The Body and the Meaning of Human Life

What does it mean to be human? How are we to attain real happiness? What is the meaning of life? These are some of the basic questions that forever preoccupy the human spirit. Since we have been created in God’s image and likeness, the meaning of life, says John Paul II, is to love as God loves. God created us out of love, in order to love. Christ says: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one ano-ther. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (Jn. 13:34. Vati-can II beautifully puts it this way: although man is “the only creature on earth that God has wanted for its own sake,” it nevertheless is true that man “can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself” to and for others.

While the world was created by God for the sake of man, man, on the contrary,was created by God solely for his own sake. He is an end in himself: he cannot be pos-sessed, appropriated or owned by another. However,comments John F.Crosby: “Having been created for his sake, man is not meant to live for his own sake, but to live for others. The human heart cannot find happiness in self-indulgent isolation. Man must give himself to others if he is to find himself. As Christ said: if you lose your life, you will find it (cf. Mk 8:35). This is the fundamental truth of human existence. This is the very essence of the human person. The call to be gift is “the fundamental element of human existence in the world.”

Now, John Paul II affirms that this purpose and meaning of human existence, the very essence of being a person, has been indelibly stamped by God in our bodies, in our sexuality! That the meaning of life is to love as God loves and to give our-selves freely and sincerely to and for the other, has been inscribed by God in our masculinity and femininity, and in the call to become “one flesh.” The interior law of the gift that defines the very meaning of human life is manifested in the nuptial meaning of our bodies and sexuality. Thus, says John Paul II, from the beginning, we see on our bodies the very purpose and meaning of life, and the way to attain it.