In last month’s article, I mentioned how Pope St. John Paul II saw in the unity and distinction of our humanity as male and female a profound truth about what it means to be made in the “image of God.”  Indeed, Genesis 1:27 tells us, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”  John Paul II saw the second half of this verse (“male and female he created them”) as revealing something about the first half (i.e., what it means to be the image of God).  Let’s unpack this connection.

What does it mean to be an image of something?  If you were to take out a smartphone and snap a photo of me, you would see on your display an image that unmistakably resembles me.  However, that picture is more unlike me than like me.  The image on your screen is only a couple of inches tall, 2-dimensional, static, and ultimately made of 1s and 0s stored on a computer chip.  I am a full-sized, 3-dimensional, living human being, composed of flesh and spirit.  Clearly, there is a greater difference than similarity between my image on your phone and the real me.  Nonetheless, there is a true resemblance such that when you see the image, it reminds you of the reality. 

This example is helpful for us when we ponder what it means for man to be the image of God.  There is always a greater difference between man and God than similarity.  Indeed, we speak of God using human language and symbols that can never do justice to the glory of the Divinity. Nonetheless, by prayerfully and thoughtfully reflecting on our humanity and on divine revelation, we can gain insights into who God is and what His plan is for us. 

Traditionally, man was understood to be the image of God through the gifts of rationality and free will.  Pope St. John Paul II affirmed and elaborated this understanding through his reflections on original solitude.  However, he also went beyond this by emphasizing a Trinitarian vision for man as the image of God through the unity and duality of the two sexes which gives rise to our capacity to form a communion of persons.  God is love as St. John the Apostle tells us, and this signifies not only God’s attitude toward us but His inmost nature.  Christ reveals to us that the one eternal God is Trinity, “an inscrutable divine communion of Persons” (TOB 9:3).  For all eternity, the Father in love begets the Son who eternally receives Being from the Father and gives Himself to the Father in response.  Their exchange of love is so perfect and real, that it is another Divine Person — the Holy Spirit.  Each Person is truly distinct from the Others but utterly united in the one Divine Nature.  For all time, they give and receive one another in an eternal exchange of love.  In this way, “God is love and in Himself He lives a mystery of personal loving communion” (John Paul II, Familiaris consortio, 11).

Through our maleness and femaleness, man and woman discover in themselves the capacity to form a communion of persons.  As we have seen, human nature is one, but there are two ways of being human:  male and female.  We can see in this unity-in-distinction a dim reflection of the unity-in-distinction in the Blessed Trinity.  It also enables us to form a communion of persons.  When a man and a woman make a total gift of self such that they become “one flesh” in marriage, they form such a communion.  Their mutual self-giving love may in time become personified in the gift of a child born of their union.  Thus, man and woman form an image or icon of the Blessed Trinity through the communion of the family. 

According to Pope St. John Paul II, this “trinitarian” understanding of the human person as image of God “constitutes perhaps the deepest theological aspect of everything one can say about man” (TOB 9:3).  It shows us that among the rest of visible creation, man and woman have a special call and capacity to reveal through their total self-giving the eternal truth that God is love.  In this way, we fulfill the meaning of our existence as men and women created in the image of God. 

Note:  This article is part of a series of reflections on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body”.

Continue Reading: Original Nakedness:  Seeing as God Sees

Dr. Sodergren’s Introduction to Theology of the Body: A Collection of Articles from the Catholic Telegraph

Written by, Dr. Andrew Sodergren, M.T.S., Psy.D.,
Director of Ruah Woods Psychological Services

(Article originally published in The Catholic Telegraph, February 2022 Issue, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati)

Last month, I introduced Pope St. John Paul II’s concept of original nakedness.  In that reflection, we saw that our first parents “were both naked, and were not ashamed” (Gen 2:25).  According to the saintly pope, this lack of shame corresponded to a fullness of interior freedom they felt in one another’s presence.  By virtue of original innocence, by which the man and woman were untainted by sin and filled with God’s grace, they were able to behold each other “with all the peace of the interior gaze” (TOB 13.1).  The pope was referring here to a capacity to “see” each other not only with physical eyes but also – to borrow an expression from St. Paul — with the eyes of the heart (cf. Eph 1:18).  What precisely is this “interior gaze” or “heart vision” through which our first parents beheld each other?  And what does it have to do with us?

