What is a smile?

What is a smile? Is it not a physical manifestation of an internal emotion of joy and happiness? Without the smile, we would not be able to understand the invisible emotions.

What is a hug or a kiss? Is it not a physical showing of love? Words fall helplessly short when trying to tell someone that you love them, so we resort to the physical world. How else can you explain love? How can you show it? How can you relay the invisible feelings you have within you?

What does it mean when someone dances? I mean really, unabashedly dances, with eyes closed and no musical rhythm guiding their steps. Is it not a physical manifestation of a deep, fully-alive feeling, and bursting joy? Haven't you ever been so happy that you can't say it, you can't write it, you can't express it other than your pure, shameless dance?

Why do I ask these questions?

My point is that there are many things--emotions, thoughts, feelings, etc--that are purely human which are inexpressible and indescribable without the physical world. Our faces and bodies are physical tools that we use to express those invisible mysteries that we all hold within us. This is how humans were designed by God, to use the physical world to reveal (although it's impossible to do so completely) that which is invisible, indescribable, and mysterious.

God Himself is the greatest Mystery. Because He knows how He made us, physically-dependent creatures, He made Himself into the physical. God's Word, which had never been seen and hardly understood, became Flesh for us to see, hear, and touch. Jesus, the Incarnation (Word made Flesh), came to us to bridge the gap between the purely physical and purely mysterious, between man and God.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth." John 1:1,14

Through Jesus' parables, He related our physical world that we are familiar with, to greater mysteries, like Heaven, Hell, repentance, and receiving grace. Through Jesus' healing miracles, he showed us that our physical bodies are curable, but so are our souls! And how much greater it is to heal the eternal soul!

God did not just play to our physical senses only once in the Incarnation. Jesus left His Apostles with commandments and ways to continue to manifest the invisible, spiritual, mysterious world in our physical world. Of course, Christ's greatest gift to us is the Eucharist, His Flesh and Blood, which are "true food" and "true drink" (John 6). These simple foods, when infused with the Holy Spirit, become our spiritual food for everlasting life. Through communion with the Body of Christ, we become part of the Body, His Mystical Bride, which we see physically as the Church.

Aside from the Eucharist, Christ also gave His Apostles the ability for forgive sins. "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained” (John 20:23). Again, God knows how He made us. We should use this physical world to relate our sins, to show remorse for them through penance, and most importantly, we need to hear the words, "You are forgiven." Thus, He instituted the Sacrament of Reconciliation. After spending years of just trying to ask for forgiveness through silent prayer, and never being sure of that forgiveness, I can tell you that one trip to the Confessional does what a million years of silent plea for forgiveness cannot do. I know that through the Sacrament, I received that grace of forgiveness and grace to help me where I need it. We are human and understand best through physical manifestation.

Christ gave us so much more through His foundation of the Church on St. Peter and the Apostles. The Catholic Church has so much symbolism, so much physical manifestation of the mysteries of God, it may well be impossible to know it all even down to the little things. But the seven Sacraments, in particular (two of which I just mentioned) are great gifts to us, because through simple, physical things, we can better grasp the eternal mystery. Water is just water but when we use it to mark our faith with the Name of the most Holy Trinity, we are given the invisible grace of becoming a child of God!

Do a little research sometime and you'll find that everything in the Catholic Church has some sort of meaning or parallel to that invisible truth which is hard to grasp. We don't just do or have things "just because." Christ's Bride is so rich with these physical manifestations, that we are just so blessed to be ever-surrounded! The more you discover, the more you will fall in love with this faith, and the more you fall in love with this faith, the more you will fall in love with Christ. Loving the faith and loving Christ is an uninterrupted circle, because as a married couple become united as one, so Christ and His Bride the Church are One. To love one is to love the other.