The First Word, Part 3

Pronouncing the second syllable of Original Unity

12/29/2023

John Paul II finds a second piercing insight – which we are calling a second “syllable” – meditating on the first word of Christ where Jesus returns to Genesis 1 and 2, namely, Original Unity. Even though we are still struggling to properly pronounce the first syllable called Original Solitude let us add the second syllable of Original Unity. Like Original Solitude, the true meaning of this second syllable will also surprise us. In order to present the full richness of Original Unity, the pope combines two Genesis texts. First, he considers Gn 1:27 which reads: “So God created man in his image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” But John Paul finds Original Unity also expressed in Gn 2:24, which states: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.” In other words, the pope insists that “the image of God” expressed in Gn 1:27 chiefly resides in the “one flesh” union of husband and wife described in Gn 2:24.

John Paul explains why he combines these texts, and sounds out this second syllable: "Man becomes an image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion. He is, in fact, ‘from the beginning’ not only an image in the solitude of one Person…but also and essentially, the image of an inscrutable divine communion of Persons. In this way, the second account [Gn 2:24] could also prepare for understanding the trinitarian concept of the ‘image of God,’ even if ‘image’ appears only in the first account [Gn 1:27]” (Man and Woman He Created Them, 163-64).

Now, we Christians do not believe that God is a solitary Loner, like some Lone Ranger galloping through eternity, but rather a loving communion of three divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Human beings become, therefore, an “image of God” not primarily when we stand alone, but when we “come together,” as the Beatles sang. But we become this divine mirror never more perfectly than when husband and wife unite in sexual intimacy. The pope states this explicitly: “The unity about which Genesis 2:24 speaks (‘and the two shall become one flesh’) is without doubt the unity that is expressed and realized in the conjugal act” (Man and Woman He Created Them, 167). Scott Hahn once quipped that the two become one, and the one is so real that nine months later you have to give it a name. You have a baby! The two become three.

By the way, can you see how the pope is already laying the philosophical and theological groundwork to refute the modern arguments in favor of contraception? The Holy Father is like the brilliant lawyer Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s classic To Kill A Mockingbird. How so? Well, with these three words of Christ – so far we have only learned two syllables of Christ’s first word – John Paul is slowly building his case, and in the final section of the theology of the body, he unveils his “closing arguments” against contraception. John Paul even provides this foreshadowing: “This unity through the body (‘and the two will be one flesh’) possesses a multiform dimension: an ethical dimension, as is confirmed by Christ’s response to the Pharisees in Matthew 19 (see also Mk 10), and also a sacramental dimension” (Man and Woman He Created Them, 165). That is, when you understand human sexuality as a reflection of God’s love – where two become three – some options like contraception suddenly sounds odious. Not just immoral, but blasphemous.

Let me draw out two practical implications of this second syllable of Original Unity and hear what it sounds like when we say it out-loud. I have recently been reading Schuyler Bailar’s book called He/She/They. Schuyler was born female and underwent a sex-change in order to present herself now as a male. Schuyler wrote about some of her childhood challenges: "When I was in kindergarten, each of my classmates and I were paired with what the school called a ‘buddy’…Your buddy was supposed to be the same gender as you. So because I was not out as trangender at the time, my buddy was a girl. I was fairly disappointed when I learned this – there was nothing wrong with my buddy, but I didn’t understand why I had to be paired with someone based on gender. But it quickly became apparent to me that gender was one of the most important categories in life – at least to those around me” (He/She/They, 25).

The pope would certainly be one of those people “around” who believed gender is “one of the most important categories in life.” The pope, however, does not believe gender is merely a “category” but rather it is “constitutive” of being human; part of our human core. He writes: “Precisely the function of sex [that is, being male or female], which in some way is ‘constitutive for the person’ (not only ‘an attribute of the person’), shows how deeply man, with all his solitude, with the uniqueness and unrepeatability proper to the person, is constituted by the body as ‘he’ or ‘she’” (Man and Woman He Created Them, 166), not “he/she/they.” That is, femaleness or maleness determines the impervious psychosomatic structure of each human person, whose complementarity as male and female forms the basis of Original Unity, which, when the two become one and thus three, marvelously mirrors the Holy Trinity. This is how you say “Original Unity.”

At one point in Schuyler Bailar’s book, she almost agrees with Pope John Paul II! Unexpectedly, she explains why she chose not to have her uterus and ovaries removed, euphemistically termed “middle surgery.” She admits candidly: “So I have not discarded the prospect of having children with my own body and would need these organs in order to do so. Though many trans men might feel a disconnect with their internal reproductive organs, I feel the opposite. My uterus and surrounding parts are symbolic of where I came from, and I cherish this” (He/She/They, 57). When I was growing up in Little Rock, there was a Mexican restaurant down the street called El Chico. At the time not speaking Spanish, I just figured El Chico was some random name for a restaurant. Later, when I learned Spanish I discovered that “el chico” means “the small boy.” In other words, I was saying words I did not fully understand. So, too, Schuyler Bailar, by keeping her reproductive organs, is saying “Original Unity,” although she does not know what this syllable means yet. But one day she will learn this language. In a sense, Schuyler gets the right answer but for the wrong reasons. John Paul II, on the other hand, gives the right reasons for keeping reproductive organs.

In a veritable ode to motherhood, the pope-saint exclaims: "The whole exterior constitution of woman’s body, its particular look, the qualities that stand, with the power of perennial attraction…are in strict union with motherhood. With the simplicity characteristic to it, the Bible (and the liturgy following it) honors and praises throughout the centuries ‘the womb that bore you and the breasts from which you sucked milk’ (Lk 11:17). These words are a eulogy of motherhood, of femininity, of the feminine body in its typical expression of creative love" (Man and Woman He Created Them, 212, emphasis in original). When I meet with engaged couples for marriage preparation I tell them that a woman’s body is “a walking miracle” (that always puts a big smile on the girl's face) because in the woman's womb is the cradle of life. Every human life is a miracle, the miracle of potentially being a mirror of the Most Holy Trinity. Each in their own way, Pope Saint John Paul II and Schuyler Bailer appreciate the depth of the meaning of the female body, but only the pope understands why.

By his penetrating analysis of these two Genesis texts, 1:27 and 2:24, the Holy Father takes us far below the level of earthly existence and reveals new and glorious truths. Following the pope’s contemplation of both the Bible and the body, we have learned to articulate now two syllables of the first word of Christ, namely, Original Solitude and Original Unity.

Praised be Jesus Christ!