Theology of the Body Vocabulary
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83 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Celibacy (celibate life) | Freely choosing to forego earthly marriage "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 19:12), that is, for the sake of the heavenly marriage of Christ and the Church. Celibate people "consecrate themselves with undivided heart to the Lord and to 'the affairs of the Lord'" (CCC 1579, 1 Cor. 7:32). |
| Communion of persons | The "common union" joined between two or more persons who give themselves to one another in love; they see in each other the image and likeness of God and want the best for the other. John Paul II refers to the unity of Adam and Eve as the "prototype" for this, through which man and woman become the image of God. |
| Concupiscence | The "inclination to sin" that is present in all humans, inherited through the sin of Adam and Eve, and against which we must struggle to resist "by the grace of Jesus Christ" (CCC 1264). While it invlines us to sin and comes from sin, this itself is not a sin. |
| Dignity | The inherent and unchanging value of all persons as a direct result of their being created by God in His image and likeness. |
| Despair | The opposite of hope, this is the resolve to give up pursuing whatever was initially pursued. In the case of relationships in our culture, many people despair, thinking that the possibility of finding loving, faithful relationships is impossible. But with God there is always hope, and in Him we find the keys to building loving, life-giving relationships that last. |
| Love | A decision to "will the good of another" person ( St. Thomas Aquinas, as quoted in CCC 1766). John Paul II echoes this same definition in much of his writing on love, and adds that love involves a sincere gift of oneself to others. |
| Lust | It is "disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure" (CCC 2351). It is sexual desire apart from God's love -- a selfish desire that seeks ones own pleasures at the expense of another. |
| Original Sin | The first sin of mankind against God, when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God's command and do what they wanted instead. This choice affected all of humanity, giving us all a tendency to sin, a disordered desire to break God's law, and a world prone to suffering and struggles of all kinds- including death. |
| Sacrament | An outward sign "instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church by which divine life [grace] is dispensed to us" (CCC 1131). |
| Sacramentality of the Body | The inherent ability of the body to act as a visible sign of God's invisible love. |
| Sexual Liberation | The common term for escaping the sexual "rules" to do whatever one wants with his or her sexuality. In reality, this liberation is not sexual addiction and a life of emptiness and broken relationships. |
| Theology | The study of God, or "faith seeking understanding" (St. Anselm). The word comes from the Greek words Theos (God) and Logos (Word). This is its own science of faithful study, seeking to understand God and His word. |
| Theology of the Body | A study of God and the purpose of our existence, as discovered and revealed through our bodies. |
| Abstinence | The action of self-control that avoids (or abstains from) something. In this case, abstinence means not engaging in sexual intercourse. |
| Agape | The Greek term for divine, unconditional love; the manner in which God loves us. |
| Chastity | The virtue that directs all our sexual desires, emotions, and attractions toward the dignity of the person and the real meaning of love. It falls under the cardinal virtue of temperance. Chastity is saying "yes" to the demands of authentic love. |
| Love as Attraction | Recognizing the good of another person; seeing the inner and outer beauty of another person. |
| Love as Desire | Wanting a good for yourself; desiring goodness and happiness. |
| Love as Goodwill | Willing (or desiring) the good of another person. |
| Love and Responsibility | A book by Karol Wojtyla (later by John Paul II) that explains the importance of living a life that accepts responsibility and, therefore, results in lvoing others in a responsible manner. |
| Personalistic Norm | The principle that recognizes that the only proper and adequate attitude toward human persons is love. The opposite of love is to use a person as a means to an end. |
| Pornography | The pictures or stories created with the direct intention of arousing lust in the viewer or reader. |
| Sexual Repression | The unhealthy attempt to ignore (or bury) sexual desires rather than embracing them and allowing God to reorder what is disordered in them for the good of oneself and others. |
| Temperance | The virtue that enables us to take pleasure in the good gifts of God in the balanced way that He intends; one of the four cardinal virtues iunder which all other virtues come forth. |
| Total Self Donation | The total giving of oneself for the good of another. |
