From the Friars: God’s Plan from the Beginning

This past week during daily Mass, we have been reading from the beginning of the book of Genesis. Often, when we think of the story of Adam and Eve, we remember the “bad news” about the “Fall of Man” in Chapter 3. However, John Paul II has given us another way of re-reading the story of the creation and fall of our First Parents.
In his reflections on the Theology of the Body, a series of 139 talks given in his early papacy, John Paul II reminds us that before Adam committed Original Sin, he experienced three prior “original blessings”. They were Original Solitude, Unity, and Nakedness. These help us to remember the original truth and meaning of human life and love which God intended from the beginning.

In Gen. 2:15-25, we read that Adam was alone in creation, so God made the animals; but, none of these were a “helper fit for him”. God allowed Adam to experience Original Solitude. This is an experience of being “alone” with God and enjoying a unique friendship with Him—walking with Him in the Garden. And yet, there is a certain sadness, because there is no other creature like himself, in which man can be in a relationship.

This brings us to Original Unity. When Adam awakens from the “deep sleep” in which God put him, he sees Eve for the first time and realizes that Eve is a person like himself and he leaves his former way of life and enters into a one flesh union with her. We see then that from these two beautiful insights, that God created us to be in relation with Him and with each other. We are created to be related. This is true, because we are made in His image and likeness, for our Triune God is an eternal communion of Persons. As His human creatures, we are literally established as a “common-union” of persons as well.

Likewise, we read that Adam and Eve were “naked and not ashamed”. This mysterious line signifies that there were no barriers to communication between them or hostilities in their life together. Their bodies expressed who they were as persons, their bodies had a nuptial or spousal character to them and they were completely transparent to each other. They freely gave to each other the gift of themselves in holy matrimony.

These original experiences are important for us, because they remind us that we too, are made to be a gift of self, seeking union with God and with our neighbor, in accord with God’s original plan and design.

— Fr. Andrew