Reflections on November 14, 1979
http://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2tb9.htm
JPII writes about man’s first reaction to see woman and what that must have been like. He equates it to the “Song of Songs” which speaks a lot of the love of one to another. IN reflecting on that and what I wrote last time about being made for another, you might see this as the ultimate and most pure “love at first sight”. Adam had seen all the creatures of the world and none were for him. This uniqueness of solitude was his only experience. He desired to have another “help”, someone like him and there she is. We have no sense of time elapsing, but it is not required because of the pureness of this reaction. Eve is the fulfillment of what Adam is longing for, and she fills it completely, she was made specifically to fill it. Imagine the joy that overwhelms Adam at the sight of Eve.
This hole that is there before Eve, JPII appears to say, is a very real way of helping us understand who we are as humans. “This opening is no less decisive for mas as a person; in fact, it is perhaps more decisive than the distinction itself”. I was thinking of when you are putting a puzzle together and there are times when you look at the hole that is there and find the piece that fits the hole, not have a piece and see which hole it fits. What Adam was missing is exactly what God created in Eve. Nothing more or less, they completed each other in such a perfect was as to point to God in a communion of three persons.
The Yahwist account never mentions the “image of God”, but that cannot take away its use in reflecting on the image of God as a communion of persons. Here is where it becomes vitally important to see both stories as complimentary of each other and not in contradiction. Both give us information, but do not take anything away from the other. “In His image He created them” flows right into this idea of the communion of persons from the Yahwist account and its understanding the original solitude. They compliment and expand on each other.
This may be out of left field, but when I was thinking about man’s solitude, I also thought about his solitude from angels. When reflecting on God making man in His image, I thought about the angels being created. They were not, at least I haven’t seen this, in God’s image, but merely created. I also don’t have any knowledge that angels are male or female or that they marry (form communion) or have children. These are all ways that humans differ from angels and must be important characteristics when looking at the image of God and what God is. What makes us special and unique, in solitude, are exactly the characteristics we are supposed to reflect on and extent to God to better know and understand Him.
Words I looked up.
Axiological - the branch of philosophy dealing with values, as those of ethics, aesthetics, or religion.
Communio Personarum – Communion of persons. I couldn’t come up with a great definition other than this communion is at the foundation of man and also seen as part of the communion of person in the Holy Trinity.
Transcendence - going beyond ordinary limits; surpassing; exceeding.
Eo ipso - by that very fact.
Reciprocity - given or felt by each toward the other; mutual:
Constitutive - constituent; making a thing what it is; essential.