Redeeming Sensuality

Last night our parish youth minister put together a praise and worship night for all the young community, geared especially for teens.  As I knelt in front of the Blessed Sacrament I realized that our Catholic faith is very sensual.  In worship all of our being is submerged into prayer and connection with God.  We have the incense appealing to our sense of smell, the altar with lit candles and the monstrance carrying Christ (body, soul and divinity), powerful song and music enters our ears and leaves our lips, and we get to consume the body and blood of our Savior and King during the Eucharist.  I knelt in awe meditating on this idea that our church and God for that matter are the epitome of sensuality… One of my top love languages is physical touch- I love hugs and my hands and body seem to always be reaching towards others…  When I was studying early childhood development I read a study done in Russia about how babies that were not held physically were more likely to get sick and even perish.  My dog loves when I speak to him in a tone where I baby him- he doesn’t understand my words, but my loving tone always produces a wagging of tail and he’s always searching for my hands to caress him. Similarly, each of us is built with this innate desire to be loved in a way that involves all of our being.  It’s hard to think of our Catholic church as passionate and physical.  Sometimes in our ignorance we find the traditional forms of worship dated and boring- but when we come to know God and when we really commit ourselves to trust the ways of our church fathers this light begins to illuminate our minds with understanding. 

Sensuality needs to be redeemed.  When the word comes up it usually brings forth images of sexual immorality and desires of the flesh that believers must stomp and avoid.  The message that our whole selves including our sexual and carnal being are holy and part of God’s plan sometimes gets perverted.  Yet, as I knelt last night in front of the King of Kings I realized that the enemy has corrupted and twisted the beauty and definition of sensuality.  God is perfect love and He tells us that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.  If He craves to reside inside our bodies it’s because they are good- because the physical world is good.  He tries to reach us through all of our beings- a combination of spiritual and physical and when we can achieve this unity in prayer we get a glimpse of heaven. It’s such a dose of humility when I discover that God and our church fathers were in the right all along- and when I realize that the more I understand tradition the more I value and love it.