TREASURE IN TOB | KAIROS GLOBAL | DECEMBER 2023

Author: Nicholas Koeppel

Intro: TOB Educator Nicholas Koeppel shares how his life changed after encountering TOB.

I’m 32, and I have already discerned a call from God to give my life, the rest of my working career (what is that – maybe 30 or 40 years, God willing, if I live that long) to helping to spread the Church’s teaching on marriage and family, specifically the Theology of the Body from Pope St John Paul II. Why have I made that commitment and why is that my desire? Well for a number of reasons, but I think it started when I was 18. 

In my hometown, a small city of 30,000 people called Cape Girardeau in southwest Missouri, USA, I discovered a small group of people at the local university’s Catholic campus community going through a video series from Christopher West called an ‘Introduction to Theology of the Body’. As an 18-year-old, I was recently ‘set on fire’ for my faith after attending several Steubenville Youth Conferences during the summers of high school. I had a hunger and desire to learn more about the Catholic faith, and then I learned about this college group going through ‘TOB’. I didn’t know what that was, but I was willing to try, because the group was attractive, made up of young people, single, dating, and married. 

The meetings consisted of gathering in a room together to watch the video, then to discuss the ideas together. It was led by a campus minister who was trained in Theology of the Body and who guided the group discussion. While going through this study, I fell in love with TOB because it gave the reasons behind the rules of Catholicism in the areas of sexuality and marriage. Since I was ‘dating’ at the time, I found the material immediately relevant to grow in understanding of what chastity is. 

However, I soon learned, as I dove into Theology of the Body, that the discussion was way more about marriage – they were about the foundational meaning of being human, about the Scripture passage  of being made ‘male and female’ in the image of God, and about our mission in life. I was hooked. After each session, I would stay late discussing the themes of TOB with this campus minister, about Adam and Eve in the ‘beginning’ before the Fall, about the redemption of Christ for our bodies, about the resurrection of the body in heaven, about the sacrament of marriage and about celibacy for the kingdom of heaven. I realised TOB was about much more than marriage, it was about life! TOB gave me a much broader ‘Catholic worldview’, and it helped me to fall in love with the Catholic Church in a much deeper way.

After this initial study, I was hungering for more, I wanted to study and learn TOB. I planned to attend Christopher West’s TOB Institute in Pennsylvania. But I also wanted to study the topic in university, along with my other subjects of study. However, I soon learned that finding a TOB course in university was going to be a challenging search – it was not to be found in the normal theology curriculum, even in some Catholic seminaries and universities. So, at first I studied TOB only with a small group of friends, trying to read the very difficult and academic text. 

After my undergraduate degree, I was introduced to a small Catholic institute in Austria that offered a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family studies, with one academic course in Theology of the Body. This institute was the International Theological Institute, whose founding president was Michael Waldstein who translated TOB into the most recent English version. At this institute in Austria, I was given the time and grace to take a deep dive into TOB over the two years of study, integrating the ideas from JPII into my other classes on marriage and family. After the two years in Europe, I knew I wanted to work for the Church in the area of marriage and family. 

Since the family is the fundamental cell of society, and families are called to be ‘Domestic Churches’, I wanted to work and devote my life to help strengthen these marriages and families. I knew the Church had been given such a treasure of beautiful teaching in TOB and other Church documents that really show God’s beautiful plan for male and females and the call of the ‘two to become one flesh’. I know our world is hurting and broken in many areas regarding sexuality, marriage and family, and I know Christ’s love wants to come into these situations to help heal and redeem people, and to lead us to heaven. So I’m grateful to God for the gift of TOB, for the gift of John Paul II, and all the wonderful teachings on marriage and family from the Church, that help us to live in this world as ‘salt’ and ‘light’ for others. 

I pray that more people, single or married, can discover the profound teachings of JPII in Theology of the Body and fall in love as I did, so that Jesus can transform their lives and their families.  

Nicholas Koeppel grew up in southeast Missouri, USA. After attending seminary for 4 years, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, discerned out of seminary and went to study a Masters of Marriage and Family studies in Austria at the International Theological Institute. He worked for 4 years in the Youth Ministry at parishes in Missouri. Currently he lives in Indiana working for the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana as the Manager of the Family Life Office. Since 2020, he has served on the leadership team for Theology of the Body Educators seeking to teach and share Theology of the Body all over the world through online and in person opportunities.