Ok, humor me. Close your eyes and rewind to the moment that you were a freshman in college. Do you remember how nervous you were and that awkward feeling when your parents waved goodbye leaving you alone standing in the middle of an empty dorm room with its carpeted floor and plastic mattresses? A ball of nervousness and excitement, you simply just wanted to make it to class on time and for lack of a more comprehensive phrase “fit in.”
College in and of itself is complicated enough; transitioning to a new school, living with a roommate, and learning how to be successful when you feel as though you are standing on shifting sands. In our modern day, we have sought to simplify certain things by getting them out in the open, but that’s done exactly the opposite.
Trying to make things or concepts “easier” to talk about seems to have created more problems than it has solved. The particular “thing” to which I’m referring is SEX; we as a society, a school community, and as individuals have pulled it out of the closet and into the sunlight, but something is amiss. It seems as a result of pouring so much of the spotlight onto sexual intercourse as nothing more than a recreational activity we have lost the truth of what the human body is and its purpose, or telos.
It’s Saturday, August 25, 2021. It’s Week of Welcome for the Class of 2025 at Boston College, and you walk into Alumni Stadium for one of the required events entitled “Speak About It.” The event, normally held in Robsham Theater, was moved to Alumni Stadium this year due to COVID-19 concerns. It was a talk regarding sexual health, assault prevention, and resources that fall into similar spheres on campus for students. You don’t think much of it, going into it with an open mind. As a faithful Catholic you have learned that it’s important to understand how to treat your body as the temple of the Holy Spirit and to do likewise to all the men and women you encounter in your daily life. You take your seat, then the panel of 5 people organized before you on the field begins to speak…
Some of the students surrounding you begin to giggle and joke, likely due to the awkwardness of the situation. Standing in front of the crowd of freshman a group of speakers are sharing details about their personal experiences with sex.
“I don’t think anyone was prepared for what we walked into,” noted one young woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, in the Class of 2025. The abruptness of the situation certainly triggered the crowd’s attention, but not necessarily all in the same way. As one young man in the Class of 2025 stated, “the thing that started making me concerned was when the speakers started speaking about themselves, that’s usually kind of a red flag to me. It’s already personal enough without the speakers also making it about themselves. In an emotional sense and a personal sense, that to me was weird.” As the talk progressed the speakers acted out scenarios pertaining to the realms of sexual assault prevention, toxic relationships, and human sexuality. The program that at first glance seems comprehensive, yet when it is more closely examined seems to lack the fundamental, central element: an understanding of the sexual act and the human body from the point of view of faith.
The Catholic faith ventures into a realm that is often viewed with scorn among many other cultures and religions in a way that is possibly rather unexpected to some, a radical love of the human body and sex itself. Far from being puritanical, the Church openly proclaims the beauty and sacredness of these two elements of human life; in conjunction with one another, they have the potential to draw us into an intimate union not only with the other person, but also with God. This understanding implies that sexual intercourse is the highest possible form of physical human intimacy which should be correlated with the promise associated with the highest form of personal, emotional, intimacy and fidelity: marriage. It is when these elements of human life become disordered in a way that places them as sole ends in themselves, and not means toward a greater union that they lose their true meaning. This results in a confusion and incomplete understanding of the role that these elements have the potential to play in our lives if we employ them in a spirit of faith and humility.
As members of the Catholic family we are blessed with the beautiful resource created and propagated by Pope Saint John Paul II, The Theology of the Body. Intrinsically, the human body is something beautiful that is worthy of admiration and study; to discredit the natural divine beauty of the human body is to undermine or disregard the temple of the Holy Spirit that the human body is. So when we as humans fail to see the truth of the body and the sexual act as a “manifestation of God’s eternal mystery of love” we lose the greatest potential we have to draw closer to God through self-denying love. It is the truth of the body, a beautiful, divine masterpiece that prompts us to learn to master its desires and passions that allowing humans with the grace of God to draw closer to Him so that we may experience the peace and joy of His love. So as we look to the future, the hope is that if we as humans and as students understand the truth of our bodies we may have the blessing of growing in deeper relationships with one another and God himself.
When speaking to members of the freshman class, they seemed to be unanimous in their shock at the overt and prideful display of a topic that deserves to be handled with dignity and respect. So I must ask the question, does the espousal of the secular view of sexual intercourse allow our school community to truly create a welcoming environment for our incoming freshman classes and the growth of those individuals, both academically and spiritually during their time at Boston College? Does it present them with a respectful and dignified understanding of how we are to treat one another as human beings, not simply as a means to an end to attain pleasure from another person?
I would venture to say unfortunately, no. However, with understanding and patience the potential is boundless. Looking to the future, granting students the opportunity to understand the truth of the body through the lens of The Theology of the Body may prove to show the value of genuine love in the manner of cura personalis , where individuals are appreciated in their entirety rather than simply their physicality. We are beings with body and soul intertwined within us; therefore we must allow the truth of the whole being to shine through that all might understand that it is the beauty of the soul that enhances the beauty of the body and the potential it has to carry life within.
West, Christopher. (2013). Eclipse of the body. Chastity Project.
Julia Danehy is a Sophomore in the William F. Connell School of Nursing a hop, skip, and a jump away from her home town of Fort Myers, FL. With the variety of her interests spanning about a million miles long, in her spare time she can be found exploring history, painting, spending time outdoors, whipping up some form of baked good, or reading anything to do with The Theology of the Body/philosophy in general.
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