Christianity is not a set of rules but the radical claim that God has united himself to humanity “in the flesh”, according to US-based Theology of the Body expert Christopher West. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
More than 500 people filled St Kevin’s Church, Eastwood, on Saturday for a moment of collective wonder about the deepest meaning of Christianity and what it means to be human.
The mostly young adult crowd had come to hear speaker and author West, known worldwide for presenting Christianity in all its embodied glory with frankness about the realities of the flesh, with humour, song, art and intellectual exposition.
At the invitation of the archdiocesan Sydney Centre for Evangelisation’s Life, Marriage, and Family team, West asked his listeners to rethink what they thought Christianity was about: not a set of rules or moral prohibitions, but the radical claim that at the first Christmas God “wedded” himself to humanity.
That God became man, born of a woman, is often taken for granted but West’s two-hour talk unpacked the implications, making them explicit and articulating the Christian message in ways some had never heard before.
He began and ended with the Eucharist as God’s answer to the deepest hunger of the human heart.
He said the Eucharist was God’s “sacramental promise” that our longing for heaven, infinite beauty, and lasting satisfaction will not be disappointed, because Christ is truly present there and invites us to receive him.
In the Incarnation, at Christmas, divinity and human flesh were united forever, meaning that for Christians, the spiritual and the physical can never be separated without distorting the Gospel. God comes to meet us in our bodily, everyday lives.
Drawing on St Paul’s image of Christ the Bridegroom and the Church as his bride, West said marriage illuminates Christianity and Christianity illuminates marriage.
The differences of male and female bodies, and the call to become “one flesh” are meant to be a visible sign of God’s plan to unite humanity to himself in an eternal covenant of love, he explained.
West concluded by urging Catholics to recover an integrated appreciation of the body, sexuality, and vocation grounded in the Eucharist.
FULL STORY
Christopher West challenges Catholics to rethink Christianity as love ‘in the flesh’ (By Marilyn Rodrigues, The Catholic Weekly)
