Becoming
Even though I actually feel younger than ever, and excited about life, I see that this body of mine is aging. However, my emotions are not what I imagined they would be from my younger days when I dreaded the thought of growing old. I’m not horrified, or even chagrined; instead I’m awed and filled with wonder. Like everyone else, I began this life as a single cell, inside my mother’s womb, and my body grew into a complex collection of cells that make up organs, that make up systems, that make up me.
When we look at our hands and our feet, the matter that we see is not just as old as we are – it’s as old as time itself, recycled from one body to another. We’ve come together in this form, and when we die, our bodies will slowly decompose back into the elements, and go on to form new things, constantly becoming.
Who we are, though, is something even beyond the amazing physical complexities. Each of us is a person, an essentially integrated whole, a material body and a spiritual soul inextricably intertwined, created by God out of nothing, eternally responsible for our choices and actions. We are constantly becoming too, and these physical bodies aren’t all we will become.
It is a de fide dogma that the dead will rise again with the same bodies as they had on earth. How will this be achieved? We don’t know. From the teachings of the Apostles, the Scholastic scholars described how the re-modeled body of the just will be free of suffering, sorrow, sickness and death, a spiritualized nature in which the body obeys the soul with the greatest of ease and freedom of movement. We will be agile, not conditioned by the laws of gravity as our earthly bodies are. We will be light, and filled with beauty and radiance. Didn’t Christ demonstrate this when he rose again and ascended into heaven for the sake of our salvation?
Life is really a beginning unto itself from which we will be born into eternity, and remembering that changes the way we can view aging, in spite of the wrinkles, gray hairs, blemishes, bulges and all. We are becoming, with a hope and a peace that the happiest moments of our lives on earth are only a glimpse of what God offers us in the life of the world to come. Be where you are, but become what you are meant to be.
The just shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Matthew 13:43
Category: Catholic Free Press, Doctrine
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The more I see time change my physical self, it reminds me that my time here is limited and it sparks my desire to what God sent me to do.
I am glad I gave birth to my children, they are who I will leave behind and maybe someday they will bless me out loud, but for now they are young adults in the “mom is as stupid as a stone” develpmental stage and Im best to ignore that as much as possible.
I’m thus so thankful for my vocation of service…it allows me to be content in my grey hairs and age spots – I know I’m not wasting my time !
Beautiful! Thank you for elevating my thoughts and spirit today! (If not my aging body, ha ha.)
Believing that all nature is but a reflection of Almighty God, I can not help but see the perfect logic in the parallels. Electrons, planets (and bridesmaids) all revolve around a focal point. The ebb and flow of the tides mirrors not only our biological cycles, but the events of life as well. How different are ripples that flow outward, from a stone thrown into your beautiful lake, than the unintended consequences of our lives, which may impact those we will never meet. To this end I have come to think of e human body as a fruit.
It seems to me that as we reach the pinnacle of our physical “perfection” most of us have barely begun to nourish the seed inside, our soul. As we grow older and the body begins to wear, the seed becomes ever more fecund. (John 12:24) Finally, for the human creation to realize it’s ultimate end, the shell must die and fall away from the seed, which has, hopefully become strong and wise in realizing it’s purpose. That purpose, of course, is to know, love and serve God. Can anyone deny that the committed Christian never stops increasing in his knowledge (by intuition rather that theology), or his love (by obedience and gratitude) of the Holy Trinity? Yet the service part can only come to full fruition as the seed takes flight from the spent fruit of flesh which has nourished it for so long. And then, free and light, and in ever increasing ecstasy, the soul can truly begin to serve God, as it bathes in the beatific vision and continues to pray graces upon it’s descendants, and indeed, all mankind.
So, though it may be cathartic, I choose to believe that as my body grows more “mature” and the fruit loses its full luster, that the seed of my soul, hopefully, grows stronger and ever more ready to bear fruit. And in the end, I believe that is exactly what the Lord intends, until once again, we join our resurrected bodies to use them for the purpose they were intended; to embrace one another in the Presence of Almighty God.
Val,
I like your description much better. Our bodies are like the soil.