My Body Myself
Interesting thoughts this morning, probably spurred on by the weight loss issue (ongoing, of course).
My body. Mine mine mine.....I can do with it what I want, no one has a right to tell me what to do with it, it is all MINE MINE MINE.
Well, let's think about this from a different perspective - yes, a Catholic one but you have to admit that in today's culture it is pretty 'different'.
If I am a creature of God and I am both physical and spiritual (not one over the other, like some new agey types would have us believe), then I am an entire creation. Then it would follow that all of me, in reality, is not really MINE. I belong to my Creator. He is my Lord, He is my master and what I do should be in line with His laws and teachings.
So the struggles I have - be them with weight, alcoholism, smoking, drug addiction...whatEVER...become the kind of struggles against willfullness that the Big Book of AA describes. It is the struggle between "I want to do what I want when I want to because it feels good" and "what would HE have me do, right now?"
If God has my best interest at heart, that being my eventual entering into the Eternal Beatitude with Him, then the laws and teachings He left me in both Holy Sacred Scripture and Sacred Apostolic Tradition are gifts to me. They are ways in which I can honor Him by taking care of His creature - me!
The idea that by following His laws I can fullfill the best in my own life is not so strange. It is not my body, then, to do with as I wish - it is HIS life to live according to His Will.
Add to that the Catholic understanding that all validly baptized people, i.e. those who have been baptized in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, are members of Christ's Body then the idea gets even more fantastic. I am not an island unto myself. What I do matters, what I say matters, how I dress matters, how I hold myself to the world matters - how can I have self-esteem issues when I am a member of the BODY OF CHRIST?
And if I matter that much that means I can affect a change for someone else. My prayers for that person mean something. I enter into Christ's Redemption as well as into His pain and suffering....which is why, as a Catholic, ultimately I know that all my aches and pains, my fears and worries, all the things that make me suffer have some value in the world. And maybe this is why we object to euthenasia - we feel we have no right to rob someone of a chance for eternal glory because we want to avoid some pain.
The days I feel overwhelmed, and those days are many, are the very days I should be rejoicing in the gift of suffering. I am probably at my peak of being able to be of service to others when my knee tissue is swollen, my shoulders ache from the FMS, I want to scream in frustration at the unjust treatment I am receiving at the hands of others.....all those times when I feel I am at my worst, my challenge becomes to see those times as gifts, rather than as punishment.
Perhaps my prayer today should be for the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps today I need to ask Jesus to keep me close to Him so that I can really do something for someone else. Yes, the corporal and temporal acts of mercy are important. Jesus told us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and we cannot take that lightly - but, as Catholics, we must also be willing to say "I am so tired right now I could spit. I am so depressed I could cry. I am in so much pain I could curl up in a ball. Thank you, Lord. This day, right now, is so my brother will return to the Holy Mother Church and find what I have found - peace".
Big storm hitting us this weekend. It will be a difficult drive into work. Please keep me solidly in your prayers. You are always in mine.
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