Chapter 3: "In the Beginning, Awe, Wonder and a Cosmic Explosion of Love"
“For the hardness of your heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (Matt 19:8).
As explored in the previous chapter, the burning desire for what is true, good, and beautiful—for what is real—is woven into the very fabric of our being. Cutting through the moral and sexual confusion of our age is less about acquiring new information and more about reconnecting with the deepest yearnings of our hearts, what Plato called eros.
At its core, this yearning is a longing to love and be loved. Even more profoundly, our bodies tell this story of incompleteness, seeking another to complete the narrative of our existence. This truth is most vividly expressed through our creation as male and female.”[1]
Our modern world has normalized the fall, but Jesus redirects us to “the beginning,” before sin distorted human history..
The Pharisees tested Jesus by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” Jesus, instead of limiting himself to their line of questioning, pointing to God’s original design for marriage. He answered, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one? So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” They said to him, “Why did Moses’ command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” He said to them, “For the hardness of your heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (Matt 19:3-8).
The first words of the Bible are, “Bereshit, in the beginning”...the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind, the Spirit, swept over the waters” (Gen 1:1-2). Then, a radiant flash of light pierced the darkness, and it was good, for God is good—God is Love.
Over five days, God’s creative work unfolded until the Garden of Eden emerged, a breathtaking stage set for a divine drama. Picture a lush forest teeming with wildflowers, majestic animals, and the songs of vibrant birds—a scene bursting with awe, wonder, and beauty, prepared for a wedding banquet! On the sixth day it’s as if God draws back into Himself and takes a selfie. What is revealed is an Eternal Exchange of Love, the Father pouring Himself out into the Son, the Son receives and returns this love, and from their mutual self-giving, the Holy Spirit proceeds. In a divine act of self-revelation, God created humanity in His image: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground. God created man in His image, in the divine image He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:26–27). God blessed them, saying, “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28).
This is the first truth God reveals about humanity in Scripture: we are created in His image, male and female, to reflect His Trinitarian love in the world. Our very bodies, in their masculinity and femininity, are sacramental, making visible the invisible mystery of God’s love.
Saint John Paul II beautifully articulates this truth, “The human body, with its sex—its masculinity and femininity—seen in the very mystery of creation, is not only a source of fruitfulness and of procreation, as in the whole natural order, but contains ‘from the beginning’ the spousal attribute, that is, the power to express love: precisely that love in which the human person becomes a gift—through this gift—fulfills the very meaning of his being and existence.”[2]
This truth became vividly real for me after marriage, when my wife gave birth to our first child. Holding our daughter, gazing at my wife, I was overwhelmed by the mystery of this new life. From the two of us, a third had come into being. Reflecting on this moment, and later on the births of our other children, I began to grasp what it means to image God in the created world. In the sacrament of marriage, my wife and I gave ourselves fully to one another, and from that mutual gift of love, God brought forth new life. We became co-creators with Him, reflecting the Trinitarian love where the Father and Son’s mutual self-giving brings forth the Holy Spirit.
As a boy, I had struggled to understand the Trinity—God as a communion of love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But holding my newborn child, I saw that her existence was a fruit of the love between my wife and me, made possible by God’s gift of life.
John Paul II went on to state his whole thesis, that when allowed to sink in, will revolutionize the way we understand the human body and sexuality.[3] “The body, and it alone,” John Paul II says, “is capable of making visible what is invisible, the spiritual and divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world, the invisible mystery hidden in God from time immemorial, and thus to be a sign of it”[4]
What does it mean? Though God is pure Spirit, invisible to us, He stamped His mystery into our bodies by creating us male and female in His image (Genesis 1:27). This image reflects the Trinity, a divine communion of three Persons. John Paul II explains that humanity images God not only through individual existence but through the communion of persons formed by man and woman from the beginning. This communion, blessed with the gift of fertility, reveals the “spousal meaning” of the body—a call to become a gift for one another in a “one flesh” union (Genesis 2:24). In this way, marriage constitutes a “primordial sacrament” understood as a sign that truly communicates the mystery of God’s Trinitarian life and love to husband and wife – and through them to their children, and through the family to the whole world.[5]
And this is the mystery of Truth and Love, the mystery of divine life, in which man really participates. In man created “Imago Dei” the very sacramentality of creation, the sacramentality of the world, was thus in some way revealed. In fact, through his bodiliness, his masculinity and femininity, man becomes a visible sign of the economy of Truth and Love, which has its source in God himself and was revealed already in the mystery of creation.[6]
Together with man, holiness has entered the visible world (naked without shame), the world created for him. The sacrament of the world, and the sacrament of man in the world, comes forth from the divine source of holiness and is instituted, at the same time, for holiness.[7]
Discussion Questions with Scripture and Catechism References
· How does the creation of humanity as male and female reflect the Trinitarian love of God, and what does this reveal about the purpose of our bodies?
Reference: Genesis 1:26–28; Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 355–357: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them… Being in the image of God, the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone.”
· Jesus points to “the beginning” to explain God’s design for marriage (Matthew 19:3–8). How can returning to God’s original plan for humanity help us navigate moral and sexual confusion in the modern world?
Reference: Matthew 19:3–8; CCC 1603–1605: “The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws… God himself is the author of marriage.”
· John Paul II describes the body as having a “spousal meaning” that expresses love and self-gift. How can understanding this truth shape the way we view sexuality and relationships?
Reference: Genesis 2:24–25; CCC 2331–2336: “Sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses… is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman.”
· The chapter describes marriage as a “primordial sacrament” that reflects God’s Trinitarian life and love, ‘from the beginning’. How can married couples live out this sacramental calling in their daily lives, and what impact might this have on their families and communities?
Reference: Ephesians 5:25–32; CCC 1613–1617: “By its very nature [marriage] is ordered to the good of the couple, as well as to the generation and education of children… Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament.”
[1] Fill These Hearts, pg. 8.
[2] Man and Woman, He Created Them, No. 15.1.
[3] The theology of the Body: an education in being human, article by Christopher West
[4] Man and Woman He Created Them, A Theology of the Body, John Paul II, February 20, 1980.
[5] The theology of the Body: an education in being human, article by Christopher West
[6] Man and Woman He Created Them, A Theology of the Body, John Paul II, No. 19.4-5.
[7] ibid