Be Filled

Welcome to the show! We are so glad you are here as we continue our journey through St. Pope John Paul II’s teaching on the Theology of the Body. This episode we are discussing Audiences 124 and 125 as we continue looking at the underlying motives for using our natural rhythms to regulate fertility as opposed to contraception. 

Quotes: 

“The theology of the body…in some way plunges its roots into the theology of the family and, at the same time, leads to it.” (TOB 124:3) 

“To make use of the gift of conjugal love with reverence for the laws of the generative process means to acknowledge oneself not to be the arbiter of the sources of human life, but rather the minister of the plan established by the Creator.” (TOB 124:5) 

“The family that lives the requirements of love and forgiveness to the full becomes the main bulwark of the civilization of love and the hope for the future of humanity.” (Familiaris Consortio, St. Pope John Paul II) 

“There is no family that does not know how selfishness, discord, tension and conflict violently attack and at times mortally wound its own communion…But, at the same time, every family is called by the God of peace to have the joyous and renewing experience of ‘reconciliation,’ that is, communion reestablished, unity restored.” (Familiaris Consortio, St. John Paul II) 

“...the way of behaving in question, corresponds to the truth of the person and thus to the person’s dignity: a dignity that belongs “by nature” to man as a rational and free being. As a rational and free being, man can and should reread with insight the biological rhythm that belongs to the natural order. He can and should conform himself to it for the sake of exercising “responsible fatherhood and motherhood,” which is inscribed according to the Creator’s plan in the natural order of human fruitfulness.” (TOB 125:1) 

“...One should keep in mind that the “body speaks” not only with the whole outer expression of masculinity and femininity, but also with the inner structure of the organism, of somatic and psychosomatic reactivity.” (TOB 125:1) 

“Such discipline bestows upon family life fruits of serenity and peace, and facilitates the solution of other problems; it favors attention to one’s partner, helps the spouses to drive out selfishness, the enemy of true love; and deepens their sense of responsibility.” (TOB 125:6) 

Reflection Questions:

Resources: 

“The Shack” Judgement Scene

Familiaris Consortio

The Language of Your Body: Embracing God’s Design for Your Cycle by Christina Valenzuela 

Pearl and Thistle 

The Good News About Sex and Marriage by Christopher West

Related Podcast Episodes: 

Purity as Life According to the Spirit (Part 1) 

Purity as Life According to the Spirit (Part 2) 

Gospel of Purity of Heart-Yesterday and Today 

Music: 'Chase The Sun' by Mark July on #Uppbeat

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Hello! Welcome to Season 7 of the Be Filled Podcast! This season we are entering into the final chapter of the text of St. Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. JPII brings everything together to help us see why the Church teaches what she does regarding sexual ethics.  In particular, the Church's teaching regarding contraception. This episode we will be discussing Audiences 118-123.8. Watch the video here. 

Quotes: 

“The Church….teaches that each and every marriage act must remain through itself open to the transmission of life. That teaching, often set forth by the magisterium, is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning.” (HV 11-12) 

“It seems to be entirely reasonable to look in the theology of the body for the foundation of the truth of the norms concerning such a fundamental issue of man as “body”: “the two will be one flesh”. (TOB 119:4) 

“The teaching of the Church on the regulation of birth, which promulgates the divine law, will easily appear to many to be difficult or even impossible to observe. And indeed, like all great beneficent realities, it demands serious engagement and much effort-individual, family, and social effort. More than that, it would be impossible to observe without the help of God, who upholds and strengthens the good will of men. Yet, to anyone who reflects well, it cannot but be clear that such efforts ennoble man and are beneficial to the human community.” (HV 20) 

The goal is to “discover God’s plan for human love, in the certainty that the one and only true good of the human person consists in putting this divine plan into practice.” (TOB 120:6) 

"...your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own. For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body."  (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) 

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it…” (Genesis 1:27-28) 

“I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God,to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” (Romans 12:1-2) 

“The couple must conform their activity to the creative intention of God…The relevant principle of conjugal morality is faithfulness to the divine plan.” (TOB 121:6) 

“Humanae Vitae answers the question about man’s true good as a person, inasmuch as he is male and female, about what corresponds to the dignity of man and woman when one is dealing with the important problem of the transmission of life in conjugal life.” (TOB 122:5) 

“Man is person precisely because he possesses himself and has dominion over himself. Indeed, inasmuch as he is master over himself he can “give himself” to another.” (TOB 123:5) 

“..the conjugal act “means” not only love, but also potential fruitfulness, and thus it cannot be deprived of its full and adequate meaning by means of artificial interventions…When the conjugal act is deprived of its inner truth because it is deprived artificially of its procreative capacity, it also ceases to be an act of love.” (TOB 123:6) 

