Franciscan at Home

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Pope St. John Paul II capped the second cycle of his Theology of the Body (TOB) catechesis[1] with a  set of reflections on how a healthy sense of shame should govern our experience of the sexuality of the body through various forms of media (TOB 60–63). In particular, he highlighted the importance of shame in maintaining a proper respect for the naked body and in helping us recognize the grave disorders embedded in pornography. In 2015, the USCCB promulgated Create in Me a Clean Heart, which explicitly builds upon St. John Paul II’s catechesis and provides an excellent analysis of how these TOB teachings apply to the many problems of pornography.[2]

This installment of the series summarizes how the TOB vision of purity of heart and sexual modesty emphasizes the importance of shame for the inner life of the human heart. It then applies the TOB understanding of purity, modesty, and shame to the issue of pornography and its connection to the problem of shamelessness.

The Importance of Shame

For St. John Paul II, the experience of shame relates directly to the experience of one’s own personhood or subjectivity and “the need for the affirmation and acceptance of this ‘I’ according to its proper value” (TOB 12:1). Instead of being some kind of guilt or embarrassment, in TOB, shame indicates an awareness of human dignity and a defensive reflex against attitudes and actions that degrade the body and the person. In the sexual domain, it includes a clear perception of how lust, impurity, and immodesty threaten our dignity. More precisely, sexual shame means an acute experience of the spousal meaning of the body (the truth inscribed in human sexuality that each person is someone with inherent value) and the rejection of all actions and attitudes that objectify the sexuality of the body as something with instrumental value to be used for egotistical satisfaction. Beyond simply cultivating purity or exercising modesty, shame denotes a strong inner conviction with which we instinctually and fiercely uphold the dignity of human sexuality.

When understood correctly, shame should characterize every human heart. We should all display this acute sensitivity to the enormous dignity of the sexuality of the body coupled with a consistent opposition to the threats posed by concupiscence and lust. On the other hand, shamelessness signals a disturbing blindness to our sexual dignity or a dangerous numbness to the degradation embedded in lust, impurity, and immodesty.

Along these lines, St. John Paul II is careful to clarify that prior to original sin Adam and Eve were “without shame” in a precise biblical sense: their experiences were completely devoid of any tendency to lust the naked body and thus devoid of any threats to their dignity. Before original sin, Adam and Eve had an “immunity to shame” precisely because the grace of their original innocence “made it impossible somehow for one to be reduced by the other to the level of a mere object” (TOB 19:1). Unable to lust, they could not manifest the defensive response of shame that impure attitudes should evoke. However, Adam and Eve did already have an intense experience of the core element of shame through their acute awareness of the dignity of the body expressed in its spousal meaning. They were “without shame” only in the sense that their hearts were so full of this experience of the spousal meaning of the body that no threatening attitudes toward each other could enter their hearts (TOB 12:2–13:1).

The Rosary is arguably the most widely prayed, most enduring devotion in Catholic history. Many have spoken about the power and beauty of the Rosary. Pope St. Pius X said, “Amidst all prayers, the Rosary is the most beautiful, the richest in graces, and the one that most pleases the Most Holy Virgin.”[1] October, the month of the Rosary, is the perfect time to introduce this beloved prayer to children and to encourage families to pray it together. The following are some recommendations for handing on this treasure of the Church.

1. Remind Your Learners That Mary Is Our Mother

Motherhood is associated with a gentle, approachable strength. Many children feel most comfortable going to their mothers first when they are distressed or in trouble. When Jesus commends his mother to St. John at the Cross (Jn 19:26–27) he is, by extension, offering her as mother to the whole Church. And indeed, she is—for the Church is the Body of Christ and Mary is his mother. As our mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary wishes to encourage us, to protect us, to nurture us, and to teach us by always pointing us to her Son. Jesus is a good Son who loves and listens to his mother, so we can be certain that he hears whatever questions, worries, and problems we place at her feet. As Pope Leo XIII wrote, “How unerringly right, then, are Christian souls when they turn to Mary for help as though impelled by an instinct of nature, confidently sharing with her their future hopes and past achievements, their sorrows and joys, commending themselves like children to the care of a bountiful mother.”[2]

Pope St. John Paul II devoted about 30 percent of his Theology of the Body (TOB) Catechesis (TOB 24–64) to extensive reflections on Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 5:27–28 regarding the need to avoid “lust” in the recesses of the human heart. St. John Paul II did not focus so intently on this teaching simply to hammer home the evils of lust. Instead, he saw lust as an acute threat to the divine plan for human love, and that plan for love was always his greatest concern. He repeatedly presents the teaching of Jesus not so much as a condemnation of our lustful hearts but as a call to purity of heart for the sake of purified love (TOB 42–59).

