Revelation and Discovery of the Nuptial Meaning of the Body
by Pope John Paul II from this General Audience on 9 January 1980. Read text via EWTN.
Transcription of Commentary starting at ~14:25 of recording.
In these conferences which Pope John Paul II gave on Man and Women He created them, a Theology of the Body. We’ve seen so many different important things like Adam. Did he really live the world as if it was a gift. You and I were called to live as if we have received a great gift. Not only a gift of our existence, the gift of our life, our health, but also the gift of the world. How beautiful to see the mountains and rivers of Tennessee. Do we appreciate the gift of God and not just the gift of life or being, of sight, but also God’s gift of self? God gives Himself to us in Holy Baptism, in Holy Eucharist, in Holy Scripture. In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to us, has given us His word to us. And Christ Jesus is the Word made flesh who gives us His very flesh and blood, soul, and divinity in the Sacrament of the Altar. As Pope John Paul II looked back at “the beginning” he asked the question, “Did Adam live the world truly as a gift. And that question is not just for Adam but for us his descendants. We are reminded of “original solitude”, so important, unlike any other creature on the face of the Earth is the human creature, the human being, the human person. How majestic are the eagles which soar high above. How majestic are the orca traversing the oceans, but none more majestic than the human person made to the image of God. A rational animal unlike any other and then, “this one at last, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” Adam recognizes another self. But then even they recognize that they are unlike all others and they’re still alone although still yet in communion with God before the Fall.
Pope John Paul II is analyzing Sacred Scripture in these 133 presentations on the Theology of the Body. He applies his natural understanding. All his many years of experience, all his many years of study. all his many years of prayer he brings to bear on the sacred text of Genesis. Both the first and second accounts of creation are complementary accounts. The Holy Father reminds us of the “complete consciousness of solitude.” There is a passing consciousness of solitude when you are alone, “I am all alone.” But there is a great sense of consciousness which is possible. To be possible, to be conscious is a great aspect of human being, self awareness. But even when we are sleeping and not self aware or conscious we are who we are. We are just awaiting our rising even if it is an unconscious awaiting. Pope John Paul II points out that there was a complete consciousness of solitude in respect with the other living beings, the animalia. The human being is a living being, is a living being amongst living beings, and while the Holy Father doesn’t point it out here, God is a living being. God is the origin of all life, all living beings. The Holy Father doesn’t point out Aristotelian, philosophical distinctions between vegetative life, sensitive life, spiritual life, not spiritual life in the sense of bended knee and folded hand but the rational spiritual soul.
When the Pope speaks about there being no possible “existence with animals in a relation of reciprocal gift”, he is highlighting the fact that we are made for each other. man for woman, woman for man. Husband for wife, wife for husband. He doesn’t talk about bestiality but this is verboten, forbidden, foreign to our makeup, our nature, and similarly other arrangements.
Pope John Paul II talks about gift and mystery and this is a precursor to the book which he authors some years later celebrating the anniversary of his ordination. The gift of ordination and the ministry of ordination. But even before those great gifts there is the gift and mystery of our very being; the gift and mystery of life; the gift and mystery of original unity [...]
