2.4 Commitment
STAGE 2: Awareness of Self
MY BODY
TRANSPIRING GRACEFULNESS
COMMITMENT
Aim: To realise our call to consecrate our body in order to commit ourselves to works of life.
Readings
Christ gives life to our bodies (Rom 8:9-11): But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.
Mary “cleanses” our body (TD 205): “What does this good Mother do when we have presented and consecrated to her our soul and body and all that pertains to them without excepting anything? Just what Rebecca of old did to the little goats Jacob brought her. (a) She kills them, that is, makes them die to the life of the old Adam. (b) She strips them of their skin, that is, of their natural inclinations, their self-love and self-will and their every attachment to creatures. (c) She cleanses them from all stain, impurity and sin. (d) She prepares them to God’s taste and to his greater glory. As she alone knows perfectly what the divine taste is and where the greatest glory of God is to be found, she alone without any fear of mistake can prepare and garnish our body and soul to satisfy that infinitely refined taste and promote that infinitely hidden glory”.
We consecrate our body first (TD 121): “This devotion consists in giving oneself entirely to Mary, in order to belong entirely to Jesus through her. It requires us to give: (1) Our body with its senses and members; (2) Our soul with its faculties; (3) Our present material possessions and all we shall acquire in the future; (4) Our interior and spiritual possessions, that is, our merits, virtues and good actions of the past, the present and the future”.
Comment
St. Paul shares with us the good news that, if Christ is in us, God “will give life to your mortal bodies”. Again we are assured of our initial statement, which we borrowed from St. Louis-Marie de Montfort: “our body is endowed with immortality”.
Paul describes the future of our body, when grafted in Christ. But, along the journey, we need a guide or a coach to accompany us in our daily life. Montfort sees this guide in Mary who is an expert in “cleansing” our bodies and souls, in “preparing and garnishing” them “to God’s taste and to his greater glory”.
The cooperation of the body is so important, in our process of self-transformation, that Montfort places it on top of the list of what we are asked to “give Mary in order to belong entirely to Jesus”. And so, we give, first of all, “our body with its senses and members”. Thus “moulded in Mary” (cf. TD 219) our bodies become capable of the greatest transformation of themselves into the likeness of Jesus (TD 218). At the same time, they become like an “abundant rain” for the glory of God and the good of the Church (PM 19).
Personal Reflection and Sharing
How is my body committing itself to this process of “preparation for the reign of Christ”?
What “works of life” am I determined to commit my body to, for the good of the Church and the people in need?
[2-4] CALL RESPONSE COMMITMENT PRAYER