Christian theology’s praise of work transvalued an Old Testament curse while despising the body

Evidence

It is known that Marie Alacoque cleaned a sick person’s vomit with her tongue; she describes in her autobiography her happiness when she had filled her mouth with the excrement of a man with diarrhea; Jesus rewarded her by keeping her lips glued to his Sacred Heart for three hours. Devotion has a carnal coloration in countries of ardent sensuality like Italy and Spain: in a village in Abruzzo, even today women tear their tongues by licking the rocks on the ground along the stations of the cross. In all these practices they are only imitating the Redeemer, who saved flesh by the abasement of his own flesh: women show their sensitivity to this great mystery in a much more concrete way than males. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1913 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Extreme bodily abasement is imitative of Christ’s redemptive humiliation of the flesh — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1913; Religious duty reframes exploitative construction labor as sacred accomplishment

Broader Connections

• Religious duty reframes exploitative construction labor as sacred accomplishment #exemplifies (0.80)
• Extreme bodily abasement is imitative of Christ’s redemptive humiliation of the flesh #complicates (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1913