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Human form: Holy and worthy of love and care

	Word to Life  Sharon K. Perkins

Body consciousness: It's been around since Adam and Eve first discovered they were naked.

The human body has been the subject of Greek sculpture, Renaissance paintings, and modern science. In our time it's the great concern of the fashion, diet, and health care industries.

In today's readings, references to specific human body parts occur no less than seven times in Isaiah and eight times in the psalm; the epistle to the Philippians speaks at length about Jesus and his human form, and the Gospel is one long narrative about Jesus' giving over his body - not once, but twice - for the life of the world. The resurrection of that same body will be the focus of the anticipated great feast of Easter.

Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion (Sunday, April 1, 2007) Isaiah 50:4-7 Ps. 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24 Phil 2:6-11 Luke 22:14 to 23:56

An Irish professor in one of my theology courses loved to quote Latin in his rich brogue, and his most frequent saying was "caro est cardo salutis," which translates, "the flesh is the hinge of salvation." It's a concise way of saying that the saving act of Jesus hinges upon bodies - his and ours - surrendered in self-gift.

Yet Catholic Christians have had a long, unfortunate, and dualistic tendency to separate the "body" from the "soul," often deeming the body a mere vehicle of human activity, a "necessary evil" from which one must escape for salvation of the soul to truly take place.

We pummel our bodies into submission or ignore them altogether; abuse them with substances or obsess about their appearance. Then when death comes, it is often welcomed as a release from a body that has betrayed us through disease or the ravages of age. We rarely reflect upon the crucial role of the human body as the means through which God has chosen to love us.

At the beginning of this holiest of weeks, I resolve to reflect on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus without soft-pedaling or spiritualizing their physical aspects. Jesus didn't take on human flesh only at his birth; he embraced what being "enfleshed" means.

	Reflection questions • How do you regard your own body? • How can you approach this Holy Week with a new appreciation for the gift of Jesus' body in his suffering and in the Eucharist?

My body, your body, the bodies of the poor, the abused, the unborn, and the neglected are all holy and worthy of love and care. The Eucharist, the gift of Jesus' body as food, reminds us of this truth. That's the sort of "body consciousness" that Christians are to practice.

This column is presented in cooperation with the North Texas Catholic of Fort Worth, Texas.