Love Written into Our Bodies and Inscribed on Our Souls

Jesus turned, saw them following, and said to them, “What do you seek?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” (Jn. 1:38-39)

I have spent nearly 17 years studying, teaching, and speaking on Pope John Paul II’s work, particularly his Theology of the Body. While his writings are vast and sometimes dense, I’ve come to realize that at their core they are about God’s plan for us, and His plan has always been a love story.

We were created in the image and likeness of God for one ultimate purpose; to make God’s own eternal love story visible in the created world. St. Paul captures this beautifully:

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. (Eph. 5:31-32)

In other words, the very reason a man and woman leave their families and become one flesh in marriage is to make visible, in the sacrament, Christ the Bridegroom’s love for His Bride, the Church. It was Jesus who left His heavenly Father and earthly Mother to become one flesh with us. And where do we become one flesh with God? In the Eucharist.

Make no mistake: our deepest yearning—the burning desire to take a husband or a wife and become one flesh—is meant to be a sacramental sign that points directly to the Eucharist and God’s desire to be one with us.

In a sense, I already knew this in second grade.

I was born on the South Side of Chicago, the oldest of five boys. We lived on the second floor of my grandparents’ two-flat; they lived below us. Our backyard opened to an alley—our gateway to the world. It was there that my brothers and I were awakened to three core themes woven into the very DNA of manhood: life is an adventure, life is a battle, and, at its heart, life is about beauty—especially the beauty of love.

One day, as I unlocked the gate to the alley, my brothers just behind me, all of us eager for adventure and well-armed with rubber-band pistols and wooden swords, I was stopped in my tracks by the sound of angelic voices. I looked up—and there they were.

Twin sisters, maybe in fourth or fifth grade, walking toward us. To my innocent, second-grade heart, they possessed something words cannot fully describe. For the first time, I experienced the magnetic power of the beauty and mystery of femininity and the effect that it can have on a man’s heart. Even my younger brothers sensed something special in that moment and didn’t rush past me to get through the gate—one of them even waved and said hello. The girls glanced over, smiled graciously, and then disappeared down the alley, unaware of the profound impact they had just made.

We soon discovered that the twins lived three blocks away on the top floor of a three-flat. From that day on, our adventures all began in their direction. In our imaginations, their building had become a castle, and within its fortified walls the Princess Twins were held captive against their will by an evil knight. It was now our sworn duty to rescue them, at great danger to ourselves, and after a raging battle we would storm the outer door of the castle, fight our way up their stairwell, and rescue them. Over that one summer, we rescued the princesses a dozen times, and the tragedy? They never knew that they were being rescued! Chivalry at its finest.

At the same time, I felt an equally strong pull toward the priesthood. I wrote letters—and sent them snail-mail in those pre-internet days—to every missionary order I found, longing to serve in places with names like Tanzania, Shinyanga, and the Congo. From as early as I can remember, I felt called to this adventure and battle. I also had a deep, almost innate sense—especially at Mass—that life’s purpose was to serve beauty. The beauty of the Sacred.

Somehow, even in second grade, I grasped profound theological truths: my attraction to the beauty and mystery of those twin girls and my attraction to the beauty and mystery of God were not in conflict. In fact, I was to find that they are deeply connected.

Years later, I came to understand that I had glimpsed the two bookends of the Bible’s great love story—a story that can be summed up in five words: God wants to marry us.

God created us with His love story inscribed in our hearts and bodies, so that we could make His love visible in the world. As Pope John Paul II put it:

The body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible, the spiritual and divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world, the invisible mystery hidden in God from time immemorial, and thus to be a sign of it.

Think about it: the Bible begins in Genesis with an earthly paradise and the marriage of Adam and Eve. It ends in Revelation with a heavenly paradise and the marriage of Christ and the Church. And who is the Church? We are.

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. (Eph. 5:31-32)

The deepest longing of the human heart is for love. And the deepest longing of the Divine Heart is also for love. Jesus, in His very Person, is the perfect union of these two loves. He offers Himself to us so that we can enter into Divine Love.

This is my body, which is given for you. (Lk. 22:19)

When the distractions of life fade away, our deepest human desires—our yearning for love, our longing for communion—ultimately point us to the Eucharist. To God’s burning desire for intimacy with us.

Everything we long for can be summed up in Jesus’ last words in the Gospel of John: “I thirst” (Jn. 19:28). In prayer, in silence, if you listen, you will hear Him speaking these same words: I thirst . . . for you.

Image from Wikimedia Commons