| Ultilitarianism | The philosophy of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, often at the expense of others. When applied in relationships, one ends up using a person for one's own gain. If one's goal for sex is pleasure, the person becomes a means to that end. |
| Virtue | A firm habit of doing what is good. In its fullest sense, it is not only doing, but delighting in and desiring what is true, good, and beautiful. |
| Contraception | Every action before, during, or after sexual intercourse that deliberately attempts to impede its procreative potential. These acts are instrinsically exil and always unacceptable. |
| Ethos of the image | The responsibility that every artist has to present persons with dignity, especially through the depiction of the human body in art form. |
| Ethos of seeing | The responsibility of all viewers of the human body portrayed in art, to see humans as persons with dignity, not objects to be lustfully desired. |
| Fornication | Having sex outside of marriage. |
| Language of the Body | The capability of the body to speak its own language and to communicate without words. |
| Language of love | Generally speaking, the words that speak truth and compassion. Specifically regarding the body, the truth and totality of self communicated through the body in sexual intercourse. |
| Nicene Creed | The most widely accepted statement of Christian faith, the Nicene Creed was first adopted at the council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 |
| Objectify | To treat someone as a thing rather than as a person through actions that disregard their inherent dignity as human beings. |
| One flesh union | The union of a husband and wife in sexual intercourse, becoming as Scripture says, "one flesh," through their marital love. |
| Pornography | The sexually explicit depiction of persons, in words or images, created in order to cause the arousal of lust on the part of the observer. |
| Historical Man | The period that begins with original sin and ends when Christ returns. Historical men and women are simultaneously fallen and redeemed in Christ. |
| Naked without Shame | Nakedness that exists within the context of innocence and pure freedom, apart from lust. This is what Adam and Eve experienced before the Fall. |
| New Evangelization | The new expression and methods (especially called for by John Paull II) of proclaiming the ancient truths of the Gospel to the modern world in a spirit of love, confidence, and enthusiasm. |
| Nupital Meaning of the body | The marital meaning of the body. "... the body's capacity of expressing love, that love precisely in which the person becomes a gift and ... fufills the very meaning of his being and existence" (Jan. 16, 1980) |
| Original Solitude | The original state when Adam realized he was alone because he was without a true companion; it also refers to the human experience of being alone in the world as a person, as someone fundamentally different than the animals. |
| Original Nakedness | The first experience of Adam and Eve when they were naked without shame. Before Original Sin, lust did not even exist and all sexual desires were pure. |
| Original Innocence | The state of Adam and Eve prior to their knowledge of sin, when their minds, hearts, and bodies were perfectly innocent. |
| Original Unity | The initial experience of perfect unity between man and woman as they lived in perfect communion with each other and gave themselves to each other through the mutual gift of their bodies. |
| Original Happiness | A happiness that was rooted in the perfect gift of love that was initiated by God, received in love, and shared in love. |
| Original Man | The era of humanity in the "original experiences" before the Fall , up until the Original Sin of Adam and Eve |
| Original Sin | The first sin of Adam and Eve, when they distrusted God's plan and chose their own will over the will of God. |
| Pride | The original sin that caused Adam and Eve to prefer themselves over God. This is the root of all moral evil in the world. |
| Second Creation Account | The second telling of the creation of the world in the book of Genesis. The first account focuses on the grand scale of the creation of the world, while the second account focuses on the creation of man and woman as the climax of all creation. |
| Shameless | In today's society, this term refers to flaunting the body without inhibitions or conscience. Acting shamelessly reflects a false notion of sexual freedom. |
| Spiritualized body | The human body not only as living with a soul, but also being a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, through the grace of redemption. |
| Anthropology | The overall study of man and what it means to be a human person. |
| "Faithful" love | Love that is committed. That committment guides to all other actions. You keep your promises once you have made them, no matter how you feelings may change. |
| "Free" Love | Love that is not controlled or manipulated by another person or by a disordered desire. No one is forcing you to love. You love freely because you want to. |
| "Fruitful" Love | Love that is life-giving, because it is free, total, and faithful. It is open to procreation in the physical realm and is life-giving in the spiritual and emotional realm as well. |
