Men & Women ARE FROM E d e n

A study guide to John Paul II ’ s Theology of the Body. By Mary Healy

They give us a whole new vision for understanding who we are as men and women and how we can experience the happiness for which God destined us. The Theology of the Body The Theology of the Body writings are a fresh and profoundly original approach to the church’s teaching on love, sex and marriage.

It is no exaggeration to say that sex and marriage are in a meltdown – a crisis perhaps greater than at any other time in history. Pope John Paul II had the boldness to say that the answer is found in Eden – that the joy of lasting, true love experienced in the first marriage before the Fall is possible here and now.

God continually calls us to go “ back to the beginning ” – to rediscover his wonderful plan for humanity. The secret of man and woman is found not on different planets but in the biblical account of the first couple, created by God and placed in the garden of Paradise at the dawn of human history. Men and women are from Eden!

Chapter one BACK TO THE BEGINNING John Paul II puts his whole teaching in the framework of God’s unfolding plan between these two reference points – “the beginning” and “the end” of human history.

Chapter two ORIGINAL HUMANITY The point of returning to the beginning is not only to rediscover the meaning of marriage but also to help us grasp the significance of being male and female. If marriage is an unbreakable union of love between a man and a woman, what kind of persons must we be to be capable of such a union.

Chapter three FALLEN HUMANITY God created the man and woman with a capacity to be united with him in love forever. Yet this capacity could not be fulfilled apart from their free choice. There is no such thing as love without freedom.

Tempted by the serpent, Adam and Eve decided that rather than honor God, they would prefer to be their own gods. Rather than trust in their loving Creator, they decided to determine what was good and evil for themselves.

Chapter four REDEEMED HUMANITY The New Testament proclaims the fulfillment of God’s promise to fallen humanity. In Jesus the ancient curse of sin has been broken! Death has been destroyed, Satan has been conquered, and man has at last been reconciled to God. Redeemed humanity has begun…

Chapter five GLORIFIED HUMANITY The whole purpose of our life on earth is to learn to love and be loved as God loves and so prepare to share in his life forever. The saints are our models in this process of deification.

Chapter six MARRIAGE: The Primordial Sacrament Marriage is, in fact, the Bible’s deepest underlying symbolic key for expressing the relationship between God and man. This is why Pope John Paul II calls marriage the primordial sacrament: it is “the most ancient revelation (manifestation) of the plan in the created world.”

Chapter seven LIVING THE MYSTERY Practically, how can spouses live their marriage in a way that shares in and radiates the inexhaustible mystery of divine love?

Chapter eight LOVE IS FRUITFUL For JPII, the theology of the body comes now to its culmination. Everything he has said so far points to the vital significance of the link between the union of spouses and the generation of new life.

Chapter nine BUILDING A CULTURE OF LIFE We are in a world where forces are gathering for a great war – in our case, a culture war. We are facing an “anti- marriage ring,” in the form of an undermining of the marital bond and all that it safeguards: the family, the dignity of man and woman, the sanctity of human life.

The prophetic voice of Pope John Paul II has long recognized that the current threat to marriage and the family jeopardizes not only the life of individuals but civilization itself. The future of humanity passes through the family. The family is where a person learns what it means to be human. As goes the family, so goes humanity.

The future of the world is not beyond our influence! The seemingly small choices for good or evil made by seemingly insignificant people can have immense repercussions for the future. SAVE MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY