that I can use to critique media messages, slogans, even feelings and gut reactions to the flood of images and stories I am encountering as we continue to process and attempt to address a situation that can no longer continue as before.
In TOB, Pope John Paul makes much of the Bible's insistence on the creation of human beings “in the image of God, male and female” (Gen 1:27). Unique in material creation, in the human being, the body expresses a person. In one of the most beautiful sections, the Pope presents the revelation of Eve: woman, whose presence is a revelation that humankind, created in the image of God, is a partnership of equals. Adam finds that Eve is, like himself, a body-person: a person who is a body—but a body that is not precisely like his own. That first, fundamental human difference is sexual. As a species, we can only be represented by male and female (not either/or).
The otherness of the equal human companion reflects that first Other who is God, the one who created us to be enriched by our communion with himself, and created us a human family so that we could enrich one another by imaging God together and to each other. There is no subordination here. Neither expression of human nature, male or female, is better or more divine than the other. All other differences are simply variations on a theme. But the differences themselves are a communication. They speak of mutual enrichment; that each person will have something of value to give and to receive.
Of course, the first humans didn't have much time to enjoy that gift before someone introduced the poison of doubt. In the case of the original sin, it was a suspicion against God's fatherhood [TOB 26:4]. And once that was breached, humans began to steel their hearts further. Did you ever notice how, after the original sin, the man and the woman hurried to protect themselves from each other instead of from their real (and mutual) enemy? In our generalized experience, don't we all experience a kind of built-in suspicion against human brotherhood and communion? A fear of not having all that we need for our flourishing? A doubt that we can all flourish together? This is not natural; it was introduced by an enemy. It is a lingering poison in the human mind.
The person who is encountered in a body that is like, and yet also unlike, one's own, is to be loved for his or her own sake, never looked upon, thought of, spoken about, dominated or exploited as a means to an end [TOB 31:3]. How many times in history has this principle been violated! Isn't that why the current national crisis is exploding? Isn't this also behind a great deal of the historical injustice in our nation's immigration laws, which were first formulated in the early 20th century with explicitly racial motivations?
The person is unique and unrepeatable, irreducible to any collective adjective or generalizations. He or she is “master of his/her own mystery” [TOB 110:9], with freedom and potential to surpass all expectations, limitations, and pessimistic prognostications that would doom him or her to a predetermined outcome based on demographic projections. Perhaps we suffer a kind of “social acedia,” an apathy of will and imagination that hesitates to propose greatness as a real goal, including the greatness of self-mastery (without which nothing worthwhile can be accomplished) [TOB 49]... Maybe the root of this social acedia is a personal acedia that is satisfied with the superficial, or with the entertainment I can enjoy right now on my phone.
This person before me is “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23): We are members of the same family, available to one another to build each other up on this side of eternity.
This person before me, equal to me but different from me (whether in sex or age or ethnic background or number of chromosomes...), is a concrete invitation from God for me to enter into a truly human and humanizing relationship; to really become, with him or her, a sign of the “communion of Persons” in Whose Image we were made and in whom we will, if we live our vocations fully, live forever [TOB 9:3].
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Because nothing is more real than a story, here's Father Josh Johnson, telling his: https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/entertainment_life/faith/article_f132ca58-a9f0-11ea-91b7-b7ca56544615.html.
- Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/frjoshjohnson or on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frjoshjohnson.
- Listen to his podcast, Ask Father Josh https://media.ascensionpress.com/category/ascension-podcasts/askfrjosh/ (here's a special episode “Healing the Racial Divide".
- And here you can listen to a homily he preached on Trinity Sunday:
2 comments:
I think of Fr. Henri Neuwan in his book Clowning in Rome, he gets to the etymology of the term "person" per= through sonare= to sound. When I read that, it made a great impression on me;an giving me an appreciation of who we are and who we are meant to be. We are social creatures. That's how our Lord created us. With all that is going on in our country and around the world,we need to pull ourselves together as men and women, and give Glory to God the father, in Jesus' Name.
I really like how you've highlighted several relevant TOB ideas and reminded us to respect all people and maybe even to go out and get to know someone from a different race or culture, not as a project, but as a chance to overcome our hesitations and get to know a unique wonderful one-of-a-kind masterpiece who reflects God's incredible creativity.
I also totally love the idea of aspiring to greatness for all. There are so many people where I live who are living impoverished lives, not just because of lack of money, but also because of lack of a healthy family structure, drugs, abuse, hopelessness, mental illness, etc. I have to admit I don't think about greatness for them, though I do try to remember that they were once someone's cute child (as a mom that's a very important reminder to value them).
Glad you have taken TOB in this direction, since this is yet another area where the Church needs to bring justice without erasing our unique and valuable differences.
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