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.
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