Reflection on June 6, 1984 – (paragraph 2-4)

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb110.htm

I have to say that I am having some trouble with this one. SJPII is speaking about the language that the two are using to speak bout each other and its connection with eros. I was thinking that these descriptions would without flaw in the sense that they were scriptural and point back to Adam and eve before the fall. However SJPII speaks about the limitations on this language. I think the last line in the reading might shed some light on our understanding. "These words express the power of love, the force of eros in loving union, but they also say (at least indirectly) that in the "language of the body" this love is definitively limited by death."

The language of the body is limited by death. When the bridegroom sees the bride, that language that is spoken, that beginning of understanding, what he experiences from seeing her, all of this certainly happens and will continue to speak to him until she is no longer there. Because of the limitations of death to or earthly bodies, the language of the body cannot fully describe that relationship we have with God. It makes me think again of the limitations of Revelations. There John is trying to describe the divine with earthly images and therefore the images will never fully reveal the totality of what was revealed. Similarly, our bodies are limited by mortality and therefore cannot fully express the divine.

What does happen because of our concupiscence is we take the language and the eros described and distort it, put our own spin to it, and lose the beautiful meaning that pointed to the divine. The world looks at sexual desire and much of the sensual desires that appear in the Song of Songs and have twisted those into a desire that we should focus on ourselves, our feelings, become selfish. SJPII reads this and sees a longing to give one’s self, a disinterested gift. The world sees eros as a reason to fulfill all selfish desires; SJPII sees it as a bodily language that pushes us to want to fully give ourselves to another. I see the misinterpretation of the language of the body and can't help but think of the misinterpretations of Revelations on things like the Rapture and being left behind. It only furthers my lack of understanding in people's confidence (arrogance) t think they are able to fully interpret scripture and the confidence I have in the Catholic Church because they have taken that burden off of me.