And with these words the Holy Father Pope John Paul II concludes his 26th catechesis on Man and Woman He Created Them a Theology of the Body. There are many salient points in this 26th catechesis. The Holy Father addresses concupiscence. This section is actually entitled “The Man of concupiscence”, which is a reference to all of us. Concupere – with desire, to take to oneself, a consequence of original sin. A consequence of the Fall.
Pope John Paul II presents in this catechesis the threefold concupiscence found in 1 John 2:16–17. The concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes and pride of life. Concupiscence of the flesh, refers to sins of the flesh, a tendency to sin with the flesh. Not just gluttony or drunkenness but even sexual sins are included. Concupiscence of the eyes, not to look at another with desire in the reductive way. We heard about that in the 25th catechesis, but even coveting our neighbors goods: our neighbors three story house, or foreign import car, or stellar education. Often before something is stolen it is desired with the eyes, coveted with the eyes. And then, pride of life, “Lord I thank you I am not like these others” we hear in the gospel (Luke 18:11). These are tendencies to sin. And they really cover just about everything.
Our Lord encourages us, exhorts us, as does His vicar on Earth Pope John Paul II, who gave us these conferences but now Benedict XVI encourages us not to be men and women, not to be human beings of concupiscence, but to be saints. Rejoicing in the good, rejoicing in the blessings of the other. Proper stewardship of ourselves, of our bodies, of our where-with-all, and of our eyes. The Holy Father does not use the expression ‘custody of the eyes’ but it is very much a part of the equation. It is one way how we combat concupiscence.
The tendency to sin is a consequence of Original Sin, of the Fall. And since this three-fold concupiscence is found in St. John’s first letter, Pope John Paul II addresses Johannine theology. That theology, the science of God, based on the writings of St. John. So you have the fourth Gospel, the three letters, and the book of Revelation. What was God trying to tell us through these inspired writings of this inspired author, the beloved disciple St. John. whose memory the Church celebrates each year on December 27th just after Christmas? “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us”(John 1:14) this is the high Johannine theology of Christ, the incarnate Word, the Word made flesh. “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30), Johannine Trinitarian theology. “My flesh is true food, My blood is true drink” (John 6:55), Eucharistic Johannine theology.
Our Holy Father Pope John Paul II in his footnotes cites so many of the different authors, the different sources, those who have written about what can be found in the writings attributed to St. John. So much has been written on Johannine theology. And the Holy Father makes his contribution here in this 2nd chapter of Man and Woman He Created Them a Theology of the Body. He does so in light of the Sermon on the Mount, however, which is Matthew 5:27–28, where the Lord is extending the Decalogue. Not only: not to commit adultery, but: not to look with desire, in the reductive sense, upon the other.
And our Holy Father Pope John Paul II asks the question, “Is it legitimate to transfer the typical contents of Johannine theology in 1 John 2:15–16, where we hear of the 3-fold concupiscence, to the terrain of the Sermon on the Mount (St. Matthew)?” That’s his question. And I think it is very important that we answer that question in the affirmative, “Yes of course it is legitimate.” And the Holy Father mentions as one reason why it is legitimate, why it is fine to juxtapose those two passage of Sacred Scripture because of the overall biblical context: 1 John is in the Scripture, and Matthew is in the Scripture.
The Holy Father is well aware that “all of Scripture is inspired by God and useful for correcting and teaching and rebuking and growing in holiness” (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16). And that’s the only reason why he spoke these 133 conferences that we might grow in holiness not just of soul but of body—the Theology of the Body. An other reason why it would be legitimate, why it is legitimate to juxtapose these two passages of Sacred Scripture is because the primary author of all of the Scripture is God. We profess in the Creed to “believe in the Holy Spirit” who “has spoken through the prophets.” And not just the prophets of the Old Testament but all of Scripture. And in point of fact, when the Holy Father mentions the overall biblical context of the two passages it is an allusion to the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation of the Second Vatican Council Dei Verbum, which highlights that, among other things.
There are several things to take into consideration when we interpret the Sacred Scripture. And that is what Pope John Paul II is doing in so many of these conferences on the Theology of the Body. He is interpreting Jesus’ interaction in the Gospel with the Pharisees. Whose wife will she be? Not to look upon another with the reductive desire. In the beginning it was not that way it was because of the hardness of your heart. Those are three main passages of the Gospels which our Holy Father builds his Theology of the Body upon. All of this theology is giving us the truth about ourselves, the truth about man.
Christ the Lord came to teach us, to instruct us, to give us revelation not only about God., who God is: Father, Son, and Spirit, the eternal communion of the eternal persons, but also the truth about ourselves. John Paul II addresses original innocence, how we were made good. “God saw all that He had created and it was good.” We also learn about original sin, how our first parents ruptured the covenant and we continually ourselves by our sins rupture the covenant with God. The truth about man is also related to us in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount, that famous preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. The Redeemer of Man, the redeemer of human race, the redeemer of the world, the one only mediator between God and man—Christ Jesus. He who laid down His life for love us and for love the Father. “No greater love than to lay down your life for you friends” and He did it for us, while we were still yet at enmity with Him, with each other, and with ourselves.
Pope John Paul II reminds us in this 26th catechesis on Man and Woman He Created Them a Theology of the Body of the specific motive of creation and the specific motive of the original covenant (and the new covenant I might add), is love. God who is love has as His motivation love. “Not a second hand emotion”, all apologies to Tina Turner, love has everything “to do with it” for God is love. Pope Benedict XVI in his first encyclical reminded the whole world of this same truth Deus Caritas Est—God is Love.
