What’s your favorite piece of art? If you read my blog on architecture, you’ll know I don’t love the modern stuff. On the other hand, Michelangelo’s Pieta always seems to strike a chord. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing it in person, and it truly causes one to marvel at Michelangelo’s talent in shaping stone into the expressive curves of Mary’s gown as she cradles her Son’s body. Not too far from this sculpture, the Sistine Chapel highlights, again, the artistic mastery of Michaelangelo to depict the sheer glory of the human form. But no matter the greatness of any perishable work of art, they all pale in comparison to God’s living masterpiece: you.
Our bodies uniquely reveal God’s masterful design. While plants and animals also have bodies, their bodies reveal different natures than those of us humans. After all, no human being ever gave birth to a bear! God designed our bodies to live in communion with each other.
In fact, He made our bodies for each other. When the local Knights council puts on a pancake breakfast or a fish fry to support the parish, they give their bodies as gifts for the parish. When a mother carries her child for nine months, she gives her body as a gift for her child. When Jesus died, rose again, and gave us the Eucharist, He gave His Body as a gift for you. We see in all these examples that our bodies reveal our self-giving nature.
Michaelangelo’s Pietà
Paintings usually don’t correct the painter
Likewise, our bodies reveal who we are to the world; they reveal our sacramental nature. Though we often cast humans as spirits that inhabit bodies, God actually designed us as body-soul composites. As the Catechism states, “The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that ‘then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being’” (Gen. 2:7; CCC 362). Just as the Eucharist makes visible the invisible reality of Jesus, your body makes visible the invisible reality of you. Nothing else on earth participates in God’s plan to this degree. You are His masterpiece of creation.
But what does being God’s masterpiece mean for how we should live?
As masterpieces of God’s design, human beings have a value far greater than any object, even a great work of art. That means we ought to treat each other with the dignity due to such a masterpiece. Next time you feel yourself nursing bitterness, even hatred, toward someone else or even yourself, remember that God made you uniquely you out of love, and He made the other person too.
Chris Tarantino is the Communications Director for TOBET. He studied History at The University at Texas A&M and has written for the Tennessee Register and Nashville Catholic.
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