Fit for Eternal Life

Sit ups for souls? Purgatory pushups? Most mornings that's what I feel like I'm doing.

Ok, you can pick your jaws up off the floor now. And, yes, you did hear me right.
I have been working out.

I can explain.

I started reading this book last spring called Fit for Eternal Life: A Christian Approach to Working Out, Eating Right, and Building the Virtues of Fitness in Your Soul. Let me tell you, it's convicting. The opening page has two Bible verses on it:

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

- 1 Cor 6:19

“You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

- Matt 5:48

Then it goes on to say: This book is about building your temple both inside and out. 
It is about perfecting yourself as a being created in God's image.

Ok, you have my attention.
 
A book about the holiness of being in shape? Most of you who know me, know that one of my least favorite activities is running. or lifting weights. or intentional physical activity in general. ie I don't like to work out and am pretty good at avoiding it. Sometimes I would be able to start something up if I had a good intention, such as doing it for the souls in purgatory or the conversion of heart of the students on campus. It would work. for a few days. but even where the spirit is willing, the flesh is still sometimes weak. like when it comes to me working out. 

So why is this book making any difference? I'll give you a couple of snippets from the first paragraphs for a little "taste test" of sorts. (With my own little comments of course.)

Since you’ve picked up this book, I suspect that you are already someone striving for spiritual perfection. Thank God for that. (Good start - a complement. Why, yes - I am!) But meanwhile, have you let your body fall into a state of disrepair? (I wouldn't call it disrepair...) Perhaps you’ve become too accustomed to swimming against the current of our modern world, with its vain and superficial glorification of physical appearance. Or maybe work and family obligations have just left you too busy to get to the gym. Or, maybe you’ve been putting so much focus on things spiritual that your body has gone neglected. (Hm... these are all things I'd normally be proud of. Put that way I feel a little ashamed.) In St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, he tells us to treat the body as the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and to glorify God with it. God gave us our body as a most precious gift, and it is our Christian duty to care for it—indeed, to perfect it. In so doing, we show due reverence to the Holy Spirit who dwells within.

Of course, the modern world usually errs in the opposite extreme: treating the body as a god rather than as the dwelling-place of God. Physical indulgence and pleasure reign. (Amen to that.) But pious souls need not leave the world of the body to the hedonists. (feeling a little uncomfortable) Yes, spiritual things are higher, but God made us beings of both body and spirit, now and for eternity. We are “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” it’s true, but please recall: at the end of time, we are to be resurrected, soul and body.

 

So what did I do? Last spring, nothing really... I still had some great excuses. I mean it was too cold to run. The gym is a half mile away. and I have no student parking pass, so that means walking. The sun doesn't even come up until 7. It's not safe to walk alone in the dark. By 7 I wouldn't have time to get there, work out, get back and get ready for the day before prayer at 9. Obviously.

 

This fall, I heard about the Warrior Dash, a 5K with obstacles like jumping over fire and crawling under barbed wire through mud. Who has two thumbs and really wants to do it? Uh, this girl! Who is terrified of the thought of running a 5K, with or without obstacles? Guilty.

 

Therefore, when the lovely Kelley Hogan told me she was going to start a workout program called Insanity, I jumped on the opportunity to start working out, do something I could do in the basement in the morning, and have accountability all in one! We're going on week three and haven't quit yet! Once in a while we've slept in after a late night or gone to early Mass instead, but we're "gettin' it"! So one day we can say with St. Paul, "I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith." - 2 Tim 4:7

 

Boom.