There is a short essay in the May issue of the “U.S. Catholic” from Alice Camille entitled “In the flesh” (pages 39- 41) that is dealing with the importance of the human body for the Christian theology and spirituality. She begins with admitting that “Christianity has a bad reputation for being body-negative”, and tries to balance this negativity with some sound presentation of the body-affirming reality of our faith. Central teachings, as Incarnation, Resurrection, Eucharist, Assumption and Ascension - the feast of which is approaching and gave occasion to this reflection, too - show the high value Christian doctrine gives to the bodily dimension of existence and as Camille underlines, “God does not discard mortal flesh like garment but retains and even glorifies it for eternity. When we talk about salvation, we say the whole person is saved. The body is deemed worth saving, too. Those are all staggeringly positive statements about our physical nature that must not be overlooked or contradicted.”

The importance of the integrity of the human person cannot be stressed enough when we speak of spiritual growth. For this reason, we thought it important to point out in our presentation of the Spiritual Exercises: “When we speak about spiritual realities we don’t want to put in contrast body and spirit, but stress the unity of the human being, who is spiritual in every aspect, even in the somatic functions, since the “spirit” is the all-encompassing principle of us. Spirit is what distinguishes us from animals, for example and it permeates every level of our existence. With other words, there are no such sections of the human being as “body”, “psyche” and “spirit” but hierarchical levels and intercommunicating dimensions of the whole being.” (Finding Our Way Together, page 16 or  [1] in “1-22. General Guidelines to the Exercises” http://www.geocities.com/ourladyofthegraces/Preparatoryphase.htm )

Camille presents the biblical background of the appreciation of the human body beginning with the Genesis where God saw that the bodily existence of humans in the creation became indeed “very good”  (Gen 1:31). Then she speaks of the sacred character of the body in Hebrew culture, seen as holy because coming from the hands of God and must be kept clean just like the vessels of the Temple and at the end we arrive to the resurrection and ascension of Jesus and to the hope of our own resurrection in the body. 

Alice Camille indicates the very important and liberating turning point in the concept of holiness when Jesus redefined the idea of ritual purity and uncleanliness showing that these originate not from outside events and actions – as Judaism understood it – but from within, from the intentions of human hearts: “…relocating sin within the human spirit rather than seeing it embedded in the flesh did change everything. Jesus touched lepers, bleeding women, and the dead without fear of religiously decreed contagion. It is no accident that his own body and blood became a means of promoting holiness rather than one more source of impurity”.  

Similarly, we thought to underline this revolution in the view of sin and holiness at that point in the Spiritual Exercises when Saint Ignatius calls for reflection on the origin of sin by a meditation on the sin of the angels: “The fact that some of them sinned and consequently are lost forever tells us two things. First of all that sin is possible for persons gifted with free will; God’s omnipotence does not oppress a creature’s free choice even when it is revolted against him. Secondly, the sin of the angels tells us that the origin of evil is in the spiritual dimension. Jesus teaches something in this line when says: “It is not what enters one’s mouth that defiles that person; but what comes out of the mouth is what defiles one…things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness, blasphemy” (Mt 15:11 ff). He corrects the view that sin is originating in the bodily dimension of the person represented in this quote by the Jewish dietary rules; the most serious sins are originated in our spiritual reality; with biblical terminology, in our “heart”. Sin is not simply a violation of precepts and rules of behavior but something more profound. And because we are incarnate spirits, we cannot sin without involving also our bodily and psychic dimension, too. This is expressed in the general theological statement that illness and death are consequences of sin.” (First point of the first exercise: on the origin of sin; (Finding Our Way Together, pages 55-56 or http://www.geocities.com/ourladyofthegraces/firstbeginning.htm )

It seems that even today still we need to correct the view that associates sin with bodies – and mainly everything that is connected with sexuality - rather with the intentions of hearts, manifesting themselves in drives like greed, hatred and thirst for power, which brings to violence and oppression of the weak, wars, growing poverty, abuse of persons and resources, and similar.

Notwithstanding seeing much suffering and sin in us and in our fellow humans we are called however to live in hope and to work for a better world. As Saint Paul said we live "always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body" (2Cor 4:10).

Alice Camille ends her article by reaffirming this hope: “The Ascension of Jesus is a vital finish to the story of God-with-us that began with the Incarnation. Jesus doesn’t just disappear like a ghost. He has to exit the scene with his body; which so uniquely operates as the intersection between heaven and earth. And Jesus leaves with us a meal of his flesh and blood that contains the seeds of our own immortality”.

For the Ascension, see also our book: “312. The Ascension of Jesus, Acts 1:1-12” in Finding Our Way Together, pages 372-373 or here: Appendix B: The Mysteries of the Life of Jesus Christ )

Although this article is not online you can access U.S Catholic here: