BONUS: Made in His Image & Likeness (Theology of the Body)

What does it mean to be human? If we’re made in His image and likeness, what does God look like? What does God sound like?

Join us for this BONUS episode of Catholicism 101 as we discover how our human wants and needs reflect certain truths about God and his love for us!

“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”  (Luke 12:49)

“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” –St. Catherine of Siena

Resources:

·       TOB for Free | Theology of the Body Institute

·       Why Are We So Terrified of Death? | Theology of the Body Institute

·       Why God Gave Us Bodies | The Thesis of Theology of the Body

Have a question about the Faith you’d like to have answered on the Podcast? Submit it here: https://forms.gle/zorQwuUGtSdukzjc6 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, friends. Welcome back to this bonus episode of Catholicism 101, Forever Learning and Living the Faith. We are back today talking about the theology of the body. So just a quick reminder that the theology of the body, this is the first major teaching of Pope St. John Paul II's papacy. It was given over a series of 129 Wednesday audiences at the Vatican in St. Peter's Square. Now, many people have heard and been taught that TOB, Theology of the Body, it's essentially Catholic sex ed. And, you know, this is true in a very certain sense, but um it is also so, so, so much more than this. Um, and that's that's kind of what these bonus episodes, that's what the goal of these bonus episodes um is, is to focus um on what it what what is the bigger picture here, right? So this teaching, the theology of the body as JP2's catechesis, it is an in-depth biblical reflection of number one, what it means to be human, and number two, the call of man and woman to become one flesh. So today we're really going to focus on um what it means to be human, what it means to be human, uh, how we're made and his image and likeness. So let's go ahead and get right into it. Now, when we ask ourselves um the big questions in life, you know, what does it mean to be human? How can I be happy? Um, what is what is love? What is the purpose of life? The catechism begins with um it begins with a prologue, 26 paragraphs, it's a prologue, but the first paragraph, paragraph 27, of the meat, the bulk of the catechism, says this, paragraph 27. The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God, and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for. The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. Something that always stands out to me in this paragraph from the Catechism is that only in God will we find the truth and the happiness that we never stop searching for. So truth and happiness, these are basic human needs. One of uh the things most college students will learn in one of their gen ed classes is about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So it is it is like this pyramid of basic human needs, um, with the base of the pyramid being the most foundational need. And then you can only um have the higher needs fulfilled once those basic needs are met. So, kind of going from the bottom up, the most basic need of all human people is physiological, right? We basic survival, food, water, warmth, and sleep. Above that is safety. You know, we want to be um, we want to be safe, we want to have per protection, we want to be able to defend ourselves. The next thing, or be defended, the next uh level above that is love and belonging. So friendship, family, connection with our community, with family, with friends, connection with other people. Um, we we are social people by nature. We isolation uh is is not healthy for any human person. You know, I don't care how introverted you are, uh, you cannot stay isolated forever. You you will go insane, quite literally. After that comes esteem, a need for esteem, meaning um having a sense of confidence, of self-worth, recognizing your own goodness, you know, recognizing my own goodness. And then finally, at the top of the pyramid is a need for self-actualization. So this is that realization of your full potential, you know, and making that journey to become who you truly are, who you were created to be. Now, there are a couple of quotes that I really, really love here that are absolutely perfect in this, especially with self-actualization. Saint Catherine of Sienna, this is probably her most famous quote, is be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire. Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire. And Jesus in Luke chapter 12, verse 49, he says, I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing. He wants us to achieve that self-actualization. He even tells us. He tells us uh in John chapter 10, verse 10, a thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy. I came so that you might have life and have it more abundantly. So those needs that correspond with just like basic life. So those physiological needs, the safety needs, the love and belonging needs, you know, survival, safety, and human connection. Those are our basic needs. He came so that we might have life, those three needs. And to have life more abundantly is he wants to meet our needs and honestly super like fulfill them beyond what we really need is the those needs for esteem and self-actualization, that confidence recognition of self-worth, and then the recognition of like what is like my full potential and being on the journey to achieve that, to have my potential actualized to that it that it comes to fruition. Now, essentially what this means is God does not want you to simply survive, he wants you to truly live, he wants you to flourish and to become the person that you were created to be. So as we read in the catechism, we are created by God and for God. We read in scripture in Genesis, uh, he created us in his image and likeness. So who was I created to be? What is my full potential? Um if I want to live fully, live more abundantly, um, if I want to live up to my full potential, what is it? Right? So there's there's two ways actually that we can answer this. And the first one is of like personal particulars, and then the second one is just like a universal, uh, so universally as a human person. So essentially what this comes down to is um my full potential as my personal vocation, and then my full potential as my human vocation. Now, your personal vocation is your personal path to holiness. So we see that in the priesthood and religious life and marriage and single life, all of these things, those that's your personal vocation, right? And we can get into even more personal particulars of like, okay, are you called to be a diocesan priest? Are you called to be a priest in an order? Are you called to be a friar? All of these different things. Um, and then you know, as a as a married person, am I what what career am I called to? Or am I called to stay at home with the children? Um, what how did what what am I called to? Like in within my vocation, within my vocation, what else is the Lord calling me to more specifically on my path to holiness? You know, with with single life, um and am I called to consecrated celibacy, even if I'm not part of like a formal religious order, you know, because that's a real thing and it's really cool. Now, that's that's all personal. That's all like your personal particulars. That is that is the call to holiness that the Lord places on your heart, on your path. Now we have this human vocation, this universal call to holiness, your vocation simply as a human being. Um, and this is this is what's really like the topic of Christian anthropology, is what this surrounds or surrounds this. Now there is a line in um Gaudium et Spez, which is the pastoral constitution on the church in the modern world. And this is one of the four major documents, one of the four constitutions from the second Vatican Council. Paragraph 22 says Christ fully reveals man to himself and makes his supreme calling clear. Now, this actually was like John Paul II's favorite, favorite, favorite thing, um, favorite quote, especially from Gaudium at Spez. Uh, sometimes people joke of like, if JP2 had a license plate, it would probably be like GS22. But this applies to both your personal vocation, your personal call to holiness, and your call to holiness, your vocation as simply a human person. So whenever we say that we are created in the image and likeness of God, we mean like, yes, personally, like me, Emily, I was created in the image and likeness of God. But in the greater reality, the greater community of just human people, we were all created in the image and likeness of God as a whole. So because Jesus Christ fully reveals, fully reveals our supreme calling to us, in order to know what that supreme calling is, both on the personal level and just the human level, that supreme calling of who we were created to be and living out our full potential. In order to know this, we have to know who God is. We have to know who God is. And who tells us who God is, but God the Son Himself, Jesus Christ. So in the first letter of John, he tells us in chapter four, verse eight, whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. Being that we were made in the image and likeness of love, in the image and likeness of God, we know that love just inherently has this longing within it, um, this like yearning. Um, and uh the Lord is longing for you, the Lord is yearning for you. And how do we know this? Because we see it in humanity. Uh, there are countless, countless, countless, countless songs about love and just like wanting love and wanting to wanting people to know that they're loved. And so I picked out um three that I personally really, really like. Uh, and I've pulled some lyrics from them. And both as an example, but also just as like a prayer exercise, right? Of this, this is like my longing for the Lord, but it doesn't stop there. This is also his longing for me. So Adele sings, make you feel my love. And she says, I know you haven't made your mind up yet, but I will never do you wrong. I've known it from the moment that we met, no doubt in my mind where you belong. I'd go hungry, I'd go black and blue, I'd go crawling down the avenue. No, there's nothing that I wouldn't do to make you feel my love. Now, Chris Stapleton also just has uh a classic. And this classic, honestly, it sings to my heart. I love country music, but um this I just listen to this. You're as smooth as Tennessee whiskey, you're as sweet as strawberry wine, you're as warm as a glass of brandy, and honey, I say stoned on your love all the time. Now, I want to make two points here. Um, that there is a holy desire in this. That there are there is a mystical beauty in this, there is like just a poetry in this. So, number one, um, we we kind of have a tendency to be like, alcohol is bad, alcohol is bad. Uh, and someone once said to me this this really beautiful phrase, and it has stuck with me of do not blame the good things that God has created for your abuse of them. You know, the the phrase everything in moderation is so, so true. And then St. Paul reminds us, Christian, know thyself. You know, if you can't indulge in the good things that God has created without overindulging, then maybe, you know, know yourself and know that you can admire them and appreciate them from afar. Now, as I said, there is a holy desire in this, and it gets twisted um by our honestly, by our abuse of the good things that He's created. And sometimes we we desire um the things that God has created more than we desire God. So these songs um that speak to our hearts, even though we're like, that's not a very Christian song, um, there there's a reason they speak to our hearts. Um, and we can just simply say the prayer of like, Lord, purify what is unholy in my pursuit of you. Let me see, um let me see what you're trying to teach me. Let me hear what you're trying to teach me in this. Um, help me get past the the mess at the surface of this and help me to see you in this and help me to see my own heart in this. Now the last one, um, this last one is Taylor Swift, and it is lover. And it however you feel about Taylor Swift, uh, just listen to the lyrics. Just listen to the lyrics. Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close forever and ever? Take me out, take me home forever and ever. You're my lover. Darling, you're my lover. So these songs, uh, the the themes of these lyrics, like Taylor Swift, lover, she's like, I just want to be close to you. I just want to be close to you. Like, I I want, I never want to be separated from you. And then Tennessee Whiskey, he's just admiring the beauty of his beloved, just admiring her, um, and just drawn to her and enamored by her. And then make you feel my love by Adele is very much just like that sacrificial love and that patient love. And these three songs, these lyrics, um, especially when you listen to them with the music, these are songs of the Lord singing to you. You know, you may hear Taylor Swift or Chris Stapleton or Adele, but this is the Lord singing to you, and he is inviting you to sing it back to him. Now, St. Augustine, I wish he had written a love song. I don't know that he was musically talented, but I wish he had written a love song because he has we have, you know, his famous quote in the beginning of his confessions of our heart is restless until it rests in you, my God. Now, he also has another quote that I particularly love, and it is when we say God, what do we wish to express? This is all that we yearn for. Every single experience of human desire is a small, small, small share in the experience of God, the experience that God has, longing for every single one of us. Like I said, you can so easily hear these songs, um, and you know, picture yourself singing them to your beloved or them singing it to you, or just like dancing with it to them because you don't have to say this because the song says it itself. Um but when you take these songs, these love songs, just in songs that you love just in general, that that speak to your heart, and you listen to them and invite the Lord into that place, that is a true experience of prayer. That is becoming that longing for God. So being created in the image and likeness of God, we were designed to long and to yearn for that which is true, that which is good, and that which is beautiful. And these three things are at the core, the very, very core of everything that God has created. And we are drawn to all of these things. Now we we get um twisted in the weeds of like, how are we trying to find goodness? And are we that there's a lot of like nuances there, but what's so important is that at the core of everything that sings and speaks for our hearts, there is the core of goodness, truth, and beauty in it. And becoming that longing for God is like, Lord, I love this. I love this. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't love it because it's kind of messy. But what is what is of you in this? What is true, what is good, and what is beautiful in this? Help me to see it. Now, the part of creation that most fully reflects the truth, beauty, and goodness of God that we never stop searching for is in human people. It is human people. Now, hear me when I say we reflect the truth, beauty, and goodness, that happiness that we never stop searching for. We reflect it. Um, no other human person is your fulfillment. You cannot fulfill any other human person. You know, we we see and we recognize the goodness, truth, and beauty of God in other people because every single person has been created in the image and likeness of God. How many times am I going to say that? But uh, we we each shine this unique beam of God's glory. You know, no one who has ever lived before me will shine the exact same beam of God's goodness, truth, and beauty that I shine. And once I'm gone, no one else will ever shine that exact same beam, right? And so whenever people say, like, oh, I don't know what my purpose is, all of these things, and it's like, no, you every person you meet teaches you something new about God if you will let the Lord show it to you. Oftentimes the way the Lord teaches us about himself is through other people, and I don't necessarily just mean like what people will tell you about God, you know, like teachers, things like that. That's awesome, that's beautiful. But more often than not, the things you learn about God are the things you observe, like just in the virtues and uh just the things you notice about other people that you're drawn to truly. Now I want to go back um to that quote Saint Augustine had of when we say God, we wish to express all that we yearn for. Pope Benedict XVI had a similar quote that is incredibly beautiful, and it really kind of pulls us back into the theology of the body. He said, Not only my soul, but every fiber of my flesh is made to find its peace, its fulfillment in God. Now, the sign of the cross, it is it is a very Christian thing, um, but Catholics in particular are really the ones that. Do this. So we always talk about with the sign of the cross that we dip our hand into the holy water font and we make the sign of the cross as a reminder of our baptism that we have been claimed for Christ. But we have to kind of remember here that it's not only our heart, it's not only our soul that has been claimed for Christ, but our bodies as well. That is why we sign the cross over our bodies. And reminding yourself of your baptism as you make that sign of the cross, you are essentially saying, I was created for and I am destined to forever be fully united with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, body and soul. Amen. It is not body, bad, spirit, good. That's a heresy. It's called manichaeism. It's still very present in just like this the subconscious of the world and of Christians today. And it is truly heresy. It is not true. And it goes directly against what that supreme calling we have is, what our true fulfillment is, what the realization and actualization of our full potential is. And that is divinization. Divinization. Being divinized, this means that we are being made ready to fully participate in God's inner life. Body and soul. Not only will we rediscover ourselves, but we will rediscover one another and we will experience all people and our fullness as made in the image and likeness of God. Again, body and soul. The fullness of this communion with God happens at the end of time. This fullness of communion with one another happens at the end of time. And we call this the resurrection of the body at the marriage of Christ in the church. Now, we say every time we say the creed, I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen. Now, the resurrection of the body. Sometimes we get a little freaked out by this because we think we're going to be like the walking dead, like zombies walking around. Um, and when our body resurrects, uh, either we're gonna be zombies or we're gonna have a brand new body, and the old body will be rotted and done away with. And and even in some Christian traditions, they teach um that yes, our old body, like the to dust you're dust and to dust you shall return. Um, your body is once it's dust, it's forever dust. And at the end of time, you know, the resurrection of the body means that you get a brand new body. You know, it's not the same one you walked on earth with. And that is that's not true. That's taking it a little bit too far. So when we talk about the resurrection of the body, we are talking resurrection, not resuscitation. Okay. So resuscitation, uh, you can think of it like CPR, like uh they were resuscitated or like a do not resuscitate order. Resuscitation aims to restore vital functions back to normal. Back to normal. Resurrection is supernatural restoration, supernatural revival. Supernatural meaning above and beyond what is natural and normal. So at the resurrection of the body, we're not just simply resuscitated and we like rise from the grave, like half-rotted flesh, or like we had broken our knee, or um like maybe we've maybe we have been canonized as saint and they've taken some relics from us, and all of a sudden, like I'm Catherine of Siena, and I don't know where my head is, and I gotta go, I gotta go to Siena to get my head, and I gotta go somewhere else to get my thumb, and all of these things. No, no, no, no, no. Um we're not walking around how we were or with our normal health, but the Lord takes that same body, the very same body that we have lived our entire life with, and he makes it new, he reunites us with our body, and he supernaturally revives it and elevates