Created for Communion: Living the Greatest Commandments through the Theology of the Body

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and prophets” (Mt 22:37-40).

All the law and prophets, all the history of the chosen people, DEPEND on two commandments. The word depend, in late Middle English, means to ‘wait or be in suspense ‘: from Old French dependre, from Latin dependere, from de- ‘down’ plus pendere ‘hang.’  So, one could say that these two commandments are the fundamental rules upon which everything else relies. Without these two commandments, everything else falls apart, dissolves away, and has no foundation. 

Original Solitude: Created for Communion with God

As you probably know, commandments one to five have to do with loving God, and six to ten have to do with loving your neighbor. In John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, we learn about who we were created to be from the beginning. To help us understand, he lays out the Original Experiences.  If you haven’t read Dr. Andrew Sodergren’s article on the Original Experiences, I highly recommend it.  You can find it here. We are going to look at the greatest commandment through the lens of two of JPII’s Original Experiences, Original Solitude and Original Unity.

As John Paul II unfolds the Original Experiences, we realize that in the beginning there was union and communion: perfect integration of body and soul, among persons, with God, and with nature. The creation stories teach us much about who we are, who God is, and the importance of relationship. The first of the Original Experiences is Original Solitude. When Adam experienced this solitude, JPII says it has two meanings: a positive and a negative. In the positive meaning, Adam realizes who he is: the only creature created in the image and likeness of God, and that he was created to be in relationship with God and, ultimately, with others.

In his solitude, Adam is not merely alone; he is alone WITH God. Scripture shows us that we are made for communion with God first. In the reading of the greatest commandment, the relationship with God also comes first. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Before any other relationships, Adam first had a relationship with God. Just like Adam, our relationship with God should come first. We cannot properly order our relationships without establishing this foundational relationship. He gives us the firm foundation to stand on. Just like Adam, this helps us understand who we are – persons created in the image and likeness of God to be a gift. Jesus draws us to Himself, teaches us who we are, and what we are called to. When we first have a relationship with God, it keeps us from being puffed up by others’ compliments and from being deflated by their criticism. First, we must understand who we are and live in communion with God. Then, we can have relationships with others. We need this fundamental relationship in order to have good relationships with others.

God wants you to know your unique unrepeatability. We must take time each day to build our relationship with Him. We must allow Him into the places in our hearts that we hide and close off. When we allow Him to come in and heal us, to show us how He loves us, He teaches us how to love others in their woundedness. We must be receptive to what God has for us. There is no communion without receptivity. We MUST open our hearts and invite Him into the depths of who we are. He is gentle, He is kind, and He loves us.

This foundation of a relationship with God, nurtured daily, gives us a firm place to stand.  We may make it through good times and be able to stand, but if we want to make it through the hard times, especially if we want to lead others through them, we MUST have this foundation.

Original Unity: Created for Communion with Others

 After Adam names the animals, God puts Adam to sleep and creates Eve.  Like Adam, Eve is created by God’s hands in His image and likeness.  Created by Love and for love.  She is also created to be a GIFT.  She also needs her relationship with God to come first.

“And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mt 22:39).

Again, the first five commandments concern loving God, and commandments six through ten focus on loving your neighbor. Adam realized that there was no one else like him, no one else who had a relationship with the Creator. He alone was created in the image and likeness of God, created by Love for love, created to be a GIFT. He needed someone to be a helpmate, someone to be a gift to, someone who also has a relationship with God, someone who can help him understand himself and live out his identity to the fullest measure.

Adam and Eve were created in the image and likeness of a God who IS Communion — a communion of Persons, giving, receiving, and bearing forth of life. In his explanation of Original Unity, the second Original Experience, John Paul II tells us, “Man becomes an image of God not so much in the moment of solitude, as in the moment of communion” (TOB 23:4).

 The Body Reveals the Gift of the Person

Adam sees Eve and says, “At last, bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” He sees her and realizes she is someone else like him, created from the same stuff, created in God’s image and likeness, and with a unique, exclusive, unrepeatable relationship with the Creator. Eve was for Adam, and Adam was for Eve, someone to give themselves as a gift, to live in communion with, to image God with. Adam and Eve can see this in their bodies. They can look upon the other’s complete body-soul combination with a pure gaze and see that they were created to give themselves as a gift and to receive the other as a gift.

This is the core of the Theology of the Body. We understand who we are and learn who God is in and through the body. And our bodies are integrally united to our souls. Body and soul together constitute one human nature: the soul gives the body its specifically human life, while the soul’s ordinary activities are naturally oriented toward embodiment and sense experience. John Paul II says it this way, “The body, in fact, and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It has been created to transfer into the visible reality of the world, the mystery hidden from eternity in God, and thus to be a sign of it” (TOB 19:4).

So, understanding our body, as a body-soul composite, is key to understanding who God is and, therefore, who we are, since we are created in His image and likeness. Our bodies are Holy — the only thing capable of making God visible on earth. Our God, Father, and Creator, is a God of communion. He invites us to be in communion with Him. This communion helps us understand our identity. This foundation allows us to live our vocation with joy, be in communion with others, and lead others into communion with God and each other. It trains us to give and receive so we can bear forth life!

Then, we image Him by being in communion and bearing fruit with others, most visibly with our spouses. This giving, receiving, and bearing forth of life can be physical life, of course, but there is plenty of other fruit that can be born as well. I am sure you have had friendships that have borne the fruit of joy, consolation, peace, understanding, and love.

Our primary relationship with our Creator gives us a firm foundation for our relationships with others. It has to come first, not by recommendation but by commandment. Without it, we are attempting to stand on quicksand.

Living Communion in a Fallen World

The devil is the father of lies. His mission is division. He wants you to conclude that you cannot be in communion with God and that other things are more important uses of your time. He will tell you that you don’t have time to enter into an ever-deepening relationship with God. He will also tell you that real communion with others is impossible, that you cannot form real relationships in which you can be a gift to others, receive them as gifts, and bear fruit.

Each day, as we live our lives, we constantly make decisions that either deepen our communion with God and others or lead to separation from God and others. These decisions significantly affect our families and communities. We must build this foundation each day, and as we grow in communion with God, we can rely on it to deepen our communion with others and help others grow in communion with God as well.

The Greatest Commandment as a Way of Life

In the beginning, the human person was in communion. Communion with God and others. This communion was ruptured at the Fall, but it remains what we long for now and completes our ultimate destiny. God IS a communion of persons. He created us in His image to be in communion with Him and with one another, evident in our creation as male and female. Although the Fall ruptured this communion, Jesus came so we could begin to experience communion anew now and once again look forward to full communion with God and others in the eschaton. How do we live in this fallen world, striving for union and communion? We live the greatest commandment.

By Kathleen Cory,

Regional Director of Implementation

kcory@ruahwoods.org

Image: Church of Mercy. Azulejos. The sermon on the mount. Jesus. Evora. Portugal.
 — Illustration by godongphoto