One of the highlights of this 26th catechesis is again a deepening of the appreciation of what is shame. The meaning of original shame, how shame entered into the world with sin. In the beginning they were naked without shame but once the covenant had been broken by disobedience, by disregard for the holy law, the holy plan, the holy will of the all holy God, Father, Son, and Spirit, shame entered the world. And when we are shameless it means that we disregard shame. Shame is good if we have done something shameful. We should feel ashamed if we have done something wicked, if we have done something terrible, sinful, but then we come before the Lord. Who was crucified and who died, and who rose gloriously triumphant over the cross and sin and the grave for our salvation and we say “Lord have mercy!” We well confess our sins and receive absolution and do the assigned penance to show the depth of our love for God and our repentance, to show the depth of our gratitude for his mercy.
When we sin we cast doubt on the gift of God, the gift of his creation, the gift of His redemption, the gift of His divine providence governing the universe in that mysterious way which He knows completely. In relation to this casting doubt on the gift of God, the gifts of God, Pope John Paul II is able to make a great distinction: What comes from the Father? All that is good, all that is true, all that is beautiful. That is what comes from the Father: original innocence, original holiness, the original covenant, the new and the everlasting covenant, that all comes from the Father. What comes from the world? Shame, sin, death, despair. These are the anti-gift. These are the fruits of the rejection of the good gifts of the good God. What comes from the Father? What comes from the world? “God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, of all the is seen and unseen” created the world good. It is our sin which messed things up. And so in that light Pope John Paul II addresses our situation, man’s situation, after sin. That is what we live. That is our reality. We live after the Fall, but we also live after the redemption. Christ the Lord died once for all and His saving death and resurrection is applied to us by His grace in the sacraments, by a life lived in communion with Him in His Church, the one He founded. Man’s situation after sin, after the fall, is affected by concupiscence, that tendency to sin. To sin with our eyes, to sin with our bodies, to sin with our souls—the pride of life. That three-fold concupiscence with which he began the catechesis: this is our situation after sin, after the sin we have inherited, Original Sin, and after the sins we commit. “The spirit is willing but our flesh is weak. “ So our Holy Father speaks to us not only about doubt cast upon God’s good gifts: what comes from the Father, and what comes from the world. He speaks to us not only about our situation after sin, but he speaks to us about the new state of human nature.
So when the philosophers of old wrote about ”the state of nature” they were doing what Pope John Paul II is doing here in this 26th catechesis on the Theology of the Body Man and Woman He Created Them. But our Holy Father is giving us an adequate anthropology, one which corresponds with reality. Which corresponds to the truth. “The truth will set you free” and the truth about our human nature is that it is now a fallen nature. And even if we have had the fruits of the redemption applied to us by means of the sacraments we still have that tendency to sin, which is our lot until we awaken to glory on that day with no end which is life on high with Christ Jesus. This is our current state of our nature which we all have in common, every human being from the one just conceived in the womb until our last breath. This is the basis of solidarity how we are to become concerned one for the other. The one who said” I am not my brother’s keeper” rejected solidarity, rejected human nature, even though he lived within this new state of our nature—that fallen state.
Our situation after sin, this new state of our nature, is the fruit of the birth of shame. Shame is born, shame is brought about, as a consequence of sin. As a consequence of the fall. This too is part of the overall biblical context of St. John’s first letter and the Sermon on the Mount, but so too is the glory. The glory of Heaven revealed in the book of Revelation. The glory to be revealed when Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead. Then “God will be all in all.”
Pope John Paul II in these 133 catechesis on Theology of the Body Man and Woman He Created Them focuses in his first three chapters, and we’re in the midst of chapter 2 now, on three main passages of Sacred Scripture. And it is helpful for us to keep that in mind.
He began with Matthew 19:3–8, when the Lord was speaking with the Pharisees, explaining to them about the original unity of man and woman, as they asked “whose wife will she be, she married all seven.” “It was not that way in the beginning.” Here we have the Holy Father commenting on those two verses from the Sermon on the Mount, whoever looks with desire upon the other has committed fornication already in his heart.
In chapter three we’ll go to St. Matthew chapter 12. So in a certain sense 19, 5, and 12, it’s obviously not sequential otherwise it would be 5, 12, and 19. But the Holy Father has a method to his presentation and it is good for us to follow his train of thought because he does what does and did what he did in obedience to Christ who entrusted the keys to Saint Peter how many years ago. “Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep. What you bind on earth is bound is Heaven. What you loose on earth is loosed in Heaven. The gates of Hell will not prevail.” When our Lord met with St. Paul on the road to Damascus He said, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And Saul, who had not yet been converted to become Paul said, “Who are you Lord?” “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Saul was persecuting the Church. He had letters to take into custody even women and children who had begun to follow the Way. To follow Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. That’s how personally Christ takes His relationship with His bride Mother Church. We should take our relationship with Christ, and with His bride, the one Church He founded so seriously. We should pray as He has commanded us to pray, “Do this in memory of Me.” For husbands and wives to exchange their holy vows in the setting of the prayer of the Church. Till death do they part, mirroring that love between Christ and His bride the Church. All of this and more our saving faith. Our life in Christ.
Our next program will focus our attention with the Holy Father on our own alienation from God, from the origin and the end of love, and the change in the meaning of original nakedness. Meaning, so important to say what we mean and to mean what we say and to do what has meaning. Meaning unto life. Let our yes be yes and our no be no for anything else is from the evil one— from the father of lies. The Lord calls us to holiness and that means rejecting sin and Satan, the glamour of evil. All these things by His grace and to His glory now and forever Amen.

Until next time God bless you.