The Importance of Living in Creation
If we are truly looking to uncover the implications of a feminine perspective in theology, there is one aspect that has lately struck me as being of great import - that of living in creation.
Yesterday night I was at a day retreat with the fellow members of my Newman Club and we went to pray at the Blessed Sacrament. After kneeling in prayer, I sat back and picked up Thomas A Kempis' "The Imitation of Christ" and read a section on Truth and Freedom. The words, however, not to my dismay but certainly to my curiousity, emphasized the banalities of earthly and fleshly existence. Heaven is our true goal and the spiritual heaven is our fulfillment. This clicked with my friend Jeff's narrative of St. Francis an hour or so afterwards - a renunciation of the world, even if that time it was a significant improvement that a hermetical lifestyle was being practiced within it.
One of the implications of Theology of the Body, for me, though, is a celebration of all Creation for the mere fact that our physical realities make visible the invisible spiritual realities of God. They are not always something, then, to just be renounced or lived in poverty, denial and celibacy. These are all good and worthy things that do point us to the heavenly direction. But I do not believe Christian tradition has taken into account the implications of all that is to point us to Heaven - a spiritual and physical resurrection of our bodies. How are we to understand how to use the world and physicality well and God-like if our conceptions of sanctity and holiness do not incorporate the full reality of living in Creation well - of using our sexuality appropriately and with holy reverence and appreciation, of treating every drop of food as a component of the nourishment of Christ in the Eucharist, of rejoicing in the beauty - both natural and man-made beauty - of the clothes on our backs, the buildings we inhabit, the dressings of the world.
These can be abused. These can be idolized. Or, they can be seen as manifestations of the glory of God to be used joyfully and appropriately at every stage in our lives. John Paul the Great has given us the metaphysical understanding for how this can be so, but Women, as the body of the Church and symbol of Creation, can sense the impact of the world - its eyes that glow, skin that prickles, tongues that envelop, aromas that entrance, drums that resound and intution that ensues.
There have been saints that have lived in the world - wives and husbands, rulers and professionals, homemakers and academics - but what exactly is our appreciation for their worldliness? Why is it so important? I can't help but think, that that is exactly what our times need. A saint to live in the world and live in the world well - and who can show us the importance of doing so. For those of us who have realized that we are not called to the consecrated life, that is our calling. That is our vocation under God.
Yesterday night I was at a day retreat with the fellow members of my Newman Club and we went to pray at the Blessed Sacrament. After kneeling in prayer, I sat back and picked up Thomas A Kempis' "The Imitation of Christ" and read a section on Truth and Freedom. The words, however, not to my dismay but certainly to my curiousity, emphasized the banalities of earthly and fleshly existence. Heaven is our true goal and the spiritual heaven is our fulfillment. This clicked with my friend Jeff's narrative of St. Francis an hour or so afterwards - a renunciation of the world, even if that time it was a significant improvement that a hermetical lifestyle was being practiced within it.
One of the implications of Theology of the Body, for me, though, is a celebration of all Creation for the mere fact that our physical realities make visible the invisible spiritual realities of God. They are not always something, then, to just be renounced or lived in poverty, denial and celibacy. These are all good and worthy things that do point us to the heavenly direction. But I do not believe Christian tradition has taken into account the implications of all that is to point us to Heaven - a spiritual and physical resurrection of our bodies. How are we to understand how to use the world and physicality well and God-like if our conceptions of sanctity and holiness do not incorporate the full reality of living in Creation well - of using our sexuality appropriately and with holy reverence and appreciation, of treating every drop of food as a component of the nourishment of Christ in the Eucharist, of rejoicing in the beauty - both natural and man-made beauty - of the clothes on our backs, the buildings we inhabit, the dressings of the world.
These can be abused. These can be idolized. Or, they can be seen as manifestations of the glory of God to be used joyfully and appropriately at every stage in our lives. John Paul the Great has given us the metaphysical understanding for how this can be so, but Women, as the body of the Church and symbol of Creation, can sense the impact of the world - its eyes that glow, skin that prickles, tongues that envelop, aromas that entrance, drums that resound and intution that ensues.
There have been saints that have lived in the world - wives and husbands, rulers and professionals, homemakers and academics - but what exactly is our appreciation for their worldliness? Why is it so important? I can't help but think, that that is exactly what our times need. A saint to live in the world and live in the world well - and who can show us the importance of doing so. For those of us who have realized that we are not called to the consecrated life, that is our calling. That is our vocation under God.
posted by Silabella @ 7:38 AM
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