BODY AND SOUL

August 15, 2010

Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Luke 1: 39-56

Assumption is going home: “And Mary returned to her home”(Lk 1:56 b), this ending phrase of the Gospel passage we have for our reflection today conveys the meaning of the feast of Assumption we celebrate today. Yes, Mary went home. She went home to the Father. She went home as an integral person with her body and soul. It was the work of God for her as she was full of grace, as she was immaculate, the mother of God and of the Church.

Mary’s assumption is the culmination of her “blessed” life on earth and a sign of hope for all mankind. Mary being the prototype of the Church, where she is, we hope to follow. What she has achieved we, her children, hope to share.

Body and Soul: Thanks to the assumption of Mary, we are now sure of something of heaven. Heaven is the place not only of the souls, but also of the bodies. So the best way of praying for the dead is to pray for the person who has died, rather than the departed soul. In the creed we proclaim: “We believe in the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting”.

This feast reminds us of the integral persons that we are: Body and soul. It would be appropriate, then, to reflect today on the spirituality and theology of the human body.

The spirituality and theology of the body: God created us body and spirit. He formed our body from the elements of nature and infused life into it. It is God who animates the body. We glorify God in our bodies.

Priceless: I was once invited to bless the pathological laboratory of a medical college. I was surprised to find some fifty dead bodies laid on the table. I asked them how they managed to get so many of those. They said, most of those were brought for a price ranging from five thousand pesos to twenty thousand pesos. I was taken for surprise: a human body for five thousand pesos! So cheep!

But the fact is, the human body is invaluable. I came across this revelation from the medical field, again, from a researcher who took the effort to come up with the prize tag of an adult human body, taking each limb, and cell and tagging it at the market price. You know how much it is worth? It would be US $386,000 trillion. Yes, your body is worth much more than the entire wealth of the world put together. With all the advancement in the medical field, and with all the strides in the scientific progress, we have not been able to create even a cell of the human body. Micro biology, genetic engineering, and what not, yet we cannot duplicate the wisdom of our created. For, we are created for eternity.

What does it mean to us?
1. Love your body, respect it and cherish it. In your sight, your body may have imperfections, yet it is the hand work of God. Christ, the son of God has revealed to us that He is the head of the Church, and we are His body.

2. Dignity of the body: St Paul reminds us, “Don’t you know that you are the temple of the holy spirit” (1 Cor 3:16), and again, “Don't you know that your body is a temple that belongs to the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit, whom you received from God, lives in you.” (1 Cor 6:19). Abusing the human body is desecrating the temple of God.

3. Commoditization and commercialization of the body: Body sells. Commercial wisdom has proved time and again that human body has the power to bargain, and sell any product. Take a look at the commercials and the advertisements… take a look at the television shows. Human body is exhibited as an alluring commodity. Equally demeaning are the practices of ‘flesh trade’, selling the body for economic, political, social gains.

4. Violence against the body: Human body, in the modern society is vulnerable and susceptible to myriad forms of violence. Direct and visible violence such as murder, strangle, mutilation, rape, abortion and have become so common that they do not even get media attention in our age. There are other forms of violence against the body which are all the more neglected. Such subtle forms include excessive alcoholism, smoking, drug addiction and gluttony. The increase of epidemics and various kinds of illness have a direct connection with the abuse of human body.

5. Mary was assumed into heaven because she was full of grace. Let our body exhibit the grace of God. May Mary, our blessed mother help us to keep our body mind and soul pure, holy, and acceptable for God here on earth and the world to come.