Welcome to my first “TOB Wednesday Blog”! I am finally entering the blogosphere on behalf of my passion and spiritual father – St. John Paul II and his Theology of the Body. My goal is very simply – to help people on the journey to realizing that Theology of the Body is for every body. If you have a body, and I’m suspicious you do if you are reading this, then St. John Paul II wrote theology of the body for you!

I hope you enjoy my first attempt at blogging and will share it with your friends. Feel free to give me your feedback. So here goes!

Blog #1: Would you like fries with that?

This is not a phrase you would initially think of when asked about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. However, when you are a catechist like I am, you are always thinking, thinking, thinking about theological questions and how to answer them.

For instance, the phrase “Emmanuel – God is with us” – if you think about it, God has always been with us ever since the beginning of creation. He called Abraham to leave his home and go to a place that God would show him. God sent manna from heaven. He spoke to the prophets. He gave us the 10 commandments. God was always and is always with His people. But God gave us so much more when he sent Jesus. God came to us in the flesh.

At a recent talk I gave in Phoenix, I asked the participants to turn to their neighbor and express their love WITHOUT USING THEIR BODIES. They couldn’t do it. Why? Because the fullness of human love can only be expressed through the body. And so, in order for us to fully understand God’s love, He had to assume the human body.

As human persons, we are not soul just temporarily renting bodies until we dispose of them. Rather, our very nature is to be embodied. We are a unique body-spirit combo – and would you like some fries with that?

If you want to enrich your faith and expand your understanding of why you have a body and why God chose to become “incarnated of the Virgin Mary,” follow the link below to listen to the full talk I presented in Advent 2016. In addition to learning about the significance of God sharing fully our embodied human nature, you might even pick up a few new terms like “hypostatic union” that you can use to impress your family at the next reunion. I hope you’ll also make the connection between the birth of Jesus and a wedding and also be struck by what St. John Paul II says is the greatest work of the Holy Spirit in the history of humanity (now that’s a pretty big claim).