"Open Your Mouth and I Will Fill It"

As I continue with Christopher West's Theology of the Body talks (yeah, I know it's been a while), here's a summary of what I've written so far:

1) The human person is the inseparable union (marriage) of body and spirit.
2) The modern world teaches false focus on our sexuality, but agents of the Catholic Church often offer a false negative message about our sexuality.
3) The body has a sacramental meaning : it images the invisible God.

From here Christopher West offered this question and answer : What does this image of God upon our bodies mean? It shows the "innermost secret of God: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange."

Our hearts long, ache, pine for love. Modern culture and our own experiences speak to this truth. Chick-flicks, love songs, college hook-ups, online dating services, the omnipresence of romance -- all these demonstrate our human longing for love. This longing comes from the fact that we were made for and from God's infinite love.

We have three ways in which we can respond to this longing:
1) Become an addict. We indulge in every way to fill this hole inside us, using the venues the world offers us, venues that will never quite satisfy us, but which we cannot let go.
2) Become a stoic. We ignore the longings, squash them, try to pretend there is no hole, because it is so hard to fill.
3) Become a mystic. We seek God to fill this hole. We know that it will never be completely filled in this life, but we wed ourselves as closely as possible to our Lord, because He is the only thing that can fill it.

Most of the time, we respond in a combination of these three ways at various points in our life. Sin enters in following path 1 or path 2, when we go to something finite to try to fill a desire for the infinite. We can be seeking something good when we sin; the sin comes from choosing something good over something holy.

When we choose the road of the mystic, we enter into relationship with God. And through Scripture, we can discover the shape of this relationship. God reveals His mystery to us through a spousal analogy -- through His marriage to each of us. The analogy of marriage is the most common analogy in the Bible, according to Christopher. Importantly, marriage bookends the Bible. "In the beginning," God created Adam and Eve, the first, archetypal marriage. In Revelation, He shows to John a new marriage, one of Christ and the Church. The new Adam and the New Eve. Because we are all part of the Church which is the Body of Christ, through the Cross and (for Catholics) through the Eucharist, we are all "called to nuptial union with God."

In other words, God wants to marry each of us. The Old Testament describes this longing -- have you ever read Hosea or the Song of Solomon? If not, please do. Both unfold God's urgent longing, his unceasing desire for each of us. And then, in the New Testament, God fulfills the Old Testament -- He fulfills His desire for us, but taking on flesh and coming to the world as a bridegroom in pursuit of His bride.

Ultimately, He gave Himself in every way possible to His bride, His Church, in the Eucharist and in the Cross. Christopher West gave an exegesis of the passage from Ephesians 5 :

'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This is a great mystery and I mean in reference to Christ and the church.

In reference to Christ and the Church, Christ (man) left first his Father (in heaven, during the incarnation) and his mother (Mary, on earth, first at his death, then at his Ascension) and was joined to his wife (the Church) and the two became one flesh (the Eucharist). Wow!