Imagine if our tongues were made of uakitite, or synthetic boron nitride. (Mononitride rocks, as hard as diamonds.) We could hardly taste anything, then. Or if our nostrils were lined with titanium. Couldn’t smell. Or if our hands were made of stainless steel.
St. Thomas Aquinas pondered this, by way of an explanation for our fragile mortal bodies. God made us human beings to perceive His glory, beginning with tasting, smelling, touching, hearing, and seeing things—using our five bodily senses. Which means that we need bodies forged of atoms—but atoms arranged with the kind of suppleness necessary to receive impressions from exterior stimuli.
In other words, in order to perceive reality as God made us to do, our bodies necessarily possess an inherent chemical instability. The very physical quality that makes them capable of tasting, smelling, and feeling things—it makes them mortal, also.
The elements of the human body have to fall somewhere between the hardness of quartz and the softness of eiderdown–in order to register the taste of basil pesto and the smell of the briny sea. Rocks don’t feel or smell. And rocks don’t die, either.
Now, this would qualify as a genuine tragedy—the sensing, living human being, doomed to dissipate into dust, eventually. Were it not for Jesus Christ.
All the delicate, mortal jumble of perception that a human being is—the Lord united it all with the immortal absoluteness of God Almighty.
He submitted Himself to the disorder of the desperate, sinful world—which unjustly killed Him. Why? So that all our perceiving of things could lead to God, instead of to oblivion. Jesus makes this soft flesh immortal, by the mystery of His cross and resurrection.
Holy Baptism initiates us into this: Jesus’ Christ’s 100%-human eternity.
Father Mark White Blog 
You magnificent wordsmith! “…the taste of basil pesto and the smell of the briny sea.” “…doomed to dissipate into dust.” Thank God Almighty for the long line of mothers and fathers back to Adam and Eve that gave you to us. Keep writing, Father. Writers rule the world, and we could use a few good guys who are sublime with the pen.
I agree with Lafblast…you are a “magnificent wordsmith.”
Judy R.
Interesting and awe inspiring to contemplate! One could go further to consider the added complexity that in order to perceive amazing goodness such as the aroma of freshly brewed coffee (which I choose to enjoy daily) or the soft touch of a loving carress of a mother’s hand on the cheek of her child, necessitates our ability to perceive pain and evil. How else would we be able to discern goodness if there were nothing to offer contrast, motivating us to move towards God and the ultimate reward of heaven in all its supreme goodness and glory.