God Made Them Male and Female

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“From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.” In the Gospel today, there’s a lot of very key issues that are addressed, marriage and divorce, and then right after, the Gospel speaks of openness to children. But there’s also an even more fundamental question of God creating us, male or female, man or woman. And we know that this is being called into question today, this, which is so fundamental, is now being questioned, and that’s causing a lot of suffering today, a lot of suffering and a lot of confusion. And so it’s often hard to see the truth with all the different ideas that we’re being bombarded with these days. And so in the midst of that, the gospel is an opportunity to seek what is the eternal truth, not the changing opinions, but the eternal truth about who we are. And so I think it’s good today, given the situation, that we take some time to try to deepen that question, that issue.  And I’m just gonna, there’s a lot involved in it, I’m just gonna focus on one aspect. “In the beginning, God made them male and female.” So Jesus is inviting us to come back, to understand, come back to the very beginning of creation. And when God is speaking to Adam and Eve of the consequences of sin, the sin that they’ve just committed, it’s striking the difference between what He says to Adam and what He says to Eve. To Adam, He’s talking about how his effort to get food to his work is going to now become very difficult. Food had been very abundant and easy, and work had been joyful, thinking of like work that you like to do, like a hobby that you enjoy doing, but now it will become a painful toil. And we all experience that. So a man working now, to work to provide for his family will become difficult. But He says something very different to Eve. To Eve, He talks about her pain in childbearing and giving birth and raising children as a mother. And He also talks to her about her relation with her husband. So to Eve, He’s not talking about work, He’s talking about relationships. And so this passage helps us see two fundamental types of human activity that many philosophers have underlined. One is work and one is love, work and love. So work is all our activities to achieve something, to make something by transforming something else. Think, for instance, of a carpenter who wants to make a table, and so he takes wood and transforms it. For instance, the benches we have here were made from Cedar, the benches that the servers are sitting on are made by cedar. That was a friend of ours who’s sitting right here with us, took that cedar from here at the mission and fashioned them into benches. And so whether it’s carpentry or whether it’s cooking or fishing or a farmer or a doctor or an accountant or scientist or software design, or whether it’s art, like all sorts of art, a musician or an athlete who’s transforming his own body, but all these sometimes-amazing achievements of man, of mankind, of through technology, through science, through engineering, through art, and they focus on our intelligence, our creativity, our power to achieve things. So that’s work activities. But then love is a very different type of activity, because it’s not about transforming something to get a goal, to make a goal, but it’s entering into a relationship which unites us with another person. A true friendship, an authentic love, which respects the other person, which doesn’t use the other person, but respects the other person. And it’s seeking the good of the other person, even to the point of sacrificing oneself for the good of the other person. So Jesus says, “there’s no greater love than to give one’s life.” So it’s an act, it’s rooted in an act of giving. Which you know that there’s so much in a world which divides everything; that so much divides us, and precisely divorce is the pain of a division. And this true love does this very mysterious thing of uniting persons, uniting them truly, not uniting them superficially, uniting them deeply.  And so in everybody’s life, in all of our lives, we’re called to live both of those. Both we’re called to work, and we’re called to love. All men and women are called to work and called to love. But I think what this passage from Genesis is pointing out is there is a complementarity in man and woman and the way they live in the special focus, the special focus for one and for the other. And so from Genesis already then we see a disorder, a disorder coming from satan and sin, which enters into and destroys or not destroys but wounds the order that the Lord created. Satan can do very impressive work. He can do very powerful things. He can even do things which seem very beautiful. I imagine satan considers himself a great artist and a person who knows how to get things done. So he can work, and he uses all the demons and uses all those who are his instruments to do what he wants done, but he cannot love. He cannot love at all. And so when his poison enters our world, it causes a distortion by putting work first above love, above the person, above love. And so the consequences, and we have these consequences in our society and a sinful society that causes a disorder which doesn’t respect the human person. The person is used for someone’s utility or for someone’s pleasure. And you know, how often does that happen? For instance, how many, how often in people’s jobs, do they feel that they’re not being respected? Or even in relationships, and some of the terrible scandals that are coming out with so many high-level persons who it’s coming out, the terrible abuses that they’re now, puff Diddy P Diddy is in the news, Jeffrey Epstein and all sorts of others. But of using other people terrible, using other people terribly, and that’s when the signs of a society which has put the values of work before the human person. And so what does our society tend to honor? A society like that tends to honor political leaders, military leaders, business leaders, artists, scientists, celebrities, but some of those persons were terrible persons. I mean, one of the most striking examples, for instance, in communist Russia was you had these all over the place, where the great statues of Lenin and Stalin, who were terrible persons. In a sense, they accomplished a lot. Lot of it was not good at all. But they were terrible persons. And so in a society which prizes results and