The following quote concerns [an excerpt of] a discussion of the ideas of the late, Pope John Paul II, as discussed by Mary Shivanandan in Crossing the Threshold of Love: A New Vision of Marriage in the Light of John Paul II’s Anthropology, The Catholic University Of America Press: Washington, D.C.; 1999, pp. 154-157.
In it, Shivanandan focuses in on the ever-important and long-forgotten simple-and-profound truth of the family: In it human individuals are affirmed simply because they “ARE”. They receive affirmation and value for existing as “chips off the Divine ‘Block’ “, if-you-will (my allegory).
John Paul II then refers to Genesis and the creation of man and woman in original solitude as ‘human beings in an equal degree,’ both entrusted with the task of dominion over other creatures in the visible world. ‘The woman,’ he says, ‘is another “I” in a common humanity’ (MD, no. 6). The original solitude is overcome when the man finds a ‘helper fit for him/John Paul II characterizes this help as not just joint activity in subduing the earth but as a life-long union in one flesh through which life is transmitted to new generaÂtions. Reflecting on what both Genesis accounts say about man as made in the image of God, the Pope describes as essential to man as person not only his rational and free nature but his existence “in relation to another human person,’ which he calls a ‘prelude to the definitive self-revelation of the Triune God’ (MD, no. 7).
In recalling Jesus’ encounters with women in the Gospel and his admonition that the man who looks on a woman lustfully has committed adultery with her in his heart, John Paul II affirms both the dignity and subjectivity of women. The woman caught in adultery is told to ’sin no more.’ She is ‘a subject responsible for herself, and at the same time … [her dignity] is “given as a task” to man.’ Man must continually look inside himself to see if she who was given to him as a ’sister in humanity’ and a spouse has not become an ‘object’ for him of pleasure or exploitation. The fact that women were the first eye witnesses of Christ’s resurrection confirms their equality in the kingdom (MD, nos. 14-16).
The concept of original solitude as the basis for the communÂion of persons is evident in John Paul II’s novel application of the fourth commandment, ‘Honor your father and mother.’ It refers not only to the duty of children to honor their parents, but it is also equally the duty of parents to honor their sons and daughters. Since ‘to honor means to acknowledge,’ all persons in family must be acknowledged. Such mutual honoring is at the basis of the inner unity of the family. It also brings certain advantages to the family. The first of these, John Paul II cites as the ‘good of being together.’ It is the preeminent good both of marriage and the family community. John Paul II defines it as the good of the subject as such. This applies to each person but also to the family as a ’single communal subject.’ The family is more of a subject than any other institution in society. Ultimately, all human rights depend on the honoring of each particular individual which begins in the family. John Paul II goes so far as to say that the life of nations ‘passes’ by way of the family on the basis of the Fourth Commandment (LF, 15).
Fatherhood and motherhood also ‘presume the coexistence and interaction of autonomous subjects.’ There is a continual exchange of humanity within the family. While the parents strive to bring the children to a humanity that is increasingly mature, they in turn receive humanity from them. The parents’ We becomes the We of the family community. The family that is formed by the covenant of marriage has a social subjectivity that other unions cannot have and it needs to be recognized by society. While the rights of the family itself are linked to the rights of each person in the family correctly applied, the family is more than the sum total of its members and has rights accordingly. Its sovereignty as a society needs to be recognized for the good of society as a whole (LF, 16-17).Â
The ‘Letter to Families’ begins with an emphasis on the transcendent, ‘prayer by the family, prayer for the family and prayer with the family.’ Prayer is related to the subjectivity of man because it is through prayer that man discovers in a more profound way what it means to be a human I, a person. The family also discovers its own subjectivity. Through prayer the family is constituted as a domestic church and prayer is part of the witness of the family in living out their human and Christian vocation. It makes present the Bridegroom who ‘loved us to the end’ (cf. Jn 13:1). John Paul II urges families to be ‘convinced that this love is the greatest of all … [and] is really capable of triumphing over everything that is not love’ (LF, 3-5).
Nowhere can be seen more clearly the authentic meaning of original solitude, especially in marriage, than in the contrast he draws in ‘Letter to Families’ between individualism and personalism. On the surface they might seem to be identical, since both affirm the autonomous subject, but there is a radical antithesis between them. John Paul II defines individualism as presupposing a use of freedom in which man himself determines the truth of what is pleasing and useful. It is egocentric and selfish because it does not recognize legitimate demands on him in the name of an objective truth. ‘He does not want to become a “sincere gift”‘ (LF, 14). Personalism, as John Paul II has defined it in his writings, moves man to become a gift for others. An individualism that espouses the ethic of ‘free love,’ which gives unchecked rein to the passions, is destructive of the family. It is a utilitarian philosophy and can never bring about the ‘civilization of love’ (LF, 14).Â
Communion of Persons
When the spouses promise to be faithful to each other, they are making a conscious and free choice. Only persons are capable of making such a choice, and the choice can only be understood on the basis of the ‘full truth about the person who is a rational and free being.’ To this philosophic understanding of the person John Paul II adds the theological, citing Gaudium et Spes, no. 24, on the similarity with the divine likeness possessed by each individual and the similarity to the union of divine persons in the Trinity. Man has an innate need to live in truth and love, and this opens him both to God and others. It opens him especially to live in the communion of marriage and the family. The conjugal union and the family, which originates from it as a communion of persons, derive from the Trinitarian mystery. Living in relation ‘conforms to the innermost being of man and woman, to their innate and authentic dignity as persons’ (LF, 8).
In marriage man and woman become ‘one flesh.’ As human subjects with a different physical configuration (two original solitudes), the man and the woman are equally capable of living ‘in truth and love.’ This capacity is manifested in both a spiritual and a bodily dimension. It is through the body that the communion of persons in marriage is brought about. Their union in the flesh ought to conform to ‘truth and love.’ It should open them up to receiving a new life, another person made in the image of God who has called the parents to be co-creators with him. Because man is made in the image of God, ‘the genealogy of the person is inscribed in the very biology of generation.’ God is present in human motherhood and fatherhood in a way unique to the human species. He wills every individual for his own sake (Gaudium et Spes, no. 24). From the moment of conception the new human being is destined to express himself as a person, but, even beyond this life, he is called to an eternal destiny. The person ‘exists both for his own sake and reaches fulfillment precisely by sharing in God’s life’ (LF, 8-9).
In Mulieris Dignitatem, John Paul II says that as a ‘unity of the two’ men and women are called to live in a communion of love and to mirror the love of the Trinity in the world. This Trinitarian likeness is both inscribed in man’s being and given to him as a task. It is expressed in its fullness in the ‘ethos’ of the New Testament—the commandment to love. Man and woman from the beginning are called not just to exist beside each other but to ‘ exist mutually “one for the other.”‘ Woman is first of all created as a ‘helper’ for man as a person. On this most fundamental level man and woman mutually help each other as persons because to be a person means to be in interpersonal communion. Within this context of interpersonal communion the integration of what is masculine with what is feminine takes place. And it takes place through self-gift. Here John Paul II quotes Gaudium et Spes, no. 24, one of the two key passages from Vatican Council II for his theological anthropology. For only through becoming a sincere gift to another can a man or a woman attain self-realization. This truth, he says, is ‘the indispensable point of departure’ for any discussion of the vocation of women. The spousal character of the relationship between persons is already outlined in the Genesis texts and forms the basis for future development of woman’s role as virgin or mother (MD, no. 7).28
