There is no denying the fact that we all want to be loved. We all want someone - whether it be a parent, a friend, a sibling, a boyfriend or girlfriend, or a spouse - to love us, cherish us, think about us, and love us. We want to feel validated and like we are worth something in someone else's eyes. And you know what, this is a good thing.
Upon creation of man and woman, and upon the creation of our very own lives, God wrote this desire of love on our hearts. He implanted the longing to be filled by another. He wanted us to seek out this desire and not to push it under the rug. Again, love and wanting to be loved is a good thing.
Since we have this desire, and we want this desire to be filled, how do we go about finding love? What is the right way to fill this hole in our hearts?
According to Christopher West, a prominent speaker on the Theology of the Body, there are 3 main ways, 3 "gospels" one might say, that propose to satisfy this ache for love:
The first is something many of us may have encountered when hearing our parents or those with Christian authority speak about sexuality. It goes something like this: "Don't have sex until you're married because sex is a beautiful thing." or"Follow God's rules because He says so and because it will make you happy." And that's that...no further explanation. While both of these statements are true and good in and of themselves, and while those who speak them have good intentions, they leave something to be wanting. Statements such as these may plant good seeds in our hearts and keep us living God's plan for our sexuality for sometime, but eventually these answers leave us empty and, as a result, searching for answers with deeper meaning, with deeper logic. This is called the "starvation gospel." Eventually our hunger for love will return (as we can only suppress it for so long) and we will be seeking a different path to follow because this one leaves us empty...
On the complete opposite of the spectrum is something called the "fast-food gospel." For those of you who have seen the documentary, "Super Size Me" you remember that a man attempted to eat nothing but McDonald's for 30 days straight. Initially, it tasted goooood. And, coming off a vegan diet, he thought, "Man, I get to eat THIS for the next month?! This is AWESOME!" But eventually we can figure out what happens: he gains weight, his organs start shutting down, he gets tired and sick and is headed towards death if he doesn't start changing his ways. This is very much like the gospel of love that our world proposes. Our culture says, "You have a desire for love? OK, then fill it. Fill it now and with whatever tastes goooood. Whenever you have a desire, act on it - right now and without delay. Fill it with whatever sexual pleasures are available at the moment because those are the ones that taste and feel the best." But we all know what happens with this kind of unrestricted action: it may feel good in the beginning, but whether it be 30 days or 10 years down the road, we begin to breakdown. This type of love is based on instant gratification and self-seeking and can only fill us for so long before we realize its emptiness.
But luckily for us, these aren't the only ways to fill our desire for love. Repression? NO! Indulgence? NO! So, what is left?
God is so good that, not only does He want us to seek love, but He gives us an incredible and truly fulfilling way to find it. His way is by means of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb...The Banquet gospel. Our Lord proposes to fill our desire for love with His very self. Like a man asking for a woman's hand in marriage, God asks us to be a part of the most intimate and fulfilling relationship out there: a marriage with Him - with God as our Bridegroom and us, humanity, as His Bride. Not only that, but he goes one step further. Since God gave us a hunger for love, He actually came as food to fill it - Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Whenever we consume the Holy Eucharist - the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ - we fill our hearts with True Love Himself.
And from here, God wants us to go forth and build the rest of the relationships in our lives in imitation of our relationship with Him - relationships built upon sacrifice, selflessness, and seeking the good of another. For it is through these means that our hunger for love can only truly be filled.
We know that God wants us to be happy. So it is fitting to say that His way will make us the happiest. He knows the desires and longings of our hearts even better than we do. If we simply hand over our lives, and subsequently our hearts, to Him, He will lead us on the path to fulfillment, peace, happiness, grace, and love. Let us enter deeper into relationship with Him, let us allow Him to fill the holes in our hearts, let us draw closer to our Bridegroom. And, as a result, let us experience the amazing love that God has in store for our lives.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Theology of the Body: a life changing message
Welcome again! I am excited to kick off this blog and continue to bring the powerful and life changing message of the Theology of the Body to as many people as possible. It is my prayer that this site will encourage every reader to fall deeper in love with the Lord and to discover the beauty and purpose of your sexuality as God designed it to be.
Before I briefly explain what the Theology of the Body is, I would like to tell you how this message has both changed my life and made me to be the woman, the wife, the mother and the person in Christ that I am today.
As a young person heading off to college almost 10 years ago, I was besieged by many of the same questions that so many people ask themselves on a daily basis: What is the purpose of my life? What is love and why do I have this deep desire to be loved? Why do I struggle with feeling not “good enough?” Why is it that the faith I love and the culture I live in are giving me two very different paths to follow?
I had many different answers to these questions coming at me from the classes I attended, the music listened to, and the television shows I watched, but none of these answers left me fulfilled – in fact I was left even more empty and searching than before. But one day I was invited to a study on the Theology of the Body at the Catholic Campus Newman’s Center at Western Washington University (the college I attended). I had never heard of the Theology of the Body before, however after the first night of hearing this message I felt like St. Paul, with the scales falling off my eyes to reveal the truth and beauty of the Catholic faith in a way I had never heard before. Not only that, but I had answers to the questions that plagued my heart and riddled my soul – answers that finally left me happy and fulfilled and deeply in love with our Lord.
From that moment on I knew that I wanted to bring the Theology of the Body to as many people as possible – to my family, my friends, and the broken people of this world. A year and a half ago the Lord called me to start a ministry dedicated to spreading this message – a ministry called Theology of the Body NW. In this past year I have given over 40 talks as well as been interviewed on Sacred Heart Catholic radio and featured in our Archdiocesan Newspaper, the Catholic NW Progress – in all of which I give glory to God for using me as His vessel.
So, what is this Theology of the Body that I speak of? What exactly is this message that has changed my life and the lives of so many people I know?
