Reflection on June 4, 1980

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb28.htm

Man was made in the image of God. This “image” was formed in the union of the male and female. Together in original innocence they get a view of God through this experience. After the fall, this view is blocked or clouded. We cannot get a true vision of this “image” of God because we cannot experience the other they way it was meant to be, the way it was originally intended, through authentic subjectivity. Until we get back to that original innocence, until we are fully redeemed, we are not able to view God. You can follow that understanding into a discussion on purgatory. A person that dies with sin, a clouded view of this image, but not completely separated from God, must somehow get back to the original innocence so that they can view God. The Beatific Vision, the image of God, is viewed by those that have cleared away their sin, been transformed from what became because of the fall, able to experience that authentic subjectivity. Purgatory is a preparation to get back to that original innocence.

The fall cuts us off from the innocent reciprocal nature of the body and all that this communicates. JPII has wanted to express the importance of experience in our understanding of what it means to be human, which leads to a misunderstanding of what it means to be human if we cannot fully experience the other because we lose this reciprocal nature. We get a mistrust of the other. The covering up by Adam and Eve is twofold. We cover up because we are ashamed of our nakedness, but we also cover up because we do not trust those that look upon us and their motivation. Our full trust and self donation disappear along with the understanding of the gift we were meant to be, both given and received.

This new sense or shame in sexuality becomes a barrier to experience and understanding. Before, the experience of the difference between male and female in their sexuality was the very foundation to human understanding. We wonder about the confusion, but it is easy to see that when a piece of the very foundation of knowledge becomes a barrier to knowledge, the human race becomes lost to the most fundamental ideas and reasons for life.

Words I looked up.

Insatiability - not satiable; incapable of being satisfied or appeased