Reflection Questions: 

Resources:   

Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life: On the Regulation of Birth) 

Waggle Dance of the Bee 

God and Fertility in Scripture 

Study Mentioned by Patty

Margaret Sanger’s View on Sex, Marriage, Birth Control, and the Human Person

Contraception, Why Not? Janet Smith 

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Welcome! We are so glad you are here with us as we study St. Pope John Paul II’s teaching on the Theology of the Body. This episode we are going to be discussing Audiences 114-117 of the text. We talk about the importance of prayer in marriage, practical advice on how to combine forces in prayer as a couple, and how your love life actually DOES make “Heaven a Place on Earth”! If you would like to watch the video of this episode you can find it here.

Quotes

Prayer of Tobias and Sarah: “Blessed are you, O God of our fathers, and blessed for all generations is your name. Let the heavens and the whole creation bless you for all ages. You created Adam, and you created his wife Eve to be a help and support for him. From the two of them the whole human race was born. You said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; let us make him a help similar to himself.’ Now it is not out of lust that I take this sister of mine, but with rightness of intention. Grant that she and I may find mercy and that we may grow old together.” And they both said, “Amen, Amen”. (Tobit 8:5-8) 

“...this love is validated by ethos, that is, by the will and the choice of values.” (TOB 115:1) 

“The truth and strength of love are manifested in the ability of love to place itself between the forces of good and evil that fight within man and around him, because love is confident in the victory of good and is ready to do everything in order that good may conquer.” (TOB 115:2) 

“...brings the loving dialogue of the spouses in some way to silence. What emerges is another dimension of love: the “language of the body” expressed with the words of choices and acts.” (TOB 115:3) 

“...in order to repel the evil threatening to kill the body, one must prevent the evil spirit from having access to the soul, one must free oneself within oneself from his influence.” (TOB 115:5) 

“This voice, this act of speaking in unison, allows both of them to pass beyond the threat of evil and death, inasmuch as they open themselves totally, in the unity of the two, to the living God.” (TOB 115:6) 

“The spouses of the Song of Songs mutually declare their human love with ardent words. The new spouses in Tobit ask God that they may know how to respond to love. Both aspects find their place in what constitutes the sacramental sign of marriage. Both share in the formation of the sign.” (TOB 116:5) 

“The sacraments infuse holiness into the terrain of man’s humanity: they penetrate the soul and body, the femininity and masculinity of the personal subject, with the power of holiness. All of this is expressed in the language of the liturgy…The liturgy…elevates the conjugal covenant of man and woman…to the dimensions of the ‘mystery,’ and at the same time enables that covenant to be realized in these dimensions through the ‘language of the body’” (TOB 117b:2)

“When lived according to the “great mystery” of God’s designs, even the marital embrace itself becomes a profound prayer. It becomes eucharistic as an act of thanksgiving offered to God for the joyous gift of sharing in his own life and love.” (Theology of the Body Explained, Christopher West) 

“When spouses become one-flesh, this great sign expresses not only “an interpersonal event full of intense personal content.” It also expresses “a sacred and sacramental reality, rooted in the dimension of the covenant and of grace.” (TOB 117b:2)

Reflection Questions

Resources

Canon of the Holy Scriptures

Fr. Mike Schmitz-Catechism in a Year on the Canon of Scripture 

Bill Donaghy Commentary Videos 

Divine Office 

Forever Catholic Marriage Devotional 

Come What May 

Heaven is a Place on Earth 

Audio: Music from #Uppbeat

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This episode we are continuing our discussion, with JPII, on the Song of Songs and how the Bride and Bridegroom are living out the spousal meaning of their bodies. JPII sheds light on how the theology of our bodies can transform our lives and relationships. We talk about how this applies to our marriages and how you can apply it in your life! 

Quotes: 

“The truth of love, which is proclaimed by the Song of Songs cannot be separated from the “language of the body”. The truth of love enables the same “language of the body” to be reread in the truth. This is also the truth of the increasing closeness of the spouses, which grows through love: and closeness means also initiation into the mystery of the person. However, it in no way signifies the violation of that mystery.” (TOB 111:1) 

“As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. I sit in his shadow, for which I longed, and sweet is his fruit to my taste.” (Song 2:3-6) 

“The reciprocal closeness expressed through the body is above all a source of the growth of the intimate “language of the heart”. (TOB 111:2) 

“The verses spoken by the man-bridegroom…concentrate above all on the specific “revelation of femininity,” the visible expression of which more and more dominates the eyes and heart of the bridegroom.” (TOB 111:2) 

