Oh so much more...

I’m only able to write this because my baby is sleeping. When he is awake, he demands my attention, or at the very least, my hands and body. Every day for the last four months, he has laid his claim on them- and through my body I have nourished him and watched him thrive.

While taking care of my son does require mental engagement (I am not a zombie mom), it strikes me over and over again that what he needs most from me right now is my physical presence: my body. In grad school, I often heard John Paul II’s Theology of the Body belittled as a narrow teaching about human sexuality; what I have come to realize is that this teaching can go so much further.

Theology of the Body is primarily about the idea that the human person is not just a soul, but a body and soul, and that through the body the soul is expressed. Thus, John Paul asks us to recognize the dignity of the human body and its actions, seeing the actions of the body as its language. As a community, we intuitively recognize the dignity of a person’s words, since they seem to obviously come from her rational soul. The Theology of the Body recognizes the idea that the soul is expressed in more ways than just words, and that even words require the work of the body. This is in contradiction to modern culture, which does its best to reduce the dignity of the body to that of a mere tool, in turn, removing the dignity of the body’s actions.

Hopefully, you can see that this has obvious implications for human sexuality. What is less obvious is how important this teaching is for other areas of life and for helping us to understand our individual vocations- for me, motherhood.

If my body was simply a tool, rather than integral to who I am, it would be a lot more difficult to see motherhood as a vocation, rather than an occupation. For, right now, as a mother, my primary duties are feeding, cleaning, and entertaining my child. Exciting, I know. I also know that thanks to modern developments in nutrition, anyone can do these tasks. Because of this fact, I find it easy to belittle my own choice to stay home to mother my child. Instead what I have to choose every day is realize that for me as his mother, these actions mean something more.

In many ways it would be easier to write off my actions as biological facts: instinct responding to necessity. I’m sure science could explain away an infant’s love for his mother and vice versa. In the same way it is easier to say that anyone can care for an infant just as well; this is to say that Theology of the Body is just putting rose-colored glasses on tasks that are mundane. But so much of the world depends on perspective. In large part, this is what Catholicism is about—it’s about asking the questions:

Do you choose to see the world as it is, or as it could be? Do you prefer to take things at face value, or to ask what they mean?

To me, the richer answer, and the richer way of life, always lies in the latter half of those questions.

This meaning is what motivates me to do these simple tasks every day. It is easy to forget- changing a diaper is not a pleasant task by any stretch of the imagination. However, when I think of it in terms of an expression of the Theology of the Body—of these simple actions as expressions of my love for my child— they become not only bearable, but a part of my vocation. For it is through this task and the many other daily tasks like it that I am able to express my love for my child. Because I know right now that my son does not understand the “love” words I repeat to him many times a day, but his smile when I come to pick him up after his nap tells me that he understands the small actions that say the same thing.