In a nutshell, the Theology of the Body is Pope John Paul II’s explanation for the real meaning of life, love, sexuality, and human relationships. It is a biblical reflection on the meaning of the body and love and it is an understanding of our sexuality in a way I bet most of you have never heard before. According to JP II and the Catholic Church, the physical human body has a specific meaning and is capable of revealing answers regarding the most fundamental questions about us and our lives.
If you get the chance to attend one of my talks or hear about the Theology of the Body through some other means, you will not only discover the beauty and purpose of your sexuality, but you will see that despite what you may have heard, the Catholic Church teaches and believes that human sexuality is good, beautiful, and really important. You will learn about what it means to be male and female, why God gave us desires for love, what love actually is, what the purpose of the married and celibate vocations are, what chastity really means and hopefully what God’s plan is for your life. You will understand that the Catholic Church's teachings on sexuality (and other matter) is not arbitrary, but rather rooted in an intimate love bewteen Christ and His Church. Finally, you will learn about how to get to heaven and have a taste of it on earth, how to love as God loves, and that we will be set free only by living God’s plan for our lives.
Whether you have heard this message once or one hundred times, I promise that you will leave your encounter with the Theology of the Body a changed person. For when encountering this message there is no alternative.
For myself, I can honestly say that I give thanks to God on a daily basis for bringing me the truth through the Theology of the Body. I am also very honored, blessed, and humbled that God uses me as His vessel to bring TOB to others.
And now I leave you with a quote from Christopher West, a leading speaker on the Theology of the Body – a quote which sums up beautifully the impact this message can have on your life:
He says,
Brace yourself! If we take in what the Holy Father is saying in his Theology of the Body, we will never view ourselves, view others, view the Church, the Sacraments, grace, God, heaven, marriage, the celibate vocation…we will never view the world the same way again.
Before I briefly explain what the Theology of the Body is, I would like to tell you how this message has both changed my life and made me to be the woman, the wife, the mother and the person in Christ that I am today.
As a young person heading off to college almost 10 years ago, I was besieged by many of the same questions that so many people ask themselves on a daily basis: What is the purpose of my life? What is love and why do I have this deep desire to be loved? Why do I struggle with feeling not “good enough?” Why is it that the faith I love and the culture I live in are giving me two very different paths to follow?
I had many different answers to these questions coming at me from the classes I attended, the music listened to, and the television shows I watched, but none of these answers left me fulfilled – in fact I was left even more empty and searching than before. But one day I was invited to a study on the Theology of the Body at the Catholic Campus Newman’s Center at Western Washington University (the college I attended). I had never heard of the Theology of the Body before, however after the first night of hearing this message I felt like St. Paul, with the scales falling off my eyes to reveal the truth and beauty of the Catholic faith in a way I had never heard before. Not only that, but I had answers to the questions that plagued my heart and riddled my soul – answers that finally left me happy and fulfilled and deeply in love with our Lord.
From that moment on I knew that I wanted to bring the Theology of the Body to as many people as possible – to my family, my friends, and the broken people of this world. A year and a half ago the Lord called me to start a ministry dedicated to spreading this message – a ministry called Theology of the Body NW. In this past year I have given over 40 talks as well as been interviewed on Sacred Heart Catholic radio and featured in our Archdiocesan Newspaper, the Catholic NW Progress – in all of which I give glory to God for using me as His vessel.
So, what is this Theology of the Body that I speak of? What exactly is this message that has changed my life and the lives of so many people I know?
In a nutshell, the Theology of the Body is Pope John Paul II’s explanation for the real meaning of life, love, sexuality, and human relationships. It is a biblical reflection on the meaning of the body and love and it is an understanding of our sexuality in a way I bet most of you have never heard before. According to JP II and the Catholic Church, the physical human body has a specific meaning and is capable of revealing answers regarding the most fundamental questions about us and our lives.
If you get the chance to attend one of my talks or hear about the Theology of the Body through some other means, you will not only discover the beauty and purpose of your sexuality, but you will see that despite what you may have heard, the Catholic Church teaches and believes that human sexuality is good, beautiful, and really important. You will learn about what it means to be male and female, why God gave us desires for love, what love actually is, what the purpose of the married and celibate vocations are, what chastity really means and hopefully what God’s plan is for your life. You will understand that the Catholic Church's teachings on sexuality (and other matter) is not arbitrary, but rather rooted in an intimate love bewteen Christ and His Church. Finally, you will learn about how to get to heaven and have a taste of it on earth, how to love as God loves, and that we will be set free only by living God’s plan for our lives.
Whether you have heard this message once or one hundred times, I promise that you will leave your encounter with the Theology of the Body a changed person. For when encountering this message there is no alternative.
For myself, I can honestly say that I give thanks to God on a daily basis for bringing me the truth through the Theology of the Body. I am also very honored, blessed, and humbled that God uses me as His vessel to bring TOB to others.
And now I leave you with a quote from Christopher West, a leading speaker on the Theology of the Body – a quote which sums up beautifully the impact this message can have on your life:
He says,
Brace yourself! If we take in what the Holy Father is saying in his Theology of the Body, we will never view ourselves, view others, view the Church, the Sacraments, grace, God, heaven, marriage, the celibate vocation…we will never view the world the same way again.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Welcome!
You have reached the blog for the ministry Theology of the Body NW! Here you will find updated information about the happenings of Theology of the Body around the Northwest area, plus reflections and articles written by Kristine Mauss, the founder of TOBNW. Check back often or subscribe to the right of the page. If you have any questions or comments feel free to drop Kristine a message at Kristine@tobnw.org and if you would like to schedule a talk for your school or parish, check out the scheduling page here.
God Bless!
God Bless!
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