Day 51: Unity of Soul and Body

The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. the biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that "then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being." Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God. CCC 362

In today's reading, the Catechism talks about the unity of body and soul in man. Both are created out of love by God for us. The soul isn't trapped in a "meat sack", i.e. our bodies, waiting to be freed as the Gnostics believed, but it is united with our bodies which makes us a whole human person. When death comes, as it must for us all in this world, our souls will at the end of days be reunited with our resurrected bodies, changed from the corruptible we experience now to the incorruptible in Christ. We see this in the epistles of St. Paul, for example, such as in 1 Cor 15:50-54 & Phil 3:20-21. The Catechism Companion, Vol I explains:

A person's body is "created" by his or her human parents. But an individual's soul is created immediately by God, with no human involvement at all. We cannot treat our bodies with contempt. Our bodies are good and must be treated with respect... The soul is immortal, and it will be reunited with the body at the resurrection of the dead at the end of time... The Church teaches that the body and soul are truly one. God does not put someone in the wrong body. (p. 106)

On that last point, this is why I cannot understand transgenderism. God doesn't make mistakes. He made each of us male or female for whatever mysterious reason. Why God made me male I do not know, but it is a part of what makes me ME. I believe there will be more on this later so will save further comments till then.

Fr. Mike Schmitz explains the unity of the body and soul pretty well, using St. John Paul II's teachings in what came to be called the Theology of the Body.

When I was younger, I never appreciated what St. John Paul II tried to teach us about this and didn't listen to it. Now that I'm older, I can appreciate more what Fr. Mike says in this video and will have to learn the in-depth specifics about these teachings.