There has been a striking correlation with the rise in bodily health concerns along with the sexual revolution that started in the 1960’s. St John Paul the Great referred to the “cult of the body” years ago. It is when we put our appearance and physical health above that of our souls and the well-being of others; albeit, John Paul II kept himself in excellent health, skiing, kayaking, and taking daily walks, he had balance, so to speak. I heard from a legitimate inside source years ago that he had one cigarette after his evening meal… well that is moderation and the Catechism doesn’t condemn cigarettes and alcohol if used in moderation (cf. CCC 2290). The problem today is that the desire to protect our bodies overrides the desire to protect our souls.
If morality requires respect for the life of the body, it does not make it an absolute value. It rejects a neo-pagan notion that tends to promote the cult of the body, to sacrifice everything for it’s sake, to idolize physical perfection…(CCC 2289).
According to Catholic writer and speaker Matthew Kelly, among many other historians, hospitals as we know them today were essentially started by Catholics. Nurses always had crosses on their hats in years past, resembling nuns in a way; in fact many of the first nurses as we know them were nuns, and many today still are in places. Hey, we as laity are a “giant religious life” after all, following the Hours in the breviary, daily Mass and our Blessed Mother with her rosary! What a bummer when people confuse piety with a “higher calling!” I’ve met layman, married with children, that pray the office three times a day… less time it takes to watch the first quarter of the game!
“Health too is a gift from God, and as such should be cherished,” (Blessed George of the Marian Fathers). Balance is key. The big problem is that this rise of the doctor is to a veritable new altar. The way that we flock to the pharmacy counter and hospital for our ills – and not to the confessionals – for our souls, leaves us in a top-heavy spiritual mess. Whether it be a bad habit of thinking too much, or a mild lump in our throat (maybe from gossiping so much?) we immediately run to the “savior” doctor, and not the priest sent by Christ who gives us soul-saving remedies.
Daringly going further, are the pills we take, in a sense, a new type of “Eucharist” – administered by the Doctors and nurses in their “pure-white” garments? Again, I mean that with the highest honor paid to those, often lacking rest and food, whose garments are bloodied in hospitals night and day on our behalf, and doctors are generally people of great sacrifice, even though medicative corruption has mushroom-clouded over the past 70 years or so. I am stressing the respect paid towards those who can “save the body” has far surpassed in our day those who “can save the soul” through Jesus’ sacrament of confession. Both, in a sense, “lay down their life” that we may have life, hence, the ease in clouding the importance of rank amongst the two, and as we are “in the flesh,” a soul is harder to see, even though one can read a soul simply by looking in one’s eyes:
Sickness and Death
Make friends with the doctor, for he is essential to you;
God has also established him in his profession.
From God the doctor has wisdom,
and from the king he receives sustenance.
Knowledge makes the doctor distinguished,
and gives access to those in authority.
God makes the earth yield healing herbs
which the prudent should not neglect;
Was not the water sweetened by a twig,
so that all might learn his power?
He endows people with knowledge,
to glory in his mighty works,
Through which the doctor eases pain,
and the druggist prepares his medicines.
Thus God’s work continues without cease
in its efficacy on the surface of the earth.
My son, when you are ill, do not delay,
but pray to God, for it is he who heals.
Flee wickedness and purify your hands;
cleanse your heart of every sin.
Offer your sweet-smelling oblation and memorial,
a generous offering according to your means.
Then give the doctor his place lest he leave;
you need him too,
For there are times when recovery is in his hands.
He too prays to God
That his diagnosis may be correct
and his treatment bring about a cure.
Whoever is a sinner before his Maker will be defiant toward the doctor (Sirach 38:1-15).
Now, transpose the above scripture over the urgent need for care of our souls and having a confessor and following his “prescription!”
In this medical, cult of the body mindset, the worst thing one can experience is death, and, like the doctor should try to do everything to save and prolong the life of their patient, so the priest should be trying to do everything to save and prolong the life of the soul. The eternal death is infinitely worse than the temporal death. One death is a passing pain, the other, an eternal pain if not in the Good Lord’s graces.
Saint Paul, even though he explains that one pampers their body, also “pummeled” his. His context was kindness towards one’s wife. I wonder how the severities in penance, like sleeping on hardwood floors, hair shirts and self-flagellations would gel with the psychology of today? Perhaps, the present-day Church drifted away from such severe penances, not so much from “Vatican 2 issues,” but simultaneously the fallout the sexual revolution left so many families scarred by divorce, separation and abuse, that this fallout of psychological “penance” is enough? There was a Saint that spoke of the “latter times” being a type of “psychological martyrdom” for the Christians of society of this age…
But regarding our health, yes, many of the Saints exhort us to preserve our health, using the words of Blessed George, MIC once again, to preserve it: “for as long as possible for the work of God”. All the more time given us from good health to work on going to Heaven!
