In keeping with Lent ... from MP, I Corinthians 6:
Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
“With my body I thee worship,” reads an older version of the wedding service in the Book of Common Prayer, a line that is as striking as it is often confusing. The language expresses the totality of the sacrifice that marriage requires of us, the body being both the visible sign and the living symbol of that sacrificial love. The body is the place of our personal presence in the world, and the delight we have for the other’s presence is necessarily a delight of his/her manifestation in the body. Through their bodies, the husband and wife share in the self-giving love and life of the Holy Trinity ... "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God He created him [Hebrew adam ... or mankind], male [Hebrew "ish"] and female [Hebrew "ishah"] He created them" (Genesis 1:26-27). Adam delighted in Eve's bodily presence, he delighted in her bones and flesh. And through their bodies, the man and the woman recognized that they were made for union and communion. So we read in Genesis 2:22-24:
The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
In the Eucharist we hear Jesus' words, the Bridegroom speaking to His Bride, His Body, the Church ... "This is my Body which is given for you ..." We delight in the Eucharist, in Jesus' presence among us manifest in His Body and Blood. Through Holy Communion, we are joined to Christ, and those joined to Him are to glorify God in their bodies.
Ephesians 5 ....28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body. 31 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. 32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. ... "With my body I thee worship" ...
JSH+