Physical eyes see the exterior of things:  light and dark, shape, colors, texture, movement, etc.  When we look at one another only with this limited form of vision, we merely see the exterior of the body. We fail to see the interior reality of the person.  This can lead us to treat the person as just one more object among so many in our environment.  Like any other object we see, we begin to evaluate this object as to what it can do for me.  How useful is it?  Will it gratify me in some way or give me pleasant feelings?  Is it what I want? 

If we are to avoid this objectification of the person, our exterior vision needs to be guided and informed by a heart that “sees” the true value of things and is disposed to receive them with gratitude.  Indeed, all of creation is a gift to man from our loving Creator and is meant to draw us back to Him.  Everything that exists has a certain truth, goodness, and beauty in it that reflects the infinite Truth, Goodness, and Beauty that exist eternally in God.  There is nothing in visible creation for which this is more true than the human person.  Made in the image and likeness of God, possessing the capacity of self-awareness and self-determination, the human person is the most exalted creature in all of the visible world.  A person is not just a “what” but a “who,” another “I” like me.  Each person is entirely unique, a son or daughter of God set in a distinct, unrepeatable relationship with Him.  A person is capable, through freedom and intelligence, of truly human activity.  We discover all of this through the human body, if we have the interior eyes to see it, for the body reveals the hidden, spiritual reality we call person.  The body makes the person present and is the “place” of encounter with the person. 

Our first parents instinctively saw the fullness of the dignity of the person revealed in each other’s bodies.  Indeed, they saw all of creation as a gift given by their loving Father to be cherished and respected, most of all one another.  They beheld each other as embodied personal subjects and not as mere objects to be used.  They intuitively knew that this body reveals a person, and a person is the sort of thing that must never be used and must always respected with awe and reverence.  I can never “possess” another person or treat him/her as a means to an end.  This attitude filled their hearts and enlightened their eyes.  This is why they could be “naked” and not feel “ashamed.”  There was no danger or threat for them in being completely exposed (physically and spiritually) before each other.  They were totally safe in each other’s person-affirming gaze.

For us, wounded as we are by sin yet redeemed by Christ, we have to work hard, with the help of God’s grace, to grow into this capacity to always “see” and affirm the person.  Even then it is not fully attained in this fallen world in which threats to our dignity abound and the effects of sin are never totally blotted out.  Nonetheless, pondering original nakedness underscores for us the dignity of the person and points out to us the incredible respect that every human person, revealed by his or her body, deserves.  It is only in letting this vision take root in our hearts that we can hope to experience a glimmer of the intimacy with God and others for which we are created.

Note:  This article is part of a series of reflections on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body”.

Continue Reading: Gift, Self-gift, and the Meaning of Life — Part 1

Dr. Sodergren’s Introduction to Theology of the Body: A Collection of Articles from the Catholic Telegraph

Written by, Dr. Andrew Sodergren, M.T.S., Psy.D.,
Director of Ruah Woods Psychological Services

(Article originally published in The Catholic Telegraph, April 2022 Issue, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati)

Last month, I reflected on the logic of gift and how it is a golden thread woven throughout Pope St. John Paul II’s thought, especially his Theology of the Body.  We saw how all of creation, including man, depends on God’s loving gift of existence at every moment.  We also saw how the logic of gift even describes the inner life of God Himself who is an eternal exchange of love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Let us extend those reflections to explore what the logic of gift has to say about our vocation and the role of the human body in revealing these mysteries. 

To say that the very being of man is a gift to him from the Creator means that the logic of gift marks “the very essence of the person” (TOB 14:2).  If gift characterizes the very being and essence of man, then his ultimate fulfillment must be found through freely making a gift of himself to others.  According to Pope St. John Paul II, man cannot find fulfillment in isolation.  Rather, he can find fulfillment “only by existing ‘with someone’ — and, put even more deeply and completely, by existing ‘for someone’” (TOB 14:2, italics in original). 

This “existing for” another is what “self-gift” means.  We make a gift of self whenever we engage in some act of self-sacrifice for others.  Each of these acts of generosity in which we seek the good of the other before ourselves are acts of self-giving that contribute to the fulfillment of our being.  However, the fullest expression of self-gift is when we make a “total” gift of self.  Such “total” giving is properly called a “spousal” gift of self, whereby we enter a permanent, exclusive relationship of belonging entirely to another.  Marriage is the primordial “place” given to us by God for such a spousal gift of self.   

