Marriage Prep Slide 6-8

*Slides 6 through 8*

But how do we live this love out in our lives and in our marriages? How can we experience this explosion of love in our life?

Again we turn to Christ. Christ is our example of the perfect love that we are called to as integrated human persons.

Christ, God made FLESH!

If we want to be happy we must love AS Christ loves.

 

Slide Six: Free

 

Christs love is Free:
Christ says, “No one takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own accord.” Christ allows himself to be taken and He stays on the cross. Even as people mock Him and say if you really were who you said you were you could come down off that cross. And He could. But he gives himself, body and soul, up for us freely.

So we are called to give ourselves freely. We want, we need, to be free with giving ourselves and free with accepting the other person.  Nothing should hold us back.

Christ laid down his life for us knowing just how much it would cost him. He felt the sting of the sins of man more than anyone and it was because he understood and accepted the pain that his gift was free.

Slide Seven: Christ’s love is Total

 

Christ made a total gift of himself, to the grave!

Christ gave all of himself to us so that we might live. “God so loved the world that He gave his only son.” And Christ did not reserve a piece of himself for himself. He gave his entire being to us. And that is what we are called to do for our spouse. Freedom naturally leads to making a total gift of self. If I freely gave myself to you why would I stop half way. Christ kept nothing for himself. He gave himself totally up for us on the cross, to death. Are you willing to die for your future spouse? Is there anything you are NOT willing to give?

 Vows: You can have this part of me but not that one. You can have all of me, expect on Tuesdays

Slide Eight: Faithful

 

Christ: “I’ll never leave you. I’ll never forsake you” Hebrews 13:5-6 Pentecost. Holy Spirit.

The old testament is full of examples of the people of God BREAKING the covenant they made with Him. But God did not forsake them, did not abandon them. Instead he sent his son to redeem them, us, and bring us into a truly faithful relationship with Him. And even more, when God’s chosen people, when we dismissed Him and crucified Him, he still did not leave us. Instead, He rose from the dead for us and he is always with us. He gave us His spirit, the Holy Spirit and He gave us Himself in the mass.

That is how we are to live out faithfulness with our spouse. Even when they seemingly abandon or hurt us. And because of sin and the lasting effects that has had in the human heart, we know our spouses will hurt us. But we are called like Christ to be ever faithful to our spouses.

* Stay Tuned for the concluding slides*

Marriage Prep Slide 3-5

*Presenting Slides 3 through 5*

Slide Three: Nativity

The theology of the body seeks to reconnect the body with the study of God (nativity scene)

It is because God created our bodies and they too were good that we can say that the human person is a body AND a soul, together!

And even more it is because of CHRIST, God come in the flesh, that we can say our bodies are VERY good and that they show us how to love and how to be happy. Christ is our touch point to salvation, to happiness. The meeting place between the spiritual and the physical.  We do not have simply a spiritual God but a God with FLESH.

Slide Four: Doorway        

                                                                   

If Christ is the door of happiness, to Heaven, Flesh is the hinge.

Imagine a doorway to happiness. You want to walk through this door. You know what allows us to Open the doorway to perfect pleasure- our bodies.

It is in and through our bodies that we experience the world and GOD. And this is how God created us. This is how he wants to experience us too! He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to us in OUR humanity, in our flesh, so we can experience Him in the body and He can experience us.

Our flesh, our bodies are not the obstacle, in living a good, healthy, CHRISTIAN, life. The main obstacle to love is our hearts. Christ didn’t come to condemn but to call us to love. In taking on flesh, he calls us as a whole person, body and soul, to live IN his divine life, in happiness forever. Christ did not come to just give us coping techniques for our sin. He came so that we may, body and soul, “share in his divinity” And where do we share in this divinity? In heaven (And on earth we get tastes of it, like in the moments of greatest love or Communion with another person.)

Slide Five: Heaven

 

We tend to think of heaven in the abstract. Like we will be these bodiless spirits floating around. But with Christ’s resurrection, that we are still celebrating now, in this Easter season, we see instead, God’s glorious plan to bring our bodies to perfection! Christ has his body in heaven and at the end of time we will too! (resurrection  image )

We also tend to think of this resurrection as us continually fanning God and feeding Him grapes for all eternity. As if God needed us to fan him. Instead, His plan for us in actually written on our hearts and in our bodies. And His plan is witnessed in Christ. A plan of LOVE. Our whole being, body and soul, in created for the explosion of LOVE.  A love, a happiness that will never end. This happiness is foreshadowed in the union of man and woman.

 Do you know what the most frequently used image for God’s love for us in the Bible is? Marriage!  And The marriage of God with his people is the most used for GOOD reason. It is with that kind of love, that kind of desire and that kind of unity, body and soul that God wants with us. Marriage is the earthly shadow of what we are ultimately created for! (marriage union image)

 

* Stay Tuned for slides 6-12*

 

Marriage Prep: Introduction to Theology of the Body, Slide 1 & 2

* Here are the first two scripts and slides from my most recent marriage prep presentation. Enjoy!*

Intro Slide

 

I was invited here today to very briefly touch on a topic called Theology of the Body in preparation for the next talk on natural family planning.

For the past year I have been studying with people from all around the world with the Theology of the Body Institute in down in PA. We have been studying the church’s teaching on sexuality, but more specifically our last Pope, John Paul II’s, insights into what the body means. And this is what Theology of the Body really is, the study of how our bodies relate to God.

Pope John Paul II wanted to answer two questions in this teaching: What does it mean to be Human? and How do I live my life in a way that will bring true happiness? While answering these two questions he explains how our bodies are connected to our selves, our personhood and how our bodies are connected to God. He highlights for the world what the church has always taught, that our bodies are a vital part of our understanding of God and especially of Christianity.

So I am here to talk a bit about the BODY. Hopefully, this presentation will be a little teaser to the greatness that awaits you in marriage: a sacrament very much about the body.

Slide Two: Body Image

 

The world seems to have a lot to say about the body! It presents many images of the body.

Elle model: On the one hand The body as ALL we are. To be happy we must have the perfect body and experience as must bodily pleasure as possible

Twinkie: The body is just the shell. It doesn’t really matter. If we are to live GOOD lives, we must reject the body because it clouds who we are, prevents us from seeing the Soul, of the person.

We can be left thinking, “How is my body connected to my person? What does my body have to do with my happiness?”

And even more abstractly: How is the body connected to God at all? Even to heaven? We tend to think of God as spiritual and so to get closer to God we have to reject our bodies. We even sometimes think that this is the reason for the commandments of the church, to keep our sinful bodies in order.

*Stay Tuned for Slides 3- 12*



Goal of this Blog

The goal of this blog is two-fold.

1) To let those around the Kingston Archdiocese know about different Theology of the Body events happening close by.

2) To inspire us to take up a study of Theology of the Body and dare to let it change our lives.

So in regards to goal  #1: there is an events tab that will tell you about different events and presentations I will be doing in the area.

And in regards to goal #2: I will be posting different mini-reflections and the script from various talks I've done on Theology of the Body so we can learn more about Blessed Pope John Paul II's beautiful teaching!

If there you have questions at any time about anything posted please don't hesitate to contact me.