Having said that, let’s look at what Jesus meant when he said, “From the beginning of creation, God made man male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Eros is somehow rooted in man’s very nature: Adam is a seeker, who abandons his mother and father to find woman; only together do the two represent complete humanity and become one flesh. And this directs man towards marriage, to be a bond which is unique and definitive; thus it fulfills its deepest purpose. So corresponding to the image of a monotheistic God is monogamous marriage. Marriage based on exclusive and definitive love becomes the icon of the relationship between God and His people and vice versa. Therefore, God’s way of loving becomes the measure of human love.
And then what happened to the first man and woman? Adam and Eve were created in the image of God and they were both naked, yet they felt no shame because they were in the status of innocence and grace. But Adam and Eve wanted to be like God, disobeying God’s commandment, namely, sin broke the relationship between God and His people. As a result of the sin, they realized that they were naked, hiding themselves from God. So this is called the Original Sin in which a man cannot see a woman with all the peace of the interior gaze anymore. Therefore, as St. Paul said, we groan inwardly as we wait for the redemption of our bodies.
But, this is not the end of the story. God’s eros for human enabled the Son of God to become a man as the incarnate of love of God. Jesus’ presence is nothing but the living statement: “What God has joined together, no human being must separate.” In the same manner, through the sacred marriage, a man and a woman become one flesh in a free, total, faithful and fruitful love. Marriage symbolizes unitive consciousness. The two are not two, but one. The ultimate source of this oneness is the joining energy that is the essence of God. God is love and as Paul Tillich asserted, love is the power that drives everything there is toward everything else there is. When a man and a woman live in unitive consciousness, they realize that they are not self-closed individuals, but they are reciprocal love-giving spirit.
So, my friends, what remains to be a true man and a true woman? St. Paul urges, “Husbands, you should love your wives as your own bodies, even as Christ loved the church.” How did Christ love the church? The truth is that he laid down his life on the cross to love His church. If men do this, even try, women instinctively know that men truly love them in self-giving love. And I also encourage you women through the voice of Mary, the model of woman, “Don’t be afraid to be women. Take God’s invitation of love and conceive it and give birth to it. Your Yes to God will change the world. There is nothing more beautiful than bringing life to the earth. You are called to be a mother, a mother of whole humanity through your genius receptivity. If you accept your noble role as a woman, you will understand why, when I heard from the angel that I conceive the Son of God, I hastened to Elizabeth. I as a woman realized another woman needed help and I wanted to show my love in service for her.”
In the end, only one thing is the heart of our belief that we can’t fully understand in this life: God is love and love is mystery like God. But we do know that we can dwell in love and grow and bear fruit because love grows through love. Love is life giving and divine; it comes from God and unites us to God who has loves us first through Jesus Christ.