| Homosexual Acts | Actions of genital stimulation with a person of the same sex. According to the Catechism, "homosexual acts are 'intrinsically disordered' and 'contrary to the natural law... Under no circumstances can they be approved." |
| Homosexuality | The attraction that a man and a woman has but to a member of the same sex. The homosexual inclination is disordered but not sinful in and of itself, since it is not freely chosen. |
| Humanae Vitae | Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical on human life. It is most famous for its clear and definitive teaching on why contraception is immoral and sinful, explaining that it separates the sexual act from one of its intrinsic purposes: procreation. |
| In Persona Christi | The Latin phrase which means "in the person of Christ"; describes the identity and actions of a priest, particularly when he celebrates the sacraments and preaches the Word of God. |
| Mary's Fiat | The Blessed Virgin Mary's "Yes" to the Lord, which demonstrated her faithful obedience to God's Will. |
| Masterbuation | The "deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure... Masterbuation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action". Instead of training a person in faithfulness in order to make a gift of onself, masterbuation trains a person in selfishness. |
| Natural Law | The law or purpose that God has "written" naturally into the hearts, minds, and bodies of men and women. |
| "Total" love | Love without strings attached that holds nothing back. In total love, you make a gift of yourself to another -- total self donation. |
| Absolution | The action of a priest as a mediator of grace, standing "in the person of Christ", concluding the sacrament of Reconciliation. Absolution absolutely cleanses our sin through Christ's loving mercy and gives us strength to start anew. |
| Communion of saints | We already enjoy this communion here on earth with each other (the Church Militant). In spirit, we are connected with those who have died and are still being purified in purgatory (the Church Suffering). In prayer, we have communion with the saints in heaven (the Church Triumphant), who intercede for us before God. In the Resurrection, we will experience a fullness of communion as human members of the Church, sharing eternity together as persons perfectly integrated in bodies and souls. |
| Eschaton | The final reality of man's existence, when Christ returns and our bodies are raised. |
| Eschatological Man | The final stage of our perfection, achieved in the resurrection at the end of time, where we'll be freed from any tension between the flesh and the spirit within ourselves, because we will be perfectly united with God and with one another in the communion of saints. |
| Glorified Body | The perfected state of the resurrected as it will be at the end of time; it will be radiating the glory of God. |
| Hope of every day | The daily hope of victory over sin which is available to us through Christ, who helps us overcome"evil with good" |
| Nupital | Another word for "marriage-like", "marital", or "spousal" |
| Omniscient | It means, "all knowing". A quality of God, meaning that God knowns everything there is to know now. |
| Redeem | To pay off a debt through the exchange of something of equal or greater value than the debt owed. Through Original Sin, an infinite debt was owed to God, thus, only an infinite exchange could be made -- this is why God send His own Son, Jesus, to redeem and save us. |
| Resurrection of the body | The joining, at the end of time, of the bodies of the saved with their souls in heaven, at which point they will participate bodily in a face-to-face encounter with God within the marriage of Christ and the Church |
| Redemption | The ransom of humanity from the slavery of sin to a new life of freedom through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross. |
| Sexual Addiction | A compulsive and frequent habit of seeking sexual pleasures, including fornication/intercourse, pornography, cybersex, masturbation, and other sexual behaviors. |
| Deprived | This term refers to humanity's loss of the grace of original innocence. Through original sin, we were deprived of the perfect integration of our bodies and our wills. Through we are still good, we struggle to choose God's will over our own. |
| External Constraints | The laws of God or society that protect us from abusing our free will and hurting ourselves or others. |
| Freedom | The ability to desire and choose the good. |
| Free will | The gift given to us by God that allows us to choose between good and evil. This God-given ability allows us to be the authors of our own choices, thus allowing us to determine our own destiny. |
| Internal Constraints | Distractions or disordered desires within us that steer us away from choosing the good. |
| Objective truth | Reality as it is, apart from what we think or feel about it. |
| Theology of the Body | A study of God and the purpose of our existence, as discovered and revealed through our bodies. |
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