2025/01/27
180. The Passion of the Father and New Men and Women
As we considered in the previous article, the Father's passion was poured out on the male members of the Christians, the new people. That is because the work which God began by saying, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Gen 1:26), must reach the point already mentioned in Genesis 1, that is, the point where he saw everything he had made and said that "it was very good" (Gen 1:31).
In Genesis, the first "man", whom God himself formed from the dust of the ground, was the "first human person". God then created the woman from one of the ribs of this first "man". She became the "second human person", the one who was to produce human life as the helper of God's work of creation. Hence, the woman has many eggs in her body that become human life, and the memory of that fact gives the woman a nature that is open to the life of others. This nature is highly compatible with the Word, the second persona, the "Word," who is with God, who is God, who makes all things, and who has life in him (cf. Jn 1:1-4). That is evident from the fact that the woman spoke words first, beginning her interaction with the "human information" (the serpent) (cf. Gen 3:1-6).
God then, after taking one of his ribs from the "first human person", closed up its place with flesh and created the "third human person", the male. The man came to know his physical insufficiency when he looked at the woman (cf. Gen 2:23). The memory of that lack causes the male to have a nature which makes him turn to others to fulfil it. God chose his people, appointed prophets and led them with fervour, making several covenants so that men would turn to the Holy Spirit, God's third persona, with the total mobilisation of this nature. Finally, he sent his Son. The prayer of Jesus in John 17:6-19 expresses the desire of the Son, who bore the Father's passion and fulfilled it. The deep love of God reflected in it evokes the image of a mother about to pass away praying for the children she is leaving behind.
In the fullness of time, God, with the cooperation of Mary of Nazareth, sent his second persona into the world as Jesus Christ. Thus, the vacant post of the "first human person" was occupied by God, who was with the people. The Old Testament had already prophesied that women would bear children without intercourse (cf. Isa 7:14). The prophecy was fulfilled in the New Testament through Mary of Nazareth. Since the birth of the first child by in-vitro fertilisation in the UK in 1978, many women have already given birth to children outside of intercourse. The event that took place with the birth of Jesus became a prophecy about our time in the future (cf. Rev 19:10). This process of prophecy fulfilment demonstrates the involvement of God's reality in human history.
From the above, we can see that God created man male and female so that human beings might be transformed by the Holy Spirit into the likeness of the Triune God. Hence, Jesus Christ led his chosen Apostles into the priesthood of the New Covenant, by which the Eucharist is produced. The Apostles who received the priesthood became the foundation of the Church that Jesus had given birth to by his death on the Cross (cf. Rev 21:14). The Church depicted in the San Damiano Crucifix is indeed composed of the people created new men and women. The Father's passion blows into it through the Holy Spirit.
Maria K. M.
