Automatic translation from Italian, under review.
God did not create us as pure spirits, but with a body; Jesus, by becoming incarnate, experienced our same needs; this means that, if we want to love God and others as the Gospel teaches us, we cannot do so only with our spirit, but with our whole person.
We can all see the importance and influence of our physical condition on our behavior; we are a single whole: there is a very close relationship between our spirit and our body; very often, if we are unwell physically, we are unwell spiritually too, and vice versa. Not infrequently, when we are tired we become inattentive and distracted toward others, whereas after a good sleep it is easier for us to be kind or optimistic.
Physical appearance too can draw people closer or push them away; it is clear to everyone how unseemly it is to appear in public badly dressed, dirty or disheveled; not to mention the importance of proper nutrition if we do not want to become sluggish from poor digestion, overweight and out of shape.
Let us not neglect to take care of our body with a sufficiently healthy life, in which sport, gymnastics, some physical exercise, healthy walks also have a place...
Each one must find the means suited to staying in shape: what is good for one person is not good for another; what is appropriate at a given moment is harmful at another.
How many psychological or spiritual tensions and sufferings would end, or be easier to overcome, if we did not treat our body badly, often subjecting it to real stress, without measure or reasonableness.
Saint Paul reminds us that we do not belong to ourselves and that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 6:19); it is certainly unseemly to keep a temple, that is, a church destined for divine worship, in poor condition; neglecting our body means the same thing (cf. 1 Cor 6:20).
To grow spiritually we are asked to safeguard our health too as a precious gift, which does not belong to us (cf. 1 Cor 6:19).
Even the discourse on the value of suffering to be gladly accepted for love of Jesus Crucified must not make us forget that physical pain is, after all, an ailment or an illness, which we have a duty to treat; it is equally important to try to overcome sorrows of a psychological, moral and spiritual nature, also by having recourse to those human means that God himself has placed at our disposal. It would be absurd to think, for example, of offering to Jesus the discomfort of a flu or an interior pain without doing anything to treat ourselves or to regain serenity.
God wants us to do everything in our power to be well, physically, psychologically and spiritually alike; and when we do suffer, he is there to transform even those moments into an occasion of growth and maturation.
Let us never forget that we are a unity of soul and body; let us live, then, in a balanced way, taking account of all our needs and all our requirements, without thinking we are angels, without a body.
Let us take care of the temple of our body.