TOB FOR LIFE

PURPOSE

The purpose of TOBFORLIFE (Theology of the body for life) is to proclaim the love and hope of Jesus Christ through a bold, compelling, Christian response to the sexual revolution, by the late Pope St. John Paul II, among people of all nationalities, race, religion, and color which can bring true happiness and a new vision of life around the globe and across denominational lines.

VISION

Our vision is to create a world that glorifies God through our humanity, our sexuality, our relationships, our joys, and our struggles.

MISSION

Our Mission is to train and empower the life – transforming message of the Theology of the Body through conferences, classes, retreats, on-site speaker programs and training in parishes, communities, schools, and colleges across the world. This will empower a network of individuals who are passionate about helping their fellow human beings to achieve ultimate happiness by recognizing first the meaning, purpose, and destiny of their life, leading them to the ultimate happiness for which we are all created.

WHAT IS THEOLOGY OF THE BODY?

‘Theology of the Body’ is the term used to describe the teachings of Pope St. John Paul II on the human person and human sexuality made during his Wednesday Catechesis in St. Peter’s Square between September 5, 1979 and November 28, 1984. It is a bold Christian response to the sexual revolution.

It propounds the Catholic vision of what it means to be a human person, of being made in the image and likeness of God. It conveys the traditional truths of the faith and morals in a new, accessible and relatable way, explaining for the postmodern man the relationship between the body and the soul, man and woman, and the human person and God. It culminates in directing us towards our vocation: our path to love, to holiness and to joy.

Focusing primarily on the Biblical teaching that we are made in the image of God, the Holy Father exhorts us to accept the body as a true gift from God, part of His master plan for creation. “God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) With this as the starting point, the Holy Father offers a profound vision that explains ‘sexuality’ as a beautiful gift in God’s design, a gift that is meant to be a means for self-giving love. He teaches us that the human persons are made for self-giving love, not a self-getting love and they will find fulfillment only when they give themselves in service to others.

When Jesus is confronted on divorce (Matt:19) He reverts to the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis in order to remind his listeners that we must understand God’s plan for marriage as God intended of it “in the beginning”. The experience of Adam and Eve before their fall unveils a clear picture of God’s remarkable plan for our sexuality.

Pope St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body sees the body and sexuality first and foremost through a theological frame. As Scripture teaches and, as he unfolds at great length, sex –our creation as male and female and subsequently the divine call of the two to become “one flesh” – is all about revealing, proclaiming, and entering into the “great mystery” of divine love. How and why the body and sex signify, proclaim, and enable us to enter into this “great mystery” is precisely what St. John Paul II’s TOB is all about.

We discover man’s true identity by taking a look at his origin, in the mystery of creation in Christ within the mystery of redemption. This is how we construct a theological anthropology and a theology of the body from which a full Christian view of marriage and family emerges. This is Christ’s all-encompassing vision of man to which we have been called to meditate upon today, while living in a perverted culture.

WHY THEOLOGY OF THE BODY?

We are living in a culture that has distorted or manipulated the true image of the Human body and Sexuality. Sexual revolution reduced human body to any other consumer product. Thus unbridled sexual freedom and recreational sex has resulted in the desecration of the human body and sexuality in total.

There is a separation between the human body and the spiritual soul. We keep our spiritual life away from our day today life. Spiritual people try to keep the bodily and sexual things away from the spirituality. Worldly people on the other hand try to keep spirituality out of their body or sexuality.

Our children are often confused or rather perplexed owing to a lot of questions they encounter in this regard, the pressure effacing from the secular media, schools and peer groups or governments.
Our children are already being nurtured in the secular contrary vision of human life, the human body, and sexuality by means of their circumstances.
Where do they get answers to all these questions? Is there an open and free environment at home where the children can feel at comfort to clarify their doubts or ask questions about their sexuality?
Are we able to help our children effectively in this regard? Most of the catechists, parents and teachers are helpless and unequipped as how to handle these situations or help our kids to understand the truth about their bodies and sex or other ethical values.

How do we set right this distorted and erroneous image of our body, sexuality, marriage..etc.?

Theology of the Body is the articulation of the Christian Sacramental Worldview. It helps us discover the ‘WHYs’ behind many questions the modern culture ask us. Our generation continues to query Christ about marriage and divorce, but Christ’s answer, pointing to the beginning of man, still holds firm and fundamental. Christ continues to direct us to the beginning.
According to papal biographer, George Weigel, Theology of the Body is “a theological time bomb, set to go off with dramatic consequences in this century”.

WHO DOES IT BENEFIT?

Theology of the Body is for everybody on this planet. It is a grand proposal to the world of the deepest meaning of life and love made visible in the body. It helps us to understand the view of God’s love that leads to deep awareness of human dignity, identity, and purpose. This profound teaching is a contemporary vision for life, offering a “new lens” through which we can authentically see ourselves, our faith, our relationships and the world around us.