Home The Theology of the Body Resources Articles Essays Links Email
GENERAL AUDIENCE OF 21 JULY 1982
On Wednesday, 21 July, the Holy Father returned by helicopter from Castel
Gandolfo to the Vatican for the weekly general audience in St Peter's Square.
Basing his message on Paul's Letter to the Romans, Pope John Paul continued his
catechetical series of reflections on marriage and celibacy.
"We ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as
we await...the redemption of our body" (Rom 8:23). In his Letter to the
Romans, St. Paul sees this redemption of the body in both an anthropological and
a cosmic dimension. Creation "in fact was subjected to futility" (Rom
8:20). All visible creation, all the universe, bears the effects of man's sin.
"The whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now"
(Rom 8:22). At the same time, the whole "creation awaits with eager longing
the revelation of the sons of God" and "nourishes the hope of also
being freed from the slavery of corruption, to obtain the glorious liberty of
the children of God" (Rom 8:19, 20-21).
Object of hope
2. According to Paul, the redemption of the body is the object of hope. This
hope was implanted in the heart of man in a certain sense immediately after the
first sin. Suffice it to recall the words of the Book of Genesis, which are
traditionally called the proto-evangelium (cf. Gn 3:15). We could
therefore also call them the beginning of the Good News, the first announcement
of salvation. The redemption of the body, according to the words of the Letter
to the Romans, is connected precisely with this hope in which, as we read,
"we have been saved" (Rom 8:24). Through the hope that arises at man's
very origin, the redemption of the body has its anthropological dimension. It is
the redemption of man. At the same time it radiates, in a certain sense, on all
creation, which from the beginning has been bound in a particular way to man and
subordinated to him (cf. Gn 1:28-30). The redemption of the body is therefore
the redemption of the world. It has a cosmic dimension.
Awaiting redemption
3. Presenting in his Letter to the Romans the cosmic image of redemption,
Paul of Tarsus places man at its very center, just as "in the
beginning" he had been placed at the very center of the image of creation.
It is precisely man who has "the first fruits of the Spirit," who
groans inwardly, awaiting the redemption of his body (cf. Rom 8:23). Christ came
to reveal man to man fully by making him aware of his sublime vocation (cf. Gaudium
et Spes 22). Christ speaks in the Gospel from the divine depths of the
mystery of redemption, which finds its specific historical subject precisely in
Christ himself. Christ therefore speaks in the name of that hope that had
already been implanted in the heart of man in the proto-evangelium.
Christ gives fulfillment to this hope, not only with the words of his teaching,
but above all with the testimony of his death and resurrection. So the
redemption of the body has already been accomplished in Christ. That hope in
which "we have been saved" has been confirmed in him. At the same
time, that hope has been opened anew to its definitive eschatological
fulfillment. "The revelation of the sons of God" in Christ has been
definitively directed toward that glorious liberty that is to be definitively
shared by the children of God.
Authentic theology
4. To understand all that the redemption of the body implies according to
Paul's Letter to the Romans, an authentic theology of the body is necessary. We
have tried to construct this theology by referring first of all to the words of
Christ. The constitutive elements of the theology of the body are contained in
what Christ says: in recalling "the beginning," concerning the
question about the indissolubility of marriage (cf. Mt 19:8); in what he says
about concupiscence, referring to the human heart in his Sermon on the Mount
(cf. Mt 5:28); and also in what he says in reference to the resurrection (cf. Mt
22:30). Each one of these statements contains a rich content of an
anthropological and ethical nature. Christ is speaking to man, and he is
speaking about man: about man who is "body" and who has been created
male and female in the image and likeness of God. He is speaking about man whose
heart is subject to concupiscence, and finally, about man before whom the
eschatological prospect of the resurrection of the body is opened.
"Body", according to the Book of Genesis, means the visible aspect of
man and his belonging to the visible world. For St. Paul it means not only this
belonging, but sometimes also the alienation of man by the influence of the
Spirit of God. Both the one meaning and the other are in relation to the
resurrection of the body.
Sermon on the Mount
5. Since in the previously analyzed texts Christ is speaking from the divine
depths of the mystery of redemption, his words serve that hope which is spoken
of in the Letter to the Romans. According to the Apostle, ultimately we await
the redemption of the body. So we await precisely the eschatological victory
over death, to which Christ gave testimony above all by his resurrection. In the
light of the paschal mystery, his words about the resurrection of the body and
about the reality of the other world, recorded by the synoptic Gospels, have
acquired their full eloquence. Christ, and then Paul of Tarsus, proclaimed the
call for abstention from marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven,
precisely in the name of this eschatological reality.
6. However, the redemption of the body is expressed not only in the resurrection
as victory over death. It is present also in Christ's words addressed to
historical man, when they confirm the principle of the indissolubility of
marriage as a principle coming from the Creator himself, and also when, in the
Sermon on the Mount, Christ called man to overcome concupiscence, even in the
uniquely interior movements of the human heart. The key to both the one and the
other of these statements must be to say that they refer to human morality, that
they have an ethical meaning. Here it is a question not of the eschatological
hope of the resurrection, but of the hope of victory over sin, which can be
called the hope of every day.
Strength to overcome evil
7. In his daily life man must draw from the mystery of the redemption of the
body the inspiration and the strength to overcome the evil that is dormant in
him under the form of the threefold concupiscence. Man and woman, bound in
marriage, must daily undertake the task of the indissoluble union of that
covenant which they have made between them. But also a man or a woman who has
voluntarily chosen continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven must daily
give a living witness of fidelity to that choice, heeding the directives of
Christ in the Gospel and those of Paul the Apostle in First Corinthians. In each
case it is a question of the hope of every day, which in proportion to the
normal duties and difficulties of human life helps to overcome "evil with
good" (Rom 12:21). In fact, "in hope we have been saved." The
hope of every day manifests its power in human works and even in the very
movements of the human heart, clearing a path, in a certain sense, for the great
eschatological hope bound with the redemption of the body.
Victory over sin
8. Penetrating daily life with the dimension of human morality, the
redemption of the body helps first of all to discover all this good in which man
achieves the victory over sin and concupiscence. Christ's words spring from the
divine depths of the mystery of redemption. They permit us to discover and
strengthen that bond that exists between the dignity of the human being (man or
woman) and the nuptial meaning of the body. They permit us to understand and put
into practice, on the basis of that meaning, the mature freedom of the gift. It
is expressed in one way in indissoluble marriage and in another way through
abstention from marriage for the sake of the kingdom of God. In these different
ways Christ fully reveals man to man, making him aware of his sublime vocation.
This vocation is inscribed in man according to all his psycho-physical makeup,
precisely through the mystery of the redemption of the body.
Everything we have tried to do in the course of our meditations in order to
understand Christ's words has its ultimate foundation in the mystery of the
redemption of the body.
Taken from: L'OSSERVATORE ROMANO - English Edition -- Reprinted with Permission -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana - The Holy See