“I am my beloved’s and his desire is for me. Come, my beloved, let us go into the fields, and pass the night in the villages. Let us go out early in the morning to the vineyards; we will see whether the vines have budded, whether the flowers have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom: There I will give you my caresses.” (Song 7:10-13) 

“She goes to meet him with the readiness of the gift of self. The love that unites them is of a spiritual and sensual nature together…because the man and the woman together must constitute the sign of the reciprocal gift of self, which impresses the seal on their whole life.” (TOB 111:5) 

“One has the impression that in reaching each other, in experiencing closeness to each other, they ceaselessly continue to tend toward something.” (TOB 112:1) 

“Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not….I will rise now and go about the city, through the streets and through the squares; I will seek the beloved of my heart.” (Song 3:1-4) 

“I sleep, but my heart is awake. Listen! my beloved is knocking. Open to me, my sister, my friend, my dove, my perfect one.” (Song 5:2) 

“In the Song of Songs, human eros reveals the face of love ever in search and, as it were, never satisfied.” (TOB 112:4) 

Reflection Questions: 

Resources: 

Understanding Women: Unlock the Mystery by Alison Armstrong

Consider a week with your spouse at the TOB Institute! Click here for the schedule! 

“Never Enough” 

Book of Tobit 

Music from #Uppbeat

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This episode is the first of two on the Song of Songs. We are covering Audiences 108-110. You won’t want to miss the beauty of this conversation. We hope that it prompts you to go deeper with the LORD!*

Quotes: 

 “The love of the bridegroom and bride in the Song of Songs is a theme by itself…it is a song of human love.” (TOB 108:1) 

“For in this book, kisses are mentioned, breasts are mentioned, cheeks are mentioned, loins are mentioned; and the holy pictures these words paint are not meant for mockery or laughter…we must (rather) notice how marvelously and mercifully, in making mention of the parts of the body and thus summoning us to love, (God) works with us; for he reaches down into the vocabulary of our sensual love in order to set our hearts on fire, aiming to incite us to a holy loving. Indeed, by the act in which he lowers himself in words, he also elevates our understanding; for from the words associated with this sensual love we learn how fiercely we are to burn with love for the Divine.” (Pope St. Gregory the Great) 

“The bridegroom says: 

You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride; 

You have ravished my heart with one glance of your eyes, 

With one bead of your necklace.

How sweet are your caresses, my sister, my bride.” (Song 4:9-10) 

“Love…pushes both to seek the common past as though they descended from the same family circle, as though from infancy they had been united by memories of the common hearth ... .A specific sense of common belonging follows from this. The fact that they feel like brother and sister allows them to live their reciprocal closeness in security and to manifest it.” (TOB 110:1) 

“A garden closed you are, my sister, bride, a garden closed, a fountain sealed.” (Song of Songs 4:12) 

“The bride presents herself to the eyes of the man as the master of her own mystery. One can say that both metaphors, “garden closed” and “fountain sealed,” express the whole personal dignity of the sex-of that femininity which belongs to the personal structure of self-possession and can consequently decide not only the metaphysical depth, but also the essential truth and authenticity, of the personal gift.” (TOB 110:7) 

Reflection Questions: 

Resources: 

Anemone Flower Clip

What Is the Song of Songs Doing in the Bible? 

St. Teresa of Avila in Ecstacy 

Picture of Will and Rachelle in 8th Grade

The Couple As An Icon Playlist 

Music from #Uppbeat

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* We had technical difficulties and do not have a video for this episode. It will be resolved for the next episode. There is a clip in the resources section with Katie sharing about the beautiful flowers she brought to show us! Enjoy listening! 

Welcome to Season 6 of the Be Filled Podcast! In this episode we begin looking with Saint Pope John Paul II at what it looks like “on the ground” to live out the Sacrament of Marriage as a sign to the world of Christ’s love for the Church. We discuss the importance of our words/vows matching our behavior in relationships. This even applies to our children as we teach them how to have relationships! You won’t want to miss this rich discussion! 

This Episode on YouTube! 

