{"id":6962,"date":"2014-07-17T06:02:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T06:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/john-paul-ii-taught-that-the-body-matters-priest-says-99455\/"},"modified":"2014-07-17T06:02:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T06:02:00","slug":"john-paul-ii-taught-that-the-body-matters-priest-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2014\/07\/john-paul-ii-taught-that-the-body-matters-priest-says\/","title":{"rendered":"John Paul II taught that ‘the body matters,’ priest says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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Philadelphia, Pa., Jul 17, 2014 \/ 12:02 am (CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- Saint John Paul II's teaching on love and sexuality shows the dignity of the human body and how concrete acts of mercy are demanded of all of us, says priest and author Father Michael Gaitley.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThe heart of the Theology of the Body for me,\u201d said Fr. Gaitley, \u201cis the idea that the body matters,\u201d and that \u201call of us are called in our bodies to reflect the self-giving love which is at the heart of the Trinity \u2013 which means putting mercy into action.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tFr. Gaitley is the director of the Association for Marian Helpers and spoke July 10 at the Theology of the Body Congress in Philadelphia. His comments addressed the relationship between Vatican II and Pope John Paul II's teaching on marital love and the family.<\/p>\n

\tThe teaching, unofficially termed the \u201cTheology of the Body,\u201d was a series of over 100 talks on human love, sexuality, and the family delivered by Pope John Paul II between 1979 and 1984. Its relationship to Vatican II, Fr. Gaitley explained, was that both taught that faith is meant to be put into action through concrete, personal acts of faith and love.<\/p>\n

\tAs Archbishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla implemented Vatican II by promoting the \u201cenrichment of faith,\u201d small communities of believers who took the teachings of the council home and had small-group discussions, carrying the truths from the head to the heart.<\/p>\n

\tThis knowledge of the heart \u201canticipates\u201d the Theology of the Body, Fr. Gaitley explained. \u201cWe are the kind of beings that can take truths into our minds but then as we bring them into our hearts, the Word becomes flesh in us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cWe become, in a certain sense, other incarnations of the Word, which is sort of an anticipation of Theology of the Body, that we are these amazing beings that can take just these ideas but then make them flesh in our lives so that people can see us as living Gospels,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\tAnd the most important way to do this, he added, is to put \u201cmercy into action.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cI would suggest to you that the most important truth that needs to go from our heads to our hearts to our lives is the truth that God is mercy. The truth that God is love. The truth that God is merciful love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tFr. Gaitley gave five pillars of the Divine Mercy devotion: celebrating the Feast of Divine Mercy, venerating the image of Divine Mercy, praying the Divine Mercy novena, praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and commemorating the Hour of Mercy each day at 3 p.m. These are all concrete ways of carrying the message of Divine Mercy from our head to our hearts, he maintained.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cBut the last and most important part for the message of divine mercy is that we all have to put mercy into action,\u201d he added. \u201cDeeds of mercy. Jesus told Faustina 'I demand from you deeds of mercy.'\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThe priest then referenced Philadelphia archbishop Charles Chaput's remarks to the National Catholic Reporter in 2011, when he said: \u201cIf we don\u2019t love the poor, and do all we can to improve their lot, we're going to go to Hell. It's very clear from the gospels that we have the duty to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tAs beings with both a soul and a body, we have to make \u201cvisible\u201d the love of the Trinity in deeds of mercy, Fr. Gaitley emphasized.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cAnd part of the vocation of the human being is we\u2019re not spirits like the angels, we\u2019re embodied spirits, is that we\u2019re to make visible the invisible reality of God, in families, making visible the invisible reality of the Trinity, in the self-giving love that\u2019s fruitful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

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