This program will be held twice a month on a Wednesday at St. Charles Borromeo.  The sessions will be held from 7:00pm – 8:30pm on February 10, February 24, March 10, March 24, April 7, April 21, May 12.  Make-up sessions will be available later in the Summer of 2021. 

Theology of the Body

Is anything more beautiful than the amazing person God has created YOU to be?

Why Theology of the Body?

Your 9^th grade son/daughter has unrepeatable beauty that is not an accident.   They are an arrow in God's quiver sent to be a source of powerful love, spirit, and LIGHT to a world broken and hurting.  Nothing on this planet has ever been more important in God's heart than their life.  Nothing on this planet will ever be as needed as their love - right here and right now.  NOBODY will do for this world what they have been created to do and be.

What is Theology of the Body?

Pope John Paul II... The story of a love that overcame the world... Karol Wojtyla surprised the world.  If everything the world says is "true" about love and life, Karol Wojtyla should never have happened.  But the things the world often tells us  aren't often true: and Karol Wojtyla became a powerful messenger to God's people that love is real, that we have reason to hope, and that we are meant to be loved authentically and forever.  This is Pope John Paul II.

When Pope John Paul I died suddenly, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (St Pope John Paul II) in Krakow, Poland had been working on a powerful story of love, hope, and redemption:  our story.  You see, he had been a priest and bishop who loved the people around him.  He saw their powerful holiness in the sacrifices they made for their families as they struggled to live good lives and overcome the ravages of Naziism and Communism.  They were people of faith who were struggling with the same questions we all struggle with:
 

• What is my life for?
• Is Love really forever?
• What does it mean to be a man or a woman?
• Am I really worthy of love?
• Does God really matter in my life?
• If I have done things I know are wrong, is that the end of my hope?
• If I struggle with trying to be a good person, does that mean I am not one?
• What is marriage for?
• What is priesthood or religious life for?

He wanted to address their questions by reminding them that they were created by a loving Father who saw their lives as not just good, but VERY good.  When he arrived at the Vatican to help participate in the choosing of a new pope, Cardinal Wojtyla brought his writing with him: something that he had called  Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body so that the new pope would approve the book.  Little did he know that God had other plans for him...

He realized early on that he wouldn't be able to produce the book that he knew the world really needed, so he took an interesting path:  On September 5, 1979, in the first of his General Audiences on the Theology of the Body, the Holy Father began to teach from the words of Christ, "In the beginning the Creator made them male and female."   From that day to 1984, he gave a series of 129 teachings - interrupted only by an attempt to murder him - on the profound beauty of the importance of marriage, how our holy lives lived out in love and for others change the world and make us genuinely happy.

Those teachings would change the lives of every single person who comes into contact with them.

Why?

Because they make the true nature of our importance, our dignity, and our love easy to understand in a logical, beautiful, and LIVABLE way.

The Theology of the Body isn't a new teaching, per se.  It is a clearer lens through which we can understand the truth, the way, and the life that Jesus Christ laid out for us.

Class Sessions

Classes will be held during 2020-2021 two times a month on a Wednesday evening.  Classes will usually be split between young men and  young women.  We understand that sometimes unavoidable issues come up (such as illness) so make-up sessions will be offered in the Summer of 2021.