Quotes: 

“I take you as my wife/as my husband, and I promise to be faithful to you always, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, and to love you and honor you all the days of my life.” (TOB 103:1) 

“The persons-the man and the woman- become a reciprocal gift for each other. They become this gift in their masculinity and femininity while they discover the spousal meaning of the body…in the dimension of life as a whole.” (TOB 103:5)

“Human beings, male or female, bride or bridegroom with the vocation to the communion of persons speak a language with the body.” In order to fully express the “deepest words of the spirit-words of love, gift, and faithfulness…we must “speak” with the body.” (TOB 104) 

 “...the couple through their conduct and behavior, actions and gestures-are called to become the authors of these meanings of the “language of the body”, from which they then build and continually deepen love, faithfulness, conjugal integrity, and the union that remains indissoluble until death.” (TOB 106:2) 

Reflection Questions: 

Resources: 

“Three Secrets to Holiness in Marriage: A 33-Day Self-Guided Retreat for Catholic Couples by Dan and Amber Dematte

Envision: Theology of the Body for Middle School 

Audio: Music from #Uppbeat

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Welcome to another episode of the show! Today we will finish discussing Chapter One of Part 2 (The Sacrament) by looking at the final section on “Sacrament and “Redemption of the Body”. This section begins at Audience 99:4 and concludes with Audience 102. 

Episode on our YouTube Channel @befiledpodcast

Quotes: 

“Christ speaks these words…from the divine depth of the “redemption of the body”.” (TOB 99:4)

“a permanent source of hope that the creation will be set free from the slavery of corruption to enter into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” (TOB 99:5) 

“...opens marriage to the salvific action of God, to the powers flowing “from the redemption of the body,” which help to overcome the consequences of sin and to build the unity of man and woman according to the Creator’s eternal plan.” (TOB 100:2) 

 “...assign the dignity of every woman as a task to every man”...and “the dignity of every man to every woman”. (TOB 100:6) 

“One can say that marriage is the place of the encounter of eros and ethos and of their reciprocal interpenetration in the “heart” of man and woman…” (TOB 101:3)

Marriage “...constitutes the basis of hope for the person, for the man and the woman, for the parents and the children, for the human generations.” (TOB 101:7) 

“We find ourselves in the sphere of the great analogy, in which marriage as a sacrament is, on the one hand presupposed and, on the other, rediscovered. It is presupposed as the sacrament of the human “beginning”, united with the mystery of creation. It is rediscovered, by contrast, as the fruit of the spousal love of Christ and the Church, linked with the mystery of redemption.” (TOB 102.1) 

Reflection Questions:  

Resources: 

Gold Rush: Panning for Gold

Bill Donaghey Commentary 

Familiaris consortio (The Role of the Family in the Modern World) Pope John Paul II 

Natural Family Planning Information 

Good News About Sex and Marriage by Christopher West

Couple to Couple League (NFP Courses) 

Audio: Music from #Uppbeat

https://uppbeat.io/t/mark-july/chase-the-sun

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Welcome to this episode of the Be Filled Podcast! In this episode we continue our conversation about God’s eternal plan for us by discussing Audiences 96-99 of St. Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. We look at how marriage was established from the beginning as the "primordial sacrament” that was meant to help us understand and experience love. 

Quotes: 

“Man is the highest expression in the visible world of the divine gift. He has within himself the “inner dimension of the gift”..marriage is a sign that efficaciously transmits in the visible world the invisible mystery hidden in God from eternity. And this is the mystery of Truth and of Love, the mystery of divine life, in which man really participates.” (TOB 96:1) 

“...the primordial gift given to man by God already included within itself the fruit of election..chosen to be holy and immaculate before Him.” (TOB 96:3) 

“Before sin…man carried in his soul the fruit of eternal election in Christ, the eternal Son of the Father.” (TOB 96:4) 

“Redemption was to become the source of man’s supernatural endowment after sin, and in a certain sense despite sin. This supernatural endowment which took place before original sin, that is, the grace of original justice and innocence…was brought about precisely out of regard for him, that one and only Beloved, while chronologically anticipating his coming in the body.”  (TOB 96:5)

“..the heritage of grace was driven out of the human heart when man broke the first covenant with the creator…marriage as the primordial sacrament was deprived of the supernatural efficaciousness it drew at the moment of its institution from the sacrament of creation in its totality…Marriage never ceases to be the figure of the sacrament, about which we read in Ephesians 5:22-33 and which the author does not hesitate to call a “great mystery”.”(TOB 97:1) 

“The visibility of the Invisible belongs thus to the order of signs, and the “sign” merely indicates the reality of the mystery, but does not “unveil” it.” (TOB 97:5) 

“...as the primordial sacrament, marriage is assumed and inserted into the integral structure of the new sacramental economy, which has arisen from redemption in the form ... .of a “prototype”. (TOB 98:2) 

“Christ nourishes the Church with his Body precisely in the Eucharist.” (TOB 99:1) 

Reflection Questions: 

Resources: 

“The Mystery of Original Innocence” (Be Filled Podcast) 

“In the Light” Sunday Homily Fr. Mike Schmitz

Rachelle’s Mystery Hidden Chart 

Bill Donaghy Commentary

“Eating the Sunrise” by Christopher West

Music from #Uppbeat

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Welcome to another episode of the Be Filled Podcast! We have been analyzing with JPII the Sacrament of Marriage. This episode we begin a new section entitled “Sacrament and Mystery” which takes us even deeper into the mystery of God’s love. This episode we will examine Audiences 94-95b. 

