His Body and Ours

“Take it; this is my body.” (Mk 14:22)

Today’s great feast invites us to focus our attention on the Lord’s body, his human body, the sacred flesh of the Son of God.  In directing our adoring gaze on this body, we cannot forget our own bodies, like his in every way.  Sacred flesh.

Monastic tradition evinces no little ambivalence about the role of the body in our lives as Christians.  The Desert Fathers spoke of “brother ass” who was to be kept in his place by stern treatment.  St Benedict’s contribution is characteristically succinct: “discipline your body; do not pamper yourself” (RB 4.11-12).  It is Cassian who offers a little more understanding in this matter.  Taking up St Paul’s dictum, “For the desire of the flesh is against the spirit, and that of the spirit against the flesh.  But these are opposed to one another, so that you may not do what you want to do” (Gal 5:17), he explains that within our bodily existence there are two realities at war.  “Flesh” means our material desires which tend toward excess in the form of self-indulgence, but which also ground us in the reality of bodily life.  “Spirit” means our spiritual aspirations which tend toward excess in neglect of the body, but which keep us oriented toward our identity as God’s children in the spirit.  Virtue lies in a middle way hashed out through graced inner struggle.  The goal of monastic asceticism is full integration of our person: flesh and spirit become “brothers in unity.”  The body is not an enemy, but a friend to be won over.  Our whole humanity is intended for good, so that we may glorify God in our bodies.

Contemporary culture seems most obviously to be in the grip of excess in pampering the body, but a closer look also reveals the excess of neglect.  I found this commentary by Von Balthasar intriguing: 
“Is not the whole thrust of our civilization directed to toward seeking salvation in the spiritual dimension, in the spirit’s creative powers, its discoveries and projects?  Is not everything moving in the direction of the spirit and the intellect, which, through research, is becoming more and more master of the body, able to look after it, operate on it and mend it like a machine that is to be oiled and repaired when necessary?  Does not man increasingly understand the workings of this machine, which is losing more and more of its mystery?  And does not man’s ‘spirit’—the really mysterious factor—look down on the body/machine in almost the same way as it looks down on the perfectly functioning automobile and locomotive that man has built?  Nowadays the body is secularized, functionalized, desacralized.  Or is it?” (Von Balthasar, You Crown the Year with Your Goodness, p. 146)

One effect of the pandemic has been to shake confidence in our supposed mastery – mind over matter doesn’t work anymore.  On the one hand it has forced us to face the vulnerability of our bodies to infection, disease, death and decay.  We have become more or less obsessed with our bodies – our health, the surfaces we touch, the air we breathe, the persons with whom we have contact.  On the other hand, the need for social distancing and concomitant use of technology for virtual communication has led to a rarefication of bodily experience.  Our technological tools, our machines have served to mediate communion in a time of distancing.  They have made possible human connection and even participation in public worship.  This has been a gift and a grace and will continue to serve us as supplement whenever needed or useful.  While supporting such use of technology and placing new emphasis on the practice of Spiritual Communion, the Church has been clear that Sacraments cannot be received virtually.  This is because of their essentially incarnated character.  There must be oil, water, bread, wine, the touch of a human hand.  I think we have learned that while many forms of social intercourse can be accomplished without personal presence – more can now be done virtually than we ever thought possible – still, there is no adequate technological substitute for personal presence.  Surely this has proved without doubt that the life of the disembodied spirit is a diminished existence.  We crave personal presence, the touch of skin on skin, the sound of a voice unmediated by wires, speakers, satellites, and the meeting of face to face, eye to eye, without the ambivalent limina of the computer screen.  Now that the possibility of genuine human contact is opening up once more, perhaps we can rediscover reverence for the sacredness of flesh.

Von Balthasar brings out how the spirit needs to descend into the flesh in order to express itself.  We cannot do without our bodies.  Or rather, not inhabiting them impoverishes us.  One need only think of Dante’s Divine Comedy, where he portrays the departed, whether in Inferno, Purgatorio or even in Paradiso, as “shades” – disembodied spirits who mourn the loss of their bodies and look forward to the day when they will once again live fully as embodied persons.  Von Balthasar says: “Through the flesh, the spirit gets to know and savor the most priceless things in life, be they joyful or sorrowful, experienced in solitude or in community with others.”  We possess the ability to impart to ordinary actions a miraculously personal character.  A twitch of the eyebrow, a touch of the hand, express more than can be written in many books.  “It is easy to say ‘I love you.’  We need to prove it.”  The intention of our spirit is proved by bodily deeds: to lend a hand, to lift a burden, to take pains on another’s behalf, or simply to be an empathetic presence.  “In interpersonal love too, therefore, the word must become flesh in order to manifest its truth.”

Is this not the central message of the incarnation: that love is proved by deeds of flesh and blood?  God needed a body to fully communicate his love.  Christ’s body is the ultimate expression of this loving self-gift for us.  And the Eucharist is the material form in which this love enters our lives and bodies on a daily basis.  I often turn to our brother of Atlas, Christophe Lebreton, for words to put on this mystery.  He has this to say:
“your body
is simple
like
good morning
my body
is simply
Yes
life
is simple
like
i love you”

The monastic life, not unlike ordinary life in the world, is one in which simple daily acts bring together body and spirit in service to God and those with whom we live.  Our days will be filled with common and private prayer, manual labor and sacred reading, in a community life that engages the whole person.  We believe that love embodied in this way flows out to nourish all people.  May we find in this life a way to fulfillment in the total gift of ourselves for the life of the world.  May each of us be strengthened in our resolve by the gift of the Lord’s body.