The human body bears witness to all of this.  Our bodies show us that our life is a gift since we come from another and depend on others to exist.  We are conceived and gestated in our mother’s womb, born of her body, and physically nurtured by her and others as we grow.  Indeed, human beings are remarkable in the visible world in that the human body takes an extremely long time to mature and reach a level of relative independence.  We need the physical and emotional care of others in order to survive to adulthood, only to eventually decline back into dependence on the physical care of others.  Throughout, our bodies bear the signs of our relational history.  Our belly buttons remind us of our mothers’ nurturing gift of self in her womb.  Our physical features remind us of the gift of life we receive from our parents and ancestors who came before.  All of this led Pope St. John Paul II to exclaim, “This is the body: a witness to creation as a fundamental gift, and therefore a witness to Love as the source from which this same giving springs” (TOB 14:4, italics in original). 

Even more, we discover in our bodies our sexual identity as male or female.  This sexual difference only makes sense when we think of the two in relation to each other.  It shows us that man and woman are made for each other.  Our maleness and femaleness enable us to make a “total” gift of self by which the two “become one flesh” through marital union.  Pope John Paul II coined the term the “spousal meaning of the body” to refer to the human body’s “power to express love: precisely that love in which the human person becomes a gift and — through this gift — fulfills the very meaning of his being and existence” (TOB 15:1, italics in original).   

What the saintly pope is telling us is that since every human person is a gift, the meaning of life is to give ourselves away as a gift to others.  When we live a life of total self-giving, we act in accord with God’s wise and loving plan, the very structure of our being and essence, and the deepest desires of the human heart.  I invite all of us to reflect on how we can embrace this way of life more fully as we continue our journey through Theology of the Body.   

Note:  This article is part of a series of reflections on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body”.

Continue Reading: Gift, Self-gift, and the Meaning of Life — Part 3:  The Spousal Meaning of the Body

Dr. Sodergren’s Introduction to Theology of the Body: A Collection of Articles from the Catholic Telegraph

Written by, Dr. Andrew Sodergren, M.T.S., Psy.D.,
Director of Ruah Woods Psychological Services

(Article originally published in The Catholic Telegraph, June 2022 Issue, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati)

In recent articles, we have reflected on the logic of gift and the spousal meaning of the body.  We saw that our very existence is a gift from God that He lovingly gives us at every moment.  We also saw that the dignity of man, made in God’s image, requires that every human person always be received and treasured as a gift.  When we are welcomed and accepted in this way, we discover our “giftness,” thus “finding” ourselves (i.e., discovering our true dignity). 

We also saw that since the logic of gift permeates the very structure of our being and essence, we find our deepest fulfillment when we cooperate with this logic by making a gift of ourselves to others in love.  This takes place in a special way in the encounter between man and woman.  Through our bodies we discover our equal and profound dignity but also the reality of the sexual difference — our maleness and femaleness.  This unity in human nature and difference of sex creates the capacity for spousal communion, which we fulfill by making a total gift of self to each other.  This total gift of self through spousal love between a man and a woman is the essence of marriage.    

Pope St. John Paul II reflected on the encounter of the first man and woman before the Fall and how they were naked before each other and felt no shame because they beheld more than just their sexual features.  Rather, they saw in one another’s bodies “someone willed by the Creator ‘for his own sake,’ that is, someone unique and unrepeatable, someone chosen by eternal Love” (TOB 15:4).  They beheld a person to be treasured as a gift, not used as a means to an end.  Nonetheless, they were still moved by natural attraction of the sexes as they beheld the mystery of the person revealed through the masculine or feminine body.  This desire, however, was properly ordered and in harmony with the dignity of the person, not tainted with selfishness as in the case of fallen humanity.  In that state, man and woman could come to “know” each other through conjugal relations in a pure, dignified way, infused with holiness and respect for the person. 

According to the late pope, through the encounter by which the man and woman “know” each other, they discover the hidden power of procreation.  While the features of her body point to the possibility of motherhood, the woman’s hidden capacity to conceive new life and nurture it in her womb is only gradually revealed over time.  In this way, husband and wife discover through her body that their mutual “knowledge” in conjugal relations is intrinsically connected with the blessing of fruitfulness.  The presence of the child reveals that their spousal gift of self is naturally oriented toward and finds its crowning in motherhood and fatherhood.  Indeed, it is through receiving her husband’s self-gift and giving herself in return that the woman receives the gift of her motherhood.  Similarly, it is through his wife that the man discovers and receives his fatherhood.  In this way, each “finds” himself anew, now as a father or a mother.  They find themselves too in the face of the child who is the image of their love. 