St. John Paul II utilizes St. Paul’s teaching that we must “abstain from unchastity” and “keep” the body “with holiness and reverence” (1 Thes 4:3–5) to emphasize that purity of heart has a “more positive than negative” dimension (TOB 54:1–3). Purity necessarily means being free from pollutants that contaminate the heart, but it should never be misconstrued as prudishness or disdain for the sexuality of the body (TOB 44:5–45:3). Authentic purity is found in a positive orientation of the heart that heightens our sense of the dignity and beauty of human sexuality in ourselves and in others.

This whole outlook on purity corresponds with what St. John Paul II calls the “ethos of redemption” (TOB 51:5) and the “life ‘according to the Spirit’” that make the reality of purified love “a new ability of the human being in whom the gift of the Holy Spirit bears fruit” (TOB 56:1). Instead of being anything we can manufacture for ourselves, true purity is given to us “by the power of Christ himself working in man’s innermost [being] through the Holy Spirit” (TOB 51:3). Through re-creation in Christ, we can be given a supernatural outlook on sexuality and new paradigms for our sexual lives.

This installment of the series presents the TOB teachings on purity of heart and sexual modesty as guideposts on the path of re-creation within the relationship of man and woman. These teachings help us better understand how our attitudes, thoughts, and desires should be impacted by God’s grace; from there, we can formulate a kind of checklist of God’s expectations for our sexual lives.

Pope St. John Paul II explicitly linked his Theology of the Body (TOB) catechesis[i] with the synod that he convoked to explore “the tasks that Christ gives to marriage and to the Christian family” (TOB 1:5). In his post-synodal document, Familiaris Consortio, he states, “To bear witness to the inestimable value of the indissolubility and fidelity of marriage is one of the most precious and most urgent tasks of Christian couples in our times.” In that same section of Familiaris Consortio, he specifically mentions the modern mentality that “openly mocks the commitment of spouses to fidelity,” and he calls on the whole Church “to reconfirm the good news of the definitive nature of that conjugal love that has in Christ its foundation and strength.”[ii]

St. John Paul II sensed an urgent need to uphold the complete fidelity and absolute indissolubility of marriage because he clearly understood that the most fundamental truths of the Gospel are at stake in these issues. He understood that the inherent dignity of the human person and our vocation to sacrificial, Christlike love are at stake in these issues. Ultimately, he understood that the issues of fidelity and indissolubility ask us whether we believe the Good News that, despite our concupiscence, humans are capable of unconditional love for an entire lifetime on account of our redemption in Jesus Christ. Conversely, St. John Paul II saw temptations to infidelity and divorce as manifestations of our concupiscence, with calls to change the doctrines of our faith on these issues representing a tragic capitulation to sinfulness and human frailty in the face of life’s difficulties.

The previous installment of this series presented the interpersonal meaning of the unitive aspect of marriage embedded in St. John Paul II’s reflections on marital consent. Interpreted through the lens of TOB, marital consent uniquely affirms the worth of the person by declaring, “I acknowledge you as my spouse and give myself to you fully and unconditionally all the days of my life. Being with you in this way is worth the gift of my whole life because you are worth the gift of my whole life. I renounce all others to be with you and you alone in this way because you are utterly unique and irreplaceable and worth sacrificing all others.”

To continue that theme, this installment of the series focuses on the fidelity (“I renounce all others to be with you and you alone”) and indissolubility (“all the days of my life”) required to live out this proclamation of worth in the daily life of the couple. We will also consider the spiritual truths at stake in these issues.

The Theology of the Body (TOB) catechesis[i] culminates with profound teachings on responsible parenthood and a vigorous defense of Humanae vitae, but St. John Paul II equally proclaimed the depth and importance of the unitive aspect of marriage. In fact, nearly half of the TOB reflections are based directly on Jesus’ teachings on the indissolubility of marriage (TOB 1–23, based on Mt 19) and the monogamy of marriage (TOB 24–63, based on Mt 5). While emphasizing the inseparability between the procreative and unitive aspects, a key teaching of Humanae vitae, St. John Paul II also provided a profound way to understand the enormous personal value of unity for man and woman precisely as persons made in the image of God.

By highlighting the meaning of marital unity beyond the juridical level through his focus on the total self-giving and personal communion at the center of Christian marriage, he also gave us some clear criteria for understanding the essential difference between marital sex and premarital sex. This installment of the series describes that essential difference and why our theology says that couples must wait for marriage to begin their sexual life together.

[i] John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans. Michael Waldstein (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2006), hereafter cited parenthetically in text as TOB.

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As St. John Paul II concluded his Theology of the Body (TOB) Catechesis in November of 1984, he indicated that the application of TOB could go “far beyond the content of the reflections presented here” (TOB 133:1), while reaffirming the importance of his explicit applications to the teachings on responsible parenthood found in Humanae Vitae. Just three years later, the Magisterium provided its first major example of these wider applications of TOB when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith promulgated Donum Vitae to address medical interventions into the transmission of human life. The teachings of Donum Vitae continued the application of TOB to the theme of responsible parenthood but directed it to the question of how couples can seek to grow their family in a morally sound way when they are experiencing challenges with their natural fertility. 

