Lent a time to make the body submit to the spirit

Humans are composed of both body(matter) and spirit. For many Christians only the latter component seems to matter[pun intended]. This type of view tends to be quite Gnostic in it’s outlook. During lent we attempt to teach our body that the spirit rules the flesh rather then the other way around. 

St. Paul writes in Galatians 5:16-18 

16So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

It only takes a few days for the average Catholic eight year old who gave up sweets for lent to realize that the body appears to have a will of it’s own. The child will also realize that their will isn’t as strong as perhaps they thought. It’s also interesting to see how the seven deadly sins have a stronger pull on oneself as you grow older and others don’t seem as difficult as our bodies age, yet others seem to have a stronger pull which isn’t as strong on the youth.

However it must be noted that our bodies are intergrated with our spirit as our Creator made us. We are not whole without them. It is sin that has cause both body & spirit to function at less then what their Creator designed and hence our struggle to control it.

I was struck by an article that was written byFather Michael A. Seger about an exhibit of 20 Plasticized bodies and the lack of respect made by displaying them as simply matter. Clearly the bodies are material, however as Christians we believe that all will be reunited at the end of time with their spirit. We recognize the sacredness of the spirit, but God created us as body as well.  And while the spirit wars with the flesh, the flesh joined to the spirit,makes us a whole person. Perserving our bodies as temples of the Lord is intergral to the person.

As an integral unity of spirit and body, my body as a personal reality expresses and communicates my deepest spiritual values. We love with our bodies, we mourn with tears, we nourish with our bodies, we comfort with compassionate embraces. Our bodies bear the marks and movements of our life story.

First, one is drawn to ask about the values at stake in displaying human beings in such a manner. Western thought rejects any naïve separation of body and spirit. Laws protecting hourly workers from exploitative scheduling, for example, do more than worry about physical exhaustion. They seek to protect the spiritual core of the person. Our society goes so far as to regulate the treatment of corpses. This concern speaks to protecting and promoting profound human values. The human person is an embodied spirit so that our body is more than just a temporary container.

One faces yet another, related question: How does this exhibit touch upon the respect due to the human person as an embodied spirit?

 The plasticized bodies of this exhibit rip a person from the context of her or his life story. They stand before us sadly anonymous: not mourned and not reverenced…. The plasticized bodies splayed for anatomical voyeurism belong to a person who deserves better. We are a society that prides itself on protecting and promoting human dignity, so we ask if this exhibit respects that noble goal.

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