Pope St. John Paul II saw marriage and family as the climax of creation.  Before sin entered the world, the coming together of man and woman in marriage and subsequent begetting of new life was infused with God’s grace.  Not only could it bestow earthly life to new human beings but also it was the means by which God intended to convey divine life to the entire human family.  Thus, the pope referred to marriage as the “primordial sacrament,” by which he meant that in the beginning, marriage was the efficacious sign of God’s plan to share His own divine life with humanity, drawing all of us into the intimacy of His eternal, divine Communion.  In light of this, let us pray and work to renew a sense of reverence for the sanctity of marriage and the awesome responsibility of cooperating with God to bring new life into the world.

Note:  This article is part of a series of reflections on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.”

Continue Reading: An Integral Vision of Man

Dr. Sodergren’s Introduction to Theology of the Body: A Collection of Articles from the Catholic Telegraph

Written by, Dr. Andrew Sodergren, M.T.S., Psy.D.,
Director of Ruah Woods Psychological Services

(Article originally published in The Catholic Telegraph, August 2022 Issue, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati)

Up to this point, our reflections have focused on God’s original plan for humanity as manifest in the state and experiences of our first parents in the beginning.  Their experiences are part of what Pope St. John Paul II referred to as our “theological pre-history” (TOB 4:1-3).  Human history as we know it began with the Fall of man, which we call original sin.  It is only by reflecting upon our experience of what’s wrong the world (including our own humanity) in light of Scripture and Tradition that we can gain insight into the life of our first parents before the Fall.  This is just what Pope St. John Paul II has done in Theology of the Body and what we have been doing in these reflections. 

Before going on to ponder what went wrong in the beginning and how sin continues to exert its destructive influence in human history, I would like to reflect one more time on the state of man in the beginning.  Doing so helps us understand God’s original plan – i.e., how things are supposed to be – as well as the end toward which He is guiding us through salvation history.   

The state of humanity before the Fall, which is inaccessible to us now, has been variously referred to as original justice, original innocence, or original happiness.  Pope St. John Paul II used all these terms more or less synonymously in TOB to describe the condition of our first parents.  Their existence was marked not only by a freedom from sin and its effects but also a fullness of grace and goodness which I describe as the “four harmonies” (see Catechism nos. 374-379).  These four harmonies characterize man’s relationships with God, himself, other human beings, and the rest of creation.  Let’s briefly look at each.   

Before the Fall, man existed in a state of intimacy and communion with God in which he was filled with grace and preternatural gifts.  Our first parents’ relationship with God was marked by complete trust, cooperation, and communion.  They truly walked in the presence of God as His sons and daughters, filled with reverence and filial love, trusting fully in their Father’s word.  This is the first and most important of the four harmonies.  It is the basis upon which man was able to receive all of God’s other gifts and blessings. 

Original man also experienced interior harmony in which all of the powers and facets of his body and soul were perfectly integrated.  There was no interior conflict; no struggle between his head and heart.  This harmony within man conveyed a peacefulness and self-possession that maximized his freedom.  As a perfectly integrated unity of body and soul living in graced friendship with God, original man experienced an absence of illness and decay and would have been spared the separation of body and soul we call death had he not turned from God through sin.   

The third harmony describes the relationship between human beings prior to the Fall.  The first two harmonies enabled our first parents to look on each other “with all the peace of the interior gaze” (TOB 13.1).  As described in our reflections on original nakedness, there was no reason to feel fear or shame in the presence of another human being because original man’s eyes were open to the dignity of the human person revealed through the human body and his heart was properly ordered to always respect, reverence, and love each human person made in God’s image.  Because their eyes and hearts were so pure, there were no inner temptations to use or hurt one another.   

Lastly, original man existed in harmonious relationship with the rest of creation, which he joyfully received and cherished as a gift from the Creator.  The elements and creatures of the natural world yielded to the will of man which was guided by wisdom, stewardship, and gratitude, as he exercised his divinely-appointed authority over the world.   

Considering these four harmonies helps us glimpse God’s wise and loving plan for humanity.  It also prepares us for our subsequent reflections in which we will explore the wounding effects of sin and the healing power of our redemption in Christ. 

Note:  This article is part of a series of reflections on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.”

Continue Reading: The Tragedy of Sin: Part 1

Dr. Sodergren’s Introduction to Theology of the Body: A Collection of Articles from the Catholic Telegraph

Written by, Dr. Andrew Sodergren, M.T.S., Psy.D.,
Director of Ruah Woods Psychological Services

(Article originally published in The Catholic Telegraph, October 2022 Issue, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati)