I've started reading John Paul II's Wednesday addresses to his audience given between 1979-1984 known as the Theology of the Body. I like the way he talks about that event in Genesis 3, I have always called "the fall." He calls it "the first fall."
One of our favorite artists, Sara Groves writes in her song "Generations"
I can taste the fruit of Eve
I'm aware of sickness, death and disease
The results of her choices are vast
Eve was the first but she wasn't the last
And if I were honest with myself
Had I been standing at that tree
My mouth and my hands would be covered with fruit
Things I shouldn't know and things I shouldn't see
In the first three addresses, JP2 starts with Jesus interaction with his "interlocutors":
"Christ did not accept the discussion at the level at which his interlocutors tried to introduce it. In a certain sense he did not approve of the dimension that they tried to give the problem. He avoided getting caught up in juridico-casuistical controversies. On the contrary, he referred twice to "the beginning." Acting in this way, he made a clear reference to the relative words in Genesis, which his interlocutors too knew by heart. From those words of the ancient revelation, Christ drew the conclusion and the talk ended." (Wednesday 5 September 1979). Jesus, in Matthew 19, doesn't undo the layers of the rabbinical teaching, twice he returns to "the beginning." In other words, "what did God intend?" Or, "what is God's heart?" What a great "reset" button this is in every area. The first fall was just that-the first one. I have had my own fall, "my mouth and my hands covered with fruit." Jesus, you are the only one who can cut through the layers of my self-justification and defensiveness, and bring me to "the beginning" - to paradise where I trust you and live from your tree of life, the cross, instead of trusting myself and live out of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Link for John Paul II's messages: www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/catechesis_genesis/index.htm |
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