Last time, Sunday, May 29, was our final class for the academic year. We completed Chapter 12 of TOB for Teens: High School Edition -- "Living the Good (and Free!) Life." This chapter pulled together the threads of all that we have studied about the Theology of the Body this year.
Key points:
- At the heart of every desire is a desire for God. Ultimately at the core of our sexual desires, we are really desiring the infinite -- communion with God.
- We really can look back again and see where they came from: those desires were at the very beginning given to us by God. John Paul told us that we have an echo in our hearts today of the original call to love that God placed in the hearts of our parents, Adam & Eve.
- That call to pure love points us toward our destiny in heaven even through the difficulty of historical man, the time that we live in today -- where we struggle against concupiscence, where we struggle with sin, we have difficulty seeing each other rightly.
- That heritage remains with us: the redemption that we have in Christ. He doesn't leave us alone. He comes to redeem us, to restore what was broken, he comes to to bring creation back to the purity of its origins as the Catechism teaches us. When life is not easy, we have hope in Christ.
- Our destiny is to be with God for forever, in a marriage between Christ and the Church. We know that we are members of the bride of Christ. Christ is the bridegroom, we are the bride, and we are meant to experience that communion with Him and with the communion Saints for all eternity in heaven.
- The vocation of love is a call to image God: not that I only image Him statically in my body but that I'm supposed to express His love through my body. I'm supposed to love as he loves, to be a FTFF gift of myself, through the vocation that I have to chastity now as a teenager and eventually in the specific location that I have whether to marriage or Celibacy for the Kingdom.
- Understanding love is our key to understanding God, because God is love.
- There is a battle in every human heart between love and lust -- loving and using.
- When we really analyze lust we see that it's really an attempt to love without the author of love. It's an attempt to pursue our desires without the one who gave us our desires. That's always going to end up bankrupt; it's always going to lead us to emptiness.
- But if we include God there, if we include the desires of our hearts that He has given us to both give and receive love, then we never want to use others. We will image his love by learning how to give selflessly, making a total self-donation which is going to bring life to ourselves and to those who we do love.
- The family is the "school of love": it's difficult to love the people in my family, and so that's a great training ground for the future of my life. If I can learn how to love the people in my family, I can learn to love anybody.
- We go about this by learning to use my freedom for the sake of love. We make sure the language of the body corresponds to the truth of who we have been created to be -- the truth of what is actually good, not just what may feel good. And as I lay down my life in this way -- learning to speak the truth not only with my mouth but with my body to my parents, my siblings, my friends and extended family members -- I'm preparing for a future of love.
- We are also all called to participate in the New Evangelization, an active effort to share Christ with the modern world. A great first step is to think on how God has worked in your own life and be prepared to share your story when the occasion arises.
- We went over the class handout -- it's a list of the benefits of pure living that we brainstormed in class last week. Regularly review the list to "convince" your passions (feelings) to help you and not hinder you in living the good and free life. Complete instructions are on the back of the handout.
Your workbooks have so much more great material! I encourage you to keep them and refer back to the material over the coming years to refresh your memories of specific points or to find information relevant to you at that time.
Quotes to ponder:
"Freedom exists for the sake of love." ~ Pope St. John Paul
"With all the strength of my soul, I urge you young people to approach the Communion table as often as you can. Feed on the bread of angels whence you will draw all the energy you need to fight inner battles. Because true happiness, dear friends, does not consist in the pleasures of the world, or in earthly things, but in peace of conscience which we only have if we are pure in heart and mind." ~ Bd. Pier Giorgio Frassati
"Virtue can only come through spiritual strength." ~ Pope St. John Paul
Resources:
I have posted the class handout, "Benefits of Pure Living," as a printable PDF document at the class blog.
Assignment:
Read Chapter 12, Digging Deeper: Mary, Joseph, and the Theology of the Body, pp. 187-188.
If you missed missed class or want to review:
Read Chapter 12 in your workbook.
Future class dates:
Class is all done for this academic year! However, I will be sending out tips for living out what we have learned each Sunday over the summer, God willing. They are also in your workbook, at the end of Chapter 12.
I hope you all have a happy, holy, restful, and refreshing summer!