The Church’s social teaching has a lot more to say about marriage and family than what the State can or cannot do to the family. Catholic theology explores and explains the nature of the family, how it is formed, and God’s purpose in building human society around families. The great contribution of Pope St. John Paul II, his book Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, was split into a series of catecheses over 5 years. His starting point is the controversial argument that Jesus had with the Pharisees about marriage.

The morally rigorous Pharisees in Matthew 19 wanted to test if Jesus was faithful to their interpretation of the Mosaic law: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatsoever?” Whatever his answer, he is bound to anger either the laxist or the rigorist camp. But his response shocked his adversaries and his disciples: “Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate…Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” Jesus bypasses the argument altogether by reminding his audience of God’s original plan in Eden, long before Moses and the Mosaic law. This plan, summarized in the ‘originals’, John Paul II lays out in great detail.

In Genesis 2, God calls only one thing in all of creation ‘not good’. The fish, the birds, the sun and moon, everything is called good except that man is alone. Man experiences his original solitude as a burden and a disappointment, one that only grows as God makes various animals to be his helpmate and companion. Adam discovers in naming each of the animals that he is not like them in an important way. He has a mind and a will to know and love, and a body with which to express his personhood. The animals have bodies and can sense, but they like the ability for interpersonal relationship that Adam craves. So when he undergoes anesthesia and wakes up to find Eve, he exclaims in ecstasy: “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” He recognizes in Eve a complementarity in both mind and body that satisfies this longing for communion.

Adam and Eve experienced an original unity that was both physical and spiritual. Their union was not merely the physical cooperation of various bodily organs for the production of pleasure and procreation, nor was it merely a spiritual union like two friends discussing a deep topic together. Their love for each other was complete, with each person bringing their whole self to the relationship. One final curious note at the end of Genesis 2 will open our topic for next week: “The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame.” How is it possible for people to be naked around each other and not feel a sense of shame, guilt, embarrassment, fear, etc.? Especially for Americans unaccustomed to French beaches, nudity is almost a dirty word in itself. What was it about their situation in Eden that made their original nakedness not only tolerable but even insignificant? We’ll find out more next week!



-Fr. Stephen