Echoing the main teachings of Donum Vitae, this installment of the series summarizes how the anthropological and moral principles of TOB support the proper use of medical science in the exercise of responsible parenthood, while highlighting the grave evils of artificial reproduction. 

Procreative Love and Responsibility 

Within the TOB framework, procreation essentially means providing the dignified and just context for God’s creative action, and the essence of responsible parenthood centers on the commitment of man and woman to provide that context out of love for each other and with a sense of obligation before God. Responsible parenthood means being fruitful in a way that does justice to all involved precisely in order to fulfill the privileged role of man and woman in the mystery of creation, thus preserving the truth of procreation as an essential aspect of the love to which human sexuality is ordered. 

Procreation springs from the heart of conjugal love, rather than being something added on to the love of the man and the woman, and represents an utterly unique way for them to express their love and commitment to each other. Through procreation, man and woman give motherhood and fatherhood to each other and thereby give themselves to each other with an unsurpassed depth. For that reason, those who love in this conjugal way deeply want to give motherhood and fatherhood to each other and to see new life spring from their loving communion. Therefore, it is natural and fitting that a man and a woman in conjugal love seek medical help whenever they are experiencing infertility. Likewise, the teachings of the Church recognize with great compassion the pain of infertility precisely because it frustrates the deep currents of conjugal love. 

However, along with the deep desire to give children to each other, married couples stand before God with an obligation to cooperate with him in the transmission of life. Married couples should feel that same sense of obligation to seek proper healthcare if they experience infertility. In other words, a couple that truly loves each other and that wants to fulfill their obligations before God cannot remain indifferent to infertility. 

There are natural limits to human fertility within God’s plan for human sexuality, but medical science generally says that more than twelve months of sexual intercourse in the fertile phase of the woman’s cycle without conception would be a cause for concern. According to the meaning of responsible parenthood, a couple in that situation should seek fertility care out of love for each other and with a sense of obligation before God. 

We should keep in mind that this medical care does not always lead to very complicated or invasive procedures or expensive treatments; sometimes very simple observations and changes can be made to help a couple overcome their infertility. However, no matter how simple or complicated their fertility issues may be, the couple should feel a moral obligation to try to overcome their infertility within the bounds of prudence and within the meaning of the same language of the body that governs all responsible parenthood. 

By seeking fertility care in line with the principles of responsible parenthood, couples say to each other, “Because I care so much about you, I can’t act like I don’t care about our infertility. Sharing parenthood with you means so much to me that I am willing to take the time and effort to seek help and to accept the physical and emotional costs of trying to overcome our infertility. I am not willing, however, to do anything that degrades our bodies, contradicts the meaning of our spousal communion, or violates the dignity of the children we seek to give each other. The treatment we seek must be dignified and loving in order to genuinely express the movements of my heart toward you.” 

Fortunately, TOB offers couples a clear basis for understanding the criteria by which treatments would be dignified and loving and thus within the proper meaning of responsible parenthood. 

Most Catholic parents are so far removed from a rich Catholic culture that living a liturgical season—let alone the liturgical year—can seem impossible.

In the book Speaking the Truth in Love, Dr. Petroc Willey offers a triadic framework for transmitting the faith: the heart, head, and hand, where hand is the process of “handing on” the Deposit of Faith.[1] I hope he won’t mind if I borrow this triadic framework and modify it slightly for teaching St. John Paul II’s theology of the body (TOB) to the very young by changing “hand” to refer to “hands-on teaching,” i.e., manipulatives. In this way, all three—head, heart, and hand—can come together in forming the young child’s Trinitarian-Catholic identity.

A Mini-Scripture Study

Where did my inspiration for teaching young children TOB arise from? It started with my son, Michael, at age ten. We were sitting at the dinner table, and the parental catechist in me decided to take him through a mini-Scripture study of Genesis 1 and 2. We started with Genesis 1:27 about being made in God’s image and likeness; then continued with Genesis 2:7, on imaging God by being both body and spirit; and capped it off with Genesis 2:23–24 with an explanation of how we’re made for union and communion through a gift of self.

His ten-year-old eyes immediately told me I’d overshot his ability to comprehend. So, I grabbed what I had at hand, my hands, and created my first TOB visual aid: I put my hands together in a prayer position and said, “We’re made from one nature” and then I dropped both hands down with two fingers protruding from each hand (like two legs) “embodied in two ways”, then interlaced my fingers while saying “for the purpose of union and communion” and turned my hands outward as if giving a gift and said with a triumphant finish “through a sincere gift of self!” By George, I think he got it! I’d “handed on” a critical portion of the faith in a seminal way to a ten-year-old.

Twenty-four years later, I’ve graduated from merely using my hands (although I’ve taught thousands of people this “gift formula” using the hand motions) to a bevy of visual aids that can double as manipulatives for preschool age. And my favorite among them are gift bows. But just how young can we begin to teach TOB? Enter my one-year-old granddaughter, Sutton.