(Ascension Thursday 2016: This homily was given on May 5,
2016 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Acts 1: 1-14.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Ascension Thursday 2016]
There are three possible attitudes that a person can have
toward his or her body:
·
It doesn’t matter
·
It’s all that matters
·
It matters
“It doesn’t matter” is an attitude that’s very common these
days. It’s the attitude, for example, of
those who abuse drugs or alcohol. It’s
the attitude of those who live a promiscuous lifestyle: people who treat their
own bodies and the bodies of others as objects—as
objects for their pleasure and amusement.
It’s the attitude of those who don’t take proper care of their bodies—of
those who aren’t good stewards of their physical health. It’s the attitude of abortionists and of people
who support things like euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. And it’s definitely the attitude of the
growing number of people in our society who want to normalize so-called “transgenderism”. Now that might sound strange, because these
men and women seem to be obsessed
with the physical. But in reality
they’re not. In reality, the supporters
of transgenderism say to the rest of us, “The human body is irrelevant; it
doesn’t matter. Therefore you can do
whatever you want with it, and you can do whatever you want to it.
You can pamper it if you so choose (if that’s what makes you ‘happy’),
but you can also abuse it and mutilate it in any way you please—even by
removing otherwise healthy body parts.
And, of course, you should be able to take that body of yours into
whatever locker room or restroom you feel like taking it into. That’s a given. And it others don’t like it or are offended
by it, too bad—because their bodies don’t matter either.”
Welcome to our modern, “advanced” society.
That’s the first possible attitude a person can have toward
his or her body (or the body of another human being): It doesn’t matter.
The second possible attitude is at the opposite end of the
spectrum, and it says that the human body is
all that matters—in other words, that it’s the only thing that matters in life.
“The cult of the body” is what Pope John Paul II called it.
This is the attitude of many people who currently work in
the entertainment and advertising industries—and in the fitness world: places where
we’re constantly given the message that the worst thing that can possibly happen
to you is that you get old.
Well, let me tell you, my brothers and sisters, it’s gonna
happen—you WILL get old!—no matter how many miles you run, no matter how many
reps you do at the gym, and no matter how much anti-wrinkle cream you use on
your face.
Hopefully that’s not news to anyone here!
It certainly shouldn’t be.
The proper attitude toward the body, of course, is the
third one I mentioned at the beginning of my homily. As I just said, at one extreme you have those
who say the body doesn’t matter at all, and at the other extreme you have those
who say the body is the only thing that matters in this life. But then you have those who take the middle
position (the right one), and who say, very simply, that the human body
“matters”. It’s not all that matters—in
its present state it’s not immortal like our soul is—but it’s still important. Which means that we should respect it, and
care for it in reasonable ways, and nourish it properly, and use it to serve
our neighbor and to demonstrate our love for God.
This is an important lesson that we learn from the
Ascension of Jesus. When our blessed
Lord ascended into heaven 40 days after he rose from the dead on Easter Sunday,
he did so with his human body. It wasn’t just his soul that went into the
kingdom of God; his body did as well.
That little fact is extremely significant, because it means that ever
since Ascension Thursday, heaven has been inhabited by a divine Person who has a body like ours (although his
body is already in a glorified state).
Jesus, in and through his Ascension, has made it clear that
our human body has value—great value—even in its present mortal condition, because
someday it will be resurrected and will exist (if we go to heaven) in a
glorified and immortal condition.
This is why, incidentally, the Church says that the human
body is to be treated with respect and care even after death. And that respect is to be shown even if the deceased person
is cremated. The ashes of our deceased
relatives are not to be kept on the mantle in the living room, or scattered to
the four winds at Misquamicut Beach, or left at various places on the Camino de
Santiago in Spain (as Martin Sheen’s character did in the movie, “The Way”). They’re to be kept together and interred with
the proper burial rites of the Church—because those are the ashes of a human
body: a human body that will be raised from the dead at the end of the world, a
human body that will be reunited with its soul, a human body that will become
immortal.
A human body, in other words, that matters.
