The Pauline Doctrine of Purity as Life According to the Spririt
by Pope John Paul II from his general audience on 18 March 1981. Read text via EWTN.
Transcription of Commentary:
And with these words our Holy father Pope John Paul II concluded his 57th catechesis Man and Woman He Created a Theology of the Body. To better appreciate and understand this 57th catechesis Man and Woman He Created Them a Theology of the Body of Pope John Paul II we should remember where we’ve been and then look where we’re going. The first part of the Theology of the Body focuses our attention on the words of Christ. These are not the words of Buddha, these are not the words of Krishna, these are not the words of Mohammed, these are the words of Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, the Savior of the universe. The One who reveals to us God,” the Father and I are one;” the One who sends the Spirit, not only over the waters of creation but into our hearts, not only at Pentecost, but even until he returns in glory.
Pope John Paul II focuses the first part of the Theology of the Body on the words of Christ, specifically, Christ’s appeal to the beginning. “In the beginning God created them, male and female” “in the divine image He created them.” “For this reason a man leaves his father and mother it clings to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.” This is Christ’s appeal to the beginning and John Paul makes a lot of straw, spends a lot of energy focusing our attention on all that we can learn from Christ ‘s appeal to the beginning: like original innocence, and original justice, original unity, original sin. But in so far as Pope John Paul II is drawing our attention to the words of Christ and his appeal to the beginning we know in faith that Christ is a new beginning for man by His death and resurrection, by our faith, by His grace in Baptism we have a new beginning in Him.
John Paul II does not only focus our attention only on Christ’s appeal to the beginning but also Christ’s appeal to the human heart. That’s the second chapter of the first part of the Theology of the Body. Christ does not appeal to the kitty cats or the puppy dogs, to the fish of the sea or the birds of the air. He appeals to human beings, people like you or me. He calls us to be saints. He calls us to turn away from sin, to be faithful to the Gospel, to love our God with all our heart and with all our soul of all our strength and our neighbor as ourselves and not to accept a false love, not to sell ourselves short or sell are neighbors short but to be pure of heart. Cor ad cor loquitur the motto of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman who Pope Benedict XVI beatified in the September of 2010.
The 6th part of chapter 2 of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, focuses our attention on purity as life according to the Spirit. This is the part we heard today. We are trying to live according to the Spirit of God not the spirit of this age. We are trying to live according to the Holy Spirit, holy purity not only as regards our doctrine or our vocabulary but our desires and our actions. “Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.” Two parts of this catechesis which we’ve heard today, the 57th of the 133 in the Theology of the Body, focus on purity as a virtue and a gift. A virtue is a stable disposition to do good even in the face of difficulty with joy and ease. The classical term would be chastity I believe, so John Paul II is presenting us with purity or chastity as a gift. We can do all that we can and we should do all that we can, but God can give us the gift. God can strengthen our resolve to be pure. We not only have the natural ability to be chaste but we also have a supernatural motivation: Christ the Lord Himself, is the model, the example of chastity, of purity. The Blessed Virgin Mary, very pure, very chaste. St. Joseph “her most chaste spouse,” we pray in the Divine Praises. When we focus on purity or chastity [...]
