Saturday, December 5, 2009

Gen 2, 21-23 This one shall be called 'woman'

(Gen 2, 21-23) This one shall be called 'woman'

[21] So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. [22] The LORD God then built up into a woman the rib that he had taken from the man. When he brought her to the man, [23] the man said: "This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called 'woman,' for out of 'her man' this one has been taken."

(CCC 372) Man and woman were made "for each other" - not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be "helpmate" to the other, for they are equal as persons ("bone of my bones…") and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage God unites them in such a way that, by forming "one flesh" (Gen 2:24), they can transmit human life: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth" (Gen 1:28). By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents cooperate in a unique way in the Creator's work (Cf. GS 50 § 1). (CCC 373) In God's plan man and woman have the vocation of "subduing" the earth (Gen 1:28) as stewards of God. This sovereignty is not to be an arbitrary and destructive domination. God calls man and woman, made in the image of the Creator "who loves everything that exists" (Wis 11:24), to share in his providence toward other creatures; hence their responsibility for the world God has entrusted to them.

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