God made man and woman to be together. God doesn’t make mistakes. If we are married, let’s make the most out of our marital bond, let’s be deserving of the wonderful responsibility God has given us as a help-mate to our husbands. Let’s learn and grow to become what God intended us to be when He first made that beautiful, gentle lady out of Adam’s rib.
from Christ in the Home, Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J.
How marvelous is the description of the creation of man and woman which the book of Genesis gives us.
God has created the universe. He has hurled worlds into space. Among all these worlds is the earth and on it are all the splendors of the mineral world, the plant world, and the animal world. Each time God sent forth some new creature from His creative Hands, He paused and said, “It is good!” God saw that it was good.
Yes, all of that creation is but a framework, a pedestal. Whom does He intend to place within that framework, upon that pedestal?
Man.
Look at Adam. He has intelligence, free will, and a heart.
A heart–the power to love. But to whom will man direct that power of love which God has placed in him?
God placed all of creation “beneath his feet.” But what does it mean for man to have everything beneath his feet if he has no one to clasp to his heart? God understood man. That is why the Most High is not satisfied upon the completion of His masterpiece. He does not say as He did after each preceding creation, “It is good,” but He says, “It is not good for man to be alone.”
Therefore, the Most High, the divine Sculptor, chisel in Hand approaches His masterpiece to attack the marble anew; he lays open its side and from the avenues to the heart removes a part; this part of Adam, He forms into woman.
A magnificent indication of how close must be the union between husband and wife! A union of wonderful strength, engendered by love and for love!
Saint Thomas explains that “God took the substance with which He formed woman close to the heart of man. He did not take it from the head for she is not made to dominate. Neither did he take it from man’s feet, for she is not made for servitude. He took it near the heart because she is made to love and to be loved.”
Such is the marvel of the union of love in marriage according to God. Love will make of two beings a single one.
Adam acclaimed it upon awaking: “This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.” That is why the sacred text adds: “Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.”
This virginal page does not yet speak of the mother but only of the spouse. God gives Man a companion–not several but one–and this society is called conjugal society. This society will be composed of two persons, a couple, only two. So true is this that until this first woman became a mother she had no name of her own. There was only one name for both.
How wonderful is the inviolable oneness of the human couple according to the desire of God!
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Wow! How beautiful is this marriage which God gave us from the very beginning!
I very very much love the description by St. Thomas Aquinas. Thank you!
Dear Leanne,I’m off of facebook during Lent, but I’m happy that I can still read your posts via my email. Yours is my favorite website! It is so true that we are trying to live a Catholic life in a very un-Catholic world. Your website is like a haven in this mad world we live in today.Anyway, I was just telling my daughter about a post that you had posted a while back about when you were first married a farmer, and how he would drive fast and look around at what the other farmers were doing, planting, etc. It reminded me so much of some of the men in our family, and I would like to share it with them. I remember laughing so hard, because I could relate to what you said!I’ve tried to find it on your blog but didn’t have any luck. I don’t remember what the headline was called? I thought that maybe you’d remember and know how to find it?God bless you and all your family,Karen Nelson
Hi Karen, Thank you for your very nice comment! Haha I’m glad you enjoyed my little story “The City Mouse and the Country Mouse”. Here is the link: https://finerfem.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/the-city-mouse-and-the-country-mouse-2/
God bless you, too, and I hope you have a fruitful Lent!
<blockquote.“God took the substance with which He formed woman close to the heart of man. He did not take it from the head for she is not made to dominate. Neither did he take it from man’s feet, for she is not made for servitude. He took it near the heart because she is made to love and to be loved.”
I do not know how I could have missed this quote until now. What a profound and moving insight into God’s plan.
Oops, missed the blockquote there.