COVID-19 & Theology of the Body

Today Donald Trump referred to the Coronavirus as “the invisible enemy.” Those words really struck me...

So often in the Christian Tradition we hear the devil referred to as “the enemy.” He’s a clever enemy, who whispers his lies in our ears – often the tiniest of lies- just enough to alter our course ever so slightly…just enough to turn us a little bit more away from Jesus. We would be missing an important spiritual reality if we did not recognize the ways that the Coronavirus has the hand of the enemy written all over it.

Saint John Paul II’s monumental work Theology of the Body offers a catechesis about human sexuality, and God’s intention for human life from the beginning. Before talking about sexuality, he establishes immediately a fundamental principle

When God created all things in the book of Genesis he created a great number of living beings with bodies. One of them however was very different from the others. Because of his human body, man had the capacity to tend to the tasks that God assigned to him: to care for the earth, and to name all the creatures of creation. After viewing all of the other bodies God had made, the man does not align himself with any of them, but rather he is found to be “alone”, and God says that this being alone is “not good.”

We were made in the image and likeness of God: who is relationship…a relationship of love…and the bodily dimension of the human experience makes it clear that relationship is our sacred purpose. So God creates Eve, and Adam is able to enter into relationship with another who is “like him”. It is through the body that man is able to receive creation as gift, and in turn be a gift to the rest of creation. The body then is not a tool we use, nor is it a separate reality from who we are: indeed it’s quite the opposite. It’s how we enter into relationship. It’s how we give ourselves as gift, and how we receive creation as gift.

Eyck and Borras word it perfectly in the publication done by the Knights of Columbas in 2014:

“I am my body in a way that I never ‘am’ a tool or machine. When my body suffers, I suffer. When it is hungry or thirsty, I hunger and thirst. When my lips form a smile or my hands reach out to embrace, I smile and embrace – and others understand what I ‘say’ even if I have not uttered a word.”

So yeah…what we are trying to do as a human family right now feels unnatural: because it is. It is unnatural to avoid bodily contact with the rest of humanity. It started with elbow bumps in place of the handshakes and hugs to which we are accustomed. Then we started measuring out a safe space between us and the next person. Then the size of the crowd we should be around dropped more and more. Some states have asked its residents to not go out of the house unless they absolutely need to, and many people are talking about the possibility of something that could look like martial law.

The devil smiles with delight.

Common sense says that the notion of “Social Distancing” and the other precautions and procedures we are seeing is the only way to really curb the spread of this virus: without a doubt. That makes him smile even wider…because it would seem to him that he is winning, and we have no choice but to let him win.

No doubt it also makes him smile to see that in some places the public celebration of Mass has been suspended even beyond Easter. So there will be some places (who knows in the end, it may be many places…or maybe even most places) where the Body of Christ cannot gather and celebrate the Paschal Triduum. I am sure that the Devil would absolutely delight in mankind skipping the celebration of the day that he was defeated forever.

But we don’t forget it.

And he is not winning. In fact, he has already lost.

The Mass is still being celebrated without us being there: the thin veil of time and history is still torn aside as the sacrifice is offered on the altar: the sacrifice of the Son to the Father, perpetuating the victory of Easter. In separation from receiving the Eucharist, our prayer turns to a deeper love for our Eucharistic Lord and a more profound appreciation for the great gift that it is.

Bodies that formerly came into physical communion with Jesus, now come into spiritual communion through hunger and thirst, through trial and suffering. In our coming together in a spiritual communion we are reminded of the same truth that the Eucharist should bring to our attention: that Jesus Christ is king, that he is our core, and that he is the way, the truth, and the life. That wonderful creation can more clearly be received as gift, rather than be the distraction that it can so easily become.

We continue to use our bodies to receive creation as gift, and to in turn be a gift to creation, in our working together to squash COVID-19. The hands and intellect of doctors and scientists do their parts. The mouths and creativity of leaders of government do their part. We do our part. In this united and cohesive response we act as one body: we work in relationship each of us giving our bodies as gift in our respective roles. Consider our “social distancing” to be “Social Distancing for the Kingdom.” We give ourselves as gift to creation, by freely giving ourselves to the precautions that are being asked of us. The Second Vatican Council was in line with this thinking when they said in Gaudium et Spes, 21: “man…cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.”

Perhaps even more accurate than the President’s words would be: the Coronavirus is the latest costume the invisible enemy has used to clothe himself in his ongoing assault on humanity. It does little to hide his identity though, because the sure and certain signs of his work are all clearly at play. The victory however, has already been won. He has already been defeated – in this virus and in everything else that he may send our way. He only tinkers at all because God's allows it. So while the devil may smile wide because he thinks he’s got us: by isolating us from one another and from the Eucharist…we know better. It's quite the opposite in fact.