Curriculum Sample: Shame

Sample of Teaching Theology of the Body Using Adventures in the Great Mystery, Book I: The Five Questions

From Chapter 2 – “No one in the room moved, as if frozen in shock.  Nadine knew everyone was looking at her, and she found herself shrinking down into her chair with her eyes closed, wishing she could disappear.  Why did I ever come here tonight?  Why did You let me, Jesus?  I’ve made an absolute fool of myself and proven that I don’t deserve someone like Dominic.  I shouldn’t be here.  I  don’t belong here. The silence hung so heavy, she began to imagine the confessional in the main chapel.  Its dark wood enclosed a private world where she could take her troubles and never come out again.  She wished she could think of something to say to Dominic, but all she could think about was her own shame.”

Depressed Teenage Girl

TOB discussion questions: 

  1. Later in the chapter Nadine remembers feeling “a deep longing to hide and having nowhere to go.”  Why did she feel that way?  (Find several reasons.)  Have you ever felt that way?
  2. What about Nadine’s life was exposed that she wished no one knew about?  Why did the exposure of that one thing make her feel like her whole being must be hidden?
  3. How is shame more than embarrassment?  What kinds of things cause shame?  Is shame good or bad?

TOB Teacher’s notes:

Pope St. John Paul II discussed the idea of “shame” extensively in Love and Responsibility  (LR chapter III section 2) and in Man and Woman He Created Them (TOB 11:3-12:5, 26:4-29:5)   Here are the key relevant points, not all of which need to be brought up now, since chapters 30 and 79 will give you another opportunity:

“Depersonalization by sexualization” is what shame seeks to avoid. (LR, Willetts tr., p. 191; TOB 32:4)  Nadine is not only experiencing “relative” or “physical shame” in reaction to being used sexually, but is also experiencing “immanent” or “emotional shame” about her own use of someone (TOB 28:1; LR 177, 187)   Having lost chastity, she is feeling a “breakup of man’s original spiritual (soul) and somatic (body) unity.”  (TOB 28:2)  Concupiscence, which often “passes itself off as ‘love,’” instead of aiming her towards “personal communion,” had “left [her] only as an ‘object of attraction’” and had caused her to treat another person as an object.  (TOB 32:1, 3-4)  What Nadine did was “shameless,” but now her response is appropriate, though painful. (LR 187)  An analogy is the pain one feels when touching a hot stove; the pain causes the hand to quickly withdraw and seek a safer place to be.  You may want to tie Nadine’s feelings with Adam and Eve’s in Genesis 3.  Though shame was a curse, it now is a blessing in that it causes us to withdraw from situations of use.   As the book progresses, continue to bring these themes up, especially when they are hidden because healthy shame and respect of the person prevent the characters from being used and feeling upset.  Peace and joy reign when shame is functioning properly, chastity controls concupiscence, and no one is being objectified.