Jesus and his followers are great role models for those choosing to live a healthy lifestyle.The new year is, traditionally, a popular time to embark on a new fitness regimen. As many of those resolutions to eat well and exercise fall by the wayside only weeks into the year, it may be helpful to remember the connection between faith and fitness.
Pope John Paul II, in his “Theology of the Body,” saw that the body as a sacramental.
“The body, and it alone,” he wrote, “is capable of making visible what is invisible, the spiritual and divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world, the invisible mystery hidden in God from time immemorial, and thus to be a sign of it” (February 20, 1980).
If that is not enough to motivate you off the couch, the example of Jesus and his Apostles provides a template for how to live an active life.
Tom Collingwood, an exercise psychologist who has written about the connection between faith and physical fitness, notes that the way Jesus and his followers led their every day lives, as chronicled in the Gospels, is a model of a healthy way of living that integrates body and soul.
View the slideshow based his observations for inspiration!
