Dear Parish Family,

"God created man in his own image. . . . male and female he created them. And God blessed them, saying: "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it." (Gn 1:27 & 28)
The above lines from Genesis have always been hallowed by Jews and Christians, providing countless generations with a faith-based understanding of humanity. The Lord God is our source of being. Both men and women are made in his image and therefore of inestimable dignity, equality, and worth. Expanding on the above teaching, the Holy Father Pope Francis notes "knowledge of humanity passes through masculinity and femininity." In other words, we can't understand ourselves individually as men or women if we don't have each other. When the author of Genesis says that "the Lord God then built up into a woman the rib that he had taken from the man," and "brought her to the man," he revealed God's critical intention--man was to have a partner like himself in dignity but also different from him in many ways--especially on a physical level. And the author tells us that the man himself recognized this as good, exclaiming "at last, this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh!"

This sacred story not only supplies a clear anthropology, but it serves as the foundational teaching on the marriage relationship as willed by God. This relationship between a man and a woman is a tremendous blessing, as are the children God entrusts to them. Indeed, throughout scripture the marital relationship is so sacred that the prophets often use it as an analogy to explain God's relationship with His people. Later St. Paul would apply the analogy of Marriage with the relationship that Christ has with the Church.

Some writers, under the rubric of deep ecology, lament this image of human sovereignty among the creatures. Humanity is given the ‘stewardship’ of God’s creation. It is unfortunate some find here one of the roots of Western industrial society's abuse of nature. They see here a dangerous anthropocentrism, distracting us from the biocentrism that the future of life on planet Earth demands. This story is basically about Geocentrism. It is about the relationship among creatures that stems from our relationship with the Creator. The creation of woman from the sleeping Adam’s side strikes another sour note in some contemporary ears. Indeed, “Adam's Rib” is sometimes used ironically by feminist groups as the name for their club. Once more, we appear to be confronted by a seeming embarrassing image of male domination, the woman fashioned from a small part of the man. The author of Genesis would cringe at such conclusion and balk at our misinterpretation. The other creatures were not enough for the Human (ha adam). Ha adam needs an equal, a real companion made of the same stuff. In the original language—ishsha (“woman”) is made from isha (“her man”) but all that pun is lost in English. This is a story about how men and women were made for each other, not about who's got the power. The rib business is also a way of celebrating how the marital union—becoming ‘one flesh’—is a kind of recovery of a union that was meant to be from the beginning of humanity's creation. To misinterpret the most valuable spiritual and moral teaching of the creation story just to appease a growing number of dissident deviant behaviors is to betray the trust and plan of our loving Creator.

Fr. Tom Kunnel. C.O.