it. We have just this like chronic sickness in our minds of like your body's gross, your body's like it's it's not the best, like your body's what's holding you back, and uh we kind of twist the words of Christ and of Saint Paul when Christ is like the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, or he's talking, or like we hear Saint Paul um talk about like the flesh and all these things, and it's like we gotta understand those things in their context, and we we have to understand like the deeper meaning um what's of what's what he's really saying there, right? But that's we your soul is not the only part of you that's divinized, your body is too because what is your body? It is the visible manifestation of your soul. It is the visible manifestation of your soul. Actually, the thesis statement of the catechesis of John Paul II's theology of the body is that the body and only the body makes visible that which is invisible, the spiritual and the divine. It 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. So your body makes your soul visible. And when your soul is separated from your body, we call that death. And actually, fun fact, Saint Thomas Aquinas actually said that the souls that are in heaven currently, um, you know, before the resurrection of the body, before the marriage of Christ in the church, he said that they're actually in like this quasi-human-like state until the resurrection of the body at the end of the age. And Saint Paul in Romans chapter 8, uh verses 22 and 23, he says, We know that all creation, all creation, all creation in heaven, on earth, all of these things, all creation is groaning in labor pains, even until now. And not only that, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. So, to just like tie a bow on this, we were created in the image and likeness of God. God is love. Love wants to go beyond itself. Love naturally longs for that which is true, good, and beautiful. You know, the the Lord loves himself perfectly, the Lord loves himself perfectly, and since we are created in his image and likeness, and we are drawn to God, and he is ultimately where we will find the truth and the happiness that we never stop searching for. We see glimmers of God, we see the goodness, truth, and beauty of God in little glimmers, and other people and the people around us. So not only were we made to be in communion with God, body and soul, we were also made to be in communion with one another, body and soul. And the the most important moment in human history, the incarnation, Christmas, when God takes on flesh, in order that he may fully reveal us to ourselves, he may fully reveal what it means to be human, he is showing us that we are made for communion with him and for one another, that we are made for love. We are made for love. That is our human vocation, and now when we get into like personal particulars, personal vocation, your personal path to holiness, that is a lifelong journey of faith when it comes to like the the matters of our own personal, like what am I supposed to do? What am I called to? What's going to make me happy? Like me specifically. And it's like we can hear all of these things that apply to humanity as a whole. We'd be like, that's cool, and that's awesome. What does it mean for me? Um, that in and of itself, the desire to know of like, how does this apply to me personally? Right? What does this look like for me specifically? That in itself is of a prayer. That in itself is becoming a longing for God, longing to know and for him to reveal to you, hey God, what is that like very specific beam of your glory that you have created me as? It's it's the desire to know oneself, and in knowing oneself, you know God. But you can only come to know God through Jesus Christ because he fully reveals man to himself, both as humanity, but both as you and I personally. So ultimately, being created in the image and likeness of God is to allow yourself to be loved and to love in return. And the first place that we receive love is from the Lord Himself. You can't give what you don't have. If you don't let the Lord love you, then by golly, you're gonna have a hard time loving other people. And most importantly, you're gonna have a hard time loving the Lord. But that's all I have today. Um, I kind of want to leave you like with a a little challenge, a little encouragement of what is a song um that you just love, you know, or a movie that you love, uh something that for some reason you it's like your favorite, and you could watch it or listen to it 1400 times over and it it you still love it. Uh 1400 is maybe an exaggeration, but what is that? And even if you think it's like a holy song or not, I invite you to go listen to it or go watch that movie. And just as you watch or as you listen, simply be like, Lord, come in, come into this, come into this space, come to this place, come, Holy Spirit. What are you trying to teach me about myself? What are you trying to teach me about you in this? Why am I drawn to this? What are you teaching me about your goodness, your truth, and your beauty? I hope you have some good prayer with that. But until next time, have a blessed day.