not love and not the human, what’s deepest in the human person, it distorts the values of the society. It’s not who, it only looks at a person for what they do, what achievements are capable of, and not for who they are. And so the Gospel brings about a revolution. Jesus says very clearly, “the last shall be first.” That is many who are considered last by the values of society will be first in the kingdom. And so in the Gospel today, where He invites us to go back to the beginning, He invites us to reflect on that revelation that man, the human person, is created in the image of God. And the Catechism says, “God is love.” And that, of course, that’s some scripture. Scripture doesn’t say God is work. It talks about God working, but it doesn’t say God is work. It says God is love, and in Himself, He lives a mystery of personal loving communion. That is that God is persons who are united in love. God is not solitude. The Trinity are persons united in love. And the Catechism says, “creating the human person in His own image, God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman, the vocation and thus the capacity and responsibility of love and communion.” So God created us in His image by creating us, man and woman. That’s part of the revelation that the human person is created not for solitude, but for love and communion. And the Catechism also says, “being in the image of God, the human individual possesses the dignity of a person,” the dignity of a person. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession, and of freely giving oneself and entering into communion with other persons.” So a person has the freedom to give of themselves, and so enter into communion. And so the gospel shows us the primacy, not of work; work is important; but the gospel shows us the primacy of love. You know the greatest commandment, the commandment of Jesus is not, thou shalt work, right? We are called to work. Work is important, but it’s a commandment to love, to love God and love others. And Saint Paul, for instance, when he’s speaking about the spiritual gifts, he says, we know the greatest of these, the greatest of all the gifts, of all the virtues, is divine love. He says, “If I do not have charity, this divine love, I am nothing. If I do not have charity.” So, for instance, satan, who is so capable of doing so much stuff, is nothing because he does not have love. And so I want to quote to you from; a lot of these are topics that St John Paul II emphasized very strongly throughout his pontificate. And I think he’s, the Lord has given us him in a special way for our time. And some of his documents are pretty long and pretty complex, but there’s one which is much shorter, and I highly recommend it. It’s precisely on the dignity and vocation of women. In Latin, Mulieris Dignitatem, and not, not just for women, but I think also for all of us. It’s very helpful. And so I’ll be reading some passages from it. And he says that “the human person,” in that document, this is a phrase he’s often came back to, quoting from the Second Vatican Council. He says, “the human person cannot fully find himself.” You know, there’s a lot of people who you know are wanting to try to find themselves. They’re not sure of who they are, and it says, “except through a sincere gift of self, that it’s through giving of oneself that one can truly discover who we are in the deepest way, because we’re made for love, and so by creating as male or female as Genesis says, it expresses both,” he says, “the equality and dignity as human persons who are made for loving communion. But the greatest, the greatest dignity of the human person is his ability to enter into union with God Himself,” into a loving communion with God himself. So that’s where the dignity of the human person achieves its summit is in the capacity to love and enter into communion with God Himself. So he focuses, then on the vocation of women. And he speaks of our Blessed Mother. He says, “Mary achieves the highest possible union for our creature, the highest dignity. If the greatest dignity that the human person is capable of, is entering into union with God, Mary is the one who achieves that dignity to the highest degree.  The highest degree possible for a creature. Following the example of her son and giving of herself.”  And he speaks of referencing the Book of Revelations, in which John has this vision “of a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head, a crown of 12 stars.” He says, “she is a woman of a cosmic scale, on a scale with the whole work of creation.” That is like her dignity and vocation extends to all of creation. And he says, “the struggle with evil and with the evil one, satan, marks the biblical exemplar of the woman from the beginning to the end of history.” So right from the beginning, there’s this battle between the woman and the evil one, which Eve falls in that battle. She’s defeated, at least momentarily defeated, in that battle. But then there is Mary, who is also in that terrible battle, and she is triumphant, and forever triumphant over the evil one. And so there’s this great battle from the beginning, Genesis to the apocalypse, this great battle between the woman and the evil one. And it ends with the woman being triumphant over the evil, the woman in the presence of our Blessed Mother. And so he says that “women have a particular grace, a charism of love.” He says “the moral,” so I’m reading you some of the passages of his document. Again, it’s sometimes they’re a little bit dense, but I think his language is sometimes a little bit dense, but what he’s saying is so good. He says, “the moral and spiritual strength of a woman is joined to her awareness that God entrusts the human person to her in a special way.” That God entrusts the human person to women in a special way. He says, “a woman is strong because of her awareness of this entrusting. In our own time, the loss of sense in the fact that it’s women who give birth and not men who give birth, is a sign,” right? It’s a sign that God is entrusting the human person in a special way to women.  “In our own time,” he says, “the loss of sensitivity,” There is a loss of sensitivity for what is essentially human. “We’ve lost the sense of what is most important for humanity. In this sense, our time in particular, awaits the manifestation of that genius which belongs to women, and which can ensure sensitivity for human beings in every circumstance, because of the fact that they are human, and because the greatest of these is love.” And so he’s saying that women have a special role to recall to humanity what is deepest in the human person. He says, “the dignity of women is measured by the order of love.” Again, that doesn’t mean that women aren’t called to work, but the highest dignity that the human person can achieve is through love. And he says, “the dignity of women is measured by the order of love, which is essentially the order of justice and charity.” He says “this concerns each and every woman, each and every woman independently of the cultural context in which she lives, independently of her spiritual, psychological and physical characteristics, as for example, age, education, health, work and whether she is married or single.” So independent of all of that, every woman has this special grace. And he even speaks of a special he calls a special type of prophetism. These are his words, “a special kind of prophetism that belongs to women and their femininity.” By prophetism, he means a special manifestation of the truth of God, and he’s saying “women, by the fact of being women manifests, in a special way, a truth of God.” He says, “the analogy of the bridegroom and the bride that Scripture speaks of so much, speaks of the love with which every human being, man and woman, is loved by God in Christ. Christ is the divine bridegroom, and every soul is like that, the bride of Christ, the divine bridegroom.” But then he says, “but it is precisely the woman, the bride, who manifests this truth to everyone, this prophetic character of women in their femininity finds its highest expression in the Virgin Mother of God. She emphasizes in the fullest and most direct way, the intimate linking of the order of love which enters the world of human persons through a woman with the Holy Spirit. At the Annunciation, Mary hears the words, the Holy Spirit will come upon you.” And so it’s through a woman that this great gift of the Holy Spirit enters the world and takes flesh as our Lord Jesus. And so he’s saying that the women have a special prophetic role that is defending the truth of the human person, of the gospel, that the deepest reality of the human person. And the very fact that the woman’s body has the capacity to procreate, create a unique bond and a unique responsibility, a unique relationship to the person, first of all, the person, the baby that she’s giving birth to, but also creates a special sensitivity to the human person. And so he says, “women have a special mission to manifest the deepest truth of the human person, the human person who is made for love.” And the more this is understood, the more the women’s special call in our society is understood. Because he says, “there’s a danger of women in a society which only appreciates work. There’s a danger of women trying to imitate men.” And he says, and so this is a tense passage. He says, “The rightful opposition of women to what is expressed in the Biblical words, he shall rule over you.” So he says that there’s a rightful opposition of women to that, “but must not, under any condition, lead to the masculinization of women.” So of course, that’s happening in our society, masculinization of women and the feminization of men.  “In the name of liberation from male domination, women must not appropriate to themselves male characteristics contrary to their own feminine originality. There is a well-founded fear that if they take this path, women will not reach fulfillment, but instead will deform and lose that which constitutes their essential richness.” So the path for women to achieve their full dignity is not by imitating men; that would be losing that, but it’s by realizing the fullness of their special dignity of women. So that’s just a very quick touch just briefly going through that document, but again, I would highly recommend it, the dignity and vocation of women of John Paul II. And it’s not, it’s not very long, but just to summarize all that, and to conclude – “in the beginning, God made them male and female,” and so that passage from Genesis highlighted these two aspects of work and love. All of us are called to both. But there is an order. Work is for the human person, for love, but the person is not made for work. In a society where it sacrifices the human person for work is a disordered and sinful society. And so we see the great example of the Holy Family, the Holy Family that we have right here in our chapel, that both our Blessed Mother and St Joseph were working, but they were working out of love and for love. They were both working hard, very disciplined, very intelligent in their work, but the work was always for love and not the relationships sacrificed to their work. Men and women, so they weren’t like workaholics, they were hard workers, but not workaholics. Because what is a workaholic? It’s a person who sacrifices what’s more important of the human person to work. So men and women are equal in dignity as persons, but they have complementary gifts, and women have a special gift for what is deepest and greatest in the human person, the capacity for love. A sinful society does not value love properly. And this affects everyone, but it affects women in a particular way. And women have a special grace and mission to defend this deepest, this deepest core, this deepest dignity of the human person, and to help reveal this truth which Saint John Paul II calls this prophetism of women. And it’s interesting that God gives us prophetic gifts, both to men and women, but it seems like it’s especially to women, a special connection today between the prophetic graces and women. So with Mary, let us ask the Holy Spirit to lead us to discover the divine gift and being created in His image. It can be, it’s challenging, challenging today to be a man. It’s challenging today to be a woman. It affects each one of us differently. And that’s a whole other topic. We won’t try to go into it, but at the root of it is the problem; is not the fact that God created us, man and woman. That’s a gift from God. The problem is what our society is. There’s a problem in our society about how that’s understood and lived. But we don’t fix the problem by renouncing the gift that God has given us. We fix it by transforming society according to the spirit of the gospel. Amen.

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Mark 10:2-16, 10:2-12