Original sin distorted that God-given loving, equal and respectful dynamic of the relationship between men and women. The bible portrays this perversion by presenting men as having the privilege to control women, through violence or its threat. Consequently, women become silent and passive. Such a human and spiritual mayhem calls for a remedy. A valuable attempt in the right direction is offered by Mary Healy’s book “Men and Women Are From Eden”, a study guide to Pope John Paul II’s theology of the body.
The subject matter of the difference of the sexes is always topical. The question is not simply to give relationship advice but to retrieve God’s original plan for man and woman, as it was revealed by God in the Garden of Eden, before original sin came about. Sacred Scripture, as rightly interpreted by the Church, is decisive. Connected with it Blessed John Paul II’s biblical teaching on men, women, sex, and marriage, better known as the theology of the body, is helpful indeed. This theology responds effectively to people’s deepest love aspirations and gradually starts to transform their entire outlook to relationships.
Mary Healy’s book was inspired from John Paul II’s intuition of Jesus’ words in Matthew 19, 4: “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female…?” Thus, the authentic comprehension of our identity, as men and women, goes back to the first book of the Bible, precisely in the account of Adam and Eve. Blessed John Paul II observed that the Genesis creation stories are “mythic” because they narrate the events at the beginning of history by employing symbolic language to pass on deep truths concerning God and humanity. It is solely in comprehending these truths that we can justly appreciate who we are as men and women as well as accomplishing our desire for genuine love.
The variations between men and women are part and parcel with God’s extraordinary plan for humanity. Their sexual complementarity unveils what Blessed John Paul II referred to as “the spousal meaning of the body”. In other words, the body’s ability to be an instrument and a way of incarnating self-giving love. Adam and Eve recognised that when they met each other they became “one flesh”. Hence, God inculcated in their bodies the inherent impetus to build a communion of persons, the mutual capacity of reciprocating the great gift of love to each other. Unfortunately the personal sin of our first parents ushered in conflict, lust, selfishness, manipulation and abuse in the relationships between men and women.
For the author of Genesis, God chose a married couple to establish an image of himself in the created world. Taken together, both man and woman finalise God’s design since it is their communion of love with each other that highly unveils God’s ineffable nature. In the New Testament God as communion of persons, eternally engaged in that perfect exchange of love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, is ultimately revealed by Jesus. God has determinated that every man and woman participate in that sharing. From here stems the significance of our sexual complementarity and of the vocations in which it is lived out, be it in marriage or in consecrated life. By being a reciprocal gift to each other in a communion of persons, men and women learn to love and be loved as God loves, thus equipping themselves to share everlastingly in his life.
This is what defines their dignity and destiny. Their real search for happiness entirely relies on exploring it and living it fully in order that relationships between the sexes are healed.
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
San Gwann