Quotes: 

“In him he has chosen us before the foundation of the world to be holy and immaculate in his sight in love…” (Ephesians 1:4) 

“But it is the New Adam who definitively reveals the mystery by leaving his Father in Heaven and leaving the home of his mother on earth to “cleave to his wife” (the Church) and become “one flesh” with her.” (Christopher West, Theology of the Body Explained, pg. 408) 

See Scripture for this passage: Isa 54:4–10

“..the true character of the gift that God’s love is for Israel, a gift coming entirely from God’s initiative; in other words, by indicating the dimension of grace, which is contained in this love from the beginning. This is perhaps the strongest “declaration of love” by God, joined with a solemn oath of faithfulness forever.” (TOB 95:3) 

“...saving love which consists in his gift of self for the Church, is a spousal love by which he marries the Church and makes her his own Body”. (TOB 95:7)

“...the gift given by God to man in Christ…is in some sense “all” that God “could” give of himself to man, considering the limited faculties of man as a creature…in this way the analogy of spousal love indicates the “radical” character of grace: of the whole order of created grace.” (TOB 95b:4) 

“...the visible sign of marriage “in the beginning” transposes the eternal plan of love into the “historical” dimension and makes it the foundation of the whole sacramental order.” (TOB 95b:7) 

Reflection Questions: 

Resources: 

“Night” by Elie Wiesel

“He Leadeth Me” by Father Walter Ciszec

Audio: Music from #Uppbeat

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Welcome to another episode of the podcast! In this episode we are continuing to examine with John Paul II the text of Ephesians Chapter 5 on the “great mystery” revealed in the Sacrament of Marriage and in the love of Christ and the Church. We will be discussing Audiences 91-93. This is a great conversation and one of the more vulnerable episodes we have had in the podcast! Enjoy! Don’t forget you can watch the podcast on our YouTube Channel! We are also on Facebook and Instagram! Follow us and share with a friend! 

Quotes: 

“...the author speaks as if in marriage also the husband were “head of his wife” and the wife “body of her husband”, as if spouses also formed an organic union.” (TOB 91:2) “...the Church is so strongly, so essentially herself in virtue of a union with the (mystical) Christ.” (TOB 91:3) 

“Christ and his Church thus together make up the “whole Christ” (Christus totus). The Church is one with Christ.” (CCC# 795) St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: “Head and members form as it were one and the same mystical person.” 

“And you, husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water accompanied by the word, so as to present his Church before himself all glorious, without spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind but holy and immaculate.” (Ephesians 5:25-27) 

“The essential goal of the love of Christ for the Church is her sanctification…(Baptism) is the purification through which Christ’s love for the Church gains a spousal character”. (TOB 91:6) 

“The one who receives Baptism becomes at the same time-by virtue of the redemptive love of Christ-a participant in his spousal love for the Church.” (TOB 91:7) “Christ, therefore with his redemptive and spousal love brings it about that the Church not only becomes sinless, but remains “eternally young”. (TOB 92:2) 

“In the same way, husbands have the duty to love their wives as their own bodies, for the one who loves his wife loves himself. No one, in fact, ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cares for it, as Christ does with the Church, because we are members of his body.” (Ephesians 5:28-30) “...the husband is above all the one who loves and the wife, by contrast, is the one who is loved. One might even venture the idea that the wife’s “submission” to the husband…means above all “the experiencing of love.” (TOB 92:6) 

“The expressions referring to care for the body, and above all for its nourishment, to providing food for it, suggest to a number of Scripture scholars a reference to the Eucharist, with which Christ, in his spousal love, “feeds the Church.” (TOB 92:8) 

“For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and unite with his wife, and the two will form one flesh. (Genesis 2:24) (Ephesians 5:31) “By quoting the words of Genesis 2:24, the author emphasizes that the bases of this analogy should be sought in the line that writes, in God’s salvific plan, marriage as the most ancient revelation (and “manifestation”) of that plan in the created world with the definitive revelation and “manifestation”, namely, the revelation that Christ loved the Church and gave himself for her” endowing his redemptive love with a spousal nature and meaning.” (TOB 93:1) 

“This mystery is great, I say this with reference to Christ and the Church.” (Ephesians 5:32) 

Reflection Questions:

Resources: 

The Hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ by Luisa Piccarreta

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