the way of Love

“The intimacy that exists between soul and body is a marvel of creation and a mystery of human existence. Yet we do wrong to think, because the soul will be judged after death while the body crumbles to the grave, that this mortal handful of dust is any less a gift of God, any less noble or beautiful than the immortal soul. It is in the body that we exist and work out our salvation. It is in the body that we see and take delight in the beauties of God’s created universe, and in the body that we ourselves bear the marks of Christ’s passion… We are constantly, day in and day out, hour after hour, under the influence of these mysterious workings of soul on body and body on soul.” 

~Fr. Walter J. Ciszek, S.J., in He Leadeth Me 

[Note: more on Ciszek and the body here] 

“Sing, my tongue; sing, my hand; sing, my feet, my knee, my loins, my whole body. Indeed I am His choir,” wrote Saint Thomas Aquinas, one of the great teachers of the medieval Catholic Church, honored with the titles Doctor of the Church and Angelic Doctor. 

Although I am doing well overall, I feel physically zapped today. So reading Aquinas' dramatic, passionate statement recognizing his body as God's masterful creation, frankly overwhelms me more than inspires me!

Yet when God proclaims, 

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you”  [Jer 1:5]

 God means this creaky and tender body of mine, as it is today.

Elenita, looking at herself in mirror

My friend Pat, who is undergoing treatment for brain cancer, recently reminded me that spiritual maturity requires that we not only merely accept, but to look in the mirror and downright acknowledge just how beautiful we are, physically.

I have a ways to go in learning, believing that I am God’s work of art, that I am God’s choir. It’s that different level of “understanding” that St. Ignatius of Loyola termed “knowing.”

I do want to “know” that all that I am, as I am, God created with specific and deliberate purpose and love so that I may claim my place in God’s choir in this world. This is the “more excellent way,” the way of Love that gives God glory and praise through my life.

There is not greater reality—and in truth, there is no greater challenge.

Cecilia, one month old

“You formed my inmost being;

you knit me in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, because I am wonderfully made;

wonderful are your works!

My very self you know.

My bones are not hidden from you,

When I was being made in secret,

fashioned in the depths of the earth.”

~Psalm 139:13-15

The Body

Years ago I read Walter Ciszek's book, "With God in Russia," and became entranced by his story.

Video on the life of Servant of God Walter Ciszek, SJ, 

featuring insights from his friend Daniel Flaherty, SJ, 

who helped Fr. Ciszek write "With God in Russia" and "He Leadeth Me."

American Jesuit priest Father Walter J. Ciszek spent 23 agonizing years in Soviet prisons and in Siberia's labor camps. "With God in Russia" describes his journey, struggles, physical and spiritual suffering--in painful honesty. And it made me want to know more about this faithful man who lived in complete reliance of God's will, no matter what hardship and suffering he endured.

That's when I picked up "He Leadeth Me," a book that has become a "go to" guide in my own spiritual walk. No doubt you'll hear more about it in the future!

Fr. Ciszek in Norilsk, USSR - 1955

For today, some excerpts from his chapter on The Body:

"'Man is a creature composed of body and soul.' We have recited that truth from the day we first learned our catechism. But until the body fails us, or pains us, or forces itself upon our attention by some little twinge or complete collapse, we tend to take for granted this first and most precious of God's gifts to man or to give it short shrift."

"What came to me in the prison camps was a tremendous respect and love for the poor old body. It was the body that bore the brunt of all suffering, though the soul might well experience anguish. And it was the body that had to sustain you, for all the strength of will and determination a might have. It was the body that felt the sting of the wind, the bite of the cold, the cramp of aching muscles, the raw lash of cracked and bleeding flesh, the gnawing agony of hunger in the belly, the soreness and numbness of overtaxed sinews... and yet somehow it always managed to get you through one more day. It was the body that underwent the suffering, felt the agony, and carried the heavy weight across its shoulders of this daily passion and slow death of inhuman work."

"It is in the body that we exist and work out our salvation. It is in the body that we see and take delight in the beauties of God's created universe, and in the body that we ourselves bear the marks of Christ's passion."

"God by his Incarnation took on a human body."

"For each of us salvation means no more and no less than taking up daily the same cross of Christ, accepting each day what it brings as the will of God, offering back to God each morning all the joys, works, and sufferings of that day. But those are abstract words."

"What it means, in practice, is spelled out as always by the poor old body. It means getting up each morning and going to bed exhausted. It means the routine, not the spectacular. It can mean drudgery, pain, putting aside pleasures, happiness, or the love the human heart craves until another time, so that what is necessary at the moment can be done. It means working for others, touching the lives of others, through the medium of the body."