Word to the Wise
Saturday, October 29, 2022 - Saturday in the 30th Week in Ordinary Time
[Phil 1:18b-26 and Luke 14:1, 7-11]My eager expectation and hope is that I shall not be put to shame in any way, but that with all boldness, now as always, Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me life is Christ, and death is gain. [Philippians]
St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians is one of those called "the captivity letters" - written from prison in Ephesus. It has a very personal tone, and the way we have it now may be a conflation of three letters written to the community at Philippi, which Paul visited several times. I am struck by the line that speaks of the wish that "Christ be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death."
We "westerners" tend to think of the human person as a composite of body and soul - the ancient Greek anthropology. Paul speaks from the Hebrew concept that sees the human person as a "whole," and when he speaks of "flesh" and "spirit," he means the difference between a person who is living according to wordly cultural norms and one who is living according to "spiritual" norms (the "Spirit"). So, the line about Christ being "magnified in my body" means his entire person and not simply a physical reality separate from a spiritual reality. He means all of Paul!
"Wholisitic" thinking challenges us. We sometimes see our bodies as a kind of enemy that weighs us down. But the body cannot be separated from the whole person. [cf. 1 Cor. 15]. Taking good care of our body means taking good care of our whole person, and allowing it, indeed, to be a means of "magnifying Christ!" The Greek way of thinking led many holy people to abuse their bodies with the aim of caring for the soul. A more wholistic approach aims at the health of the person in physical and non-physical dimensions. Our consumption habits as well as our relationships and ways of thinking all need attention so that our "bodies" may truly "magnify" Christ. AMEN