by Tarcisio Stramare

The Bible begins the story of salvation history with God the "creator". Things come into existence in response to his word, becoming the “visible” image of what he plans and wants, a process that culminates and ends in man: “And God created man in his image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen 1, 27). The detailed description of the formation of the "two" - the male and female man - wants to underline the "unity" in the "diversity" (Gen 2,18-24).
A "wisdom" reflection on the story of creation, taking into account the entire sacred history and theological development, leads us to discover the profound meaning of things, going back from the visible "created" to its source, that is, to the invisible "Creator", “lover of life”, as we read in the book of Wisdom:
“You, in fact, love all things that exist
and you have no disgust for any of the things you have created;
if you had hated something, you would not even have formed it.
How could something exist if you didn't want it?
Could that which was not called into existence by you be preserved? You are indulgent towards all things, because they are yours,
Lord, lover of life” (11, 24ff.).

It is the love of God that creates the goodness of things, towards which our will is attracted. it is equally the love of God that decides on the different "lovability" of things. “There would not be one thing better than the other, if God did not want a greater good for one thing than for another”, teaches St. Thomas, deducing that “for God to love something more is nothing other than wanting to do so something a greater good." Well, this is precisely the key to understanding the first book of Genesis, in which the sacred author, describing the subsequent works of creation, underlines after each of them that "God saw that it was good" (vv. 4.10.12.18.21.25 ); shrewdly, after the last work, the one that crowns them all, that is, "man, the image of God" (1, 27), he raises his tone and writes: "it was a very good thing" (v. 31).
Precisely by analyzing the mystery of creation in the light of its source which is God-love, Blessed John Paul II highlights its essential characteristic of "gift", that is, of visible sign of divine Love, focusing above all on man, the the only creature that God wanted for itself and consequently more full of meaning. “Man appears in the visible world as the highest expression of the divine gift, because he carries within himself the internal dimension of the gift. And with it he brings into the world his particular resemblance to God, with which he also transcends and dominates his 'visibility' in the world, his corporeity” (Feb. 21, 1980). Man, therefore, constituted the sacrament of supreme Love, is essentially a gift and manifests himself as such when he does not remain "alone": "It is not good for man to be alone" (Gen 2,18:10). Man, in fact, realizes his characteristic of being the "image of God" precisely in "giving himself", that is, "existing 'with someone' and, even more profoundly and completely, existing 'for someone'". The relationship and communion of people reveal themselves in this aspect to be fundamental and constitutive for man. “Communion of people means existing in a mutual 'for', in a relationship of mutual gift”. From this perspective, it should not be surprising if it is precisely the "body" that brings out, through sexual differences, the dimension of gift that is specific to it. “The body, which expresses femininity 'for' masculinity and vice versa masculinity 'for femininity, manifests the reciprocity and communion of people. He expresses them through the gift as a fundamental characteristic of personal existence. This is the body: witness to creation as a fundamental gift, therefore as witness to Love as a source, from which this same giving was born” (1980 Feb. 21). “The body, and only it, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It was created to transfer the mystery hidden from eternity in God into the visible reality of the world, and thus be a sign of it. Man, through his corporeality, his masculinity and femininity, becomes a sensitive sign of the economy of Truth and Love, which has its source in God himself and which was already revealed in the mystery of creation" (1980 February XNUMX ).
To this total gift of self, called "spousal", corresponds the love of friendship, which, as St. Thomas still teaches, is not just any love, but "that which is combined with benevolence, that is, when we love someone by wishing them good. If, however, we do not want good for the loved ones, but we want their good for us, then it is not a question of the love of friendship, but of concupiscence... Indeed, for friendship not even benevolence is enough, as mutual love is also required ”. According to the same holy Doctor, the love of friendship also presupposes similarity or requires it: "By the very fact that two are similar, as if to have the same being, they are in some way one in that being... And therefore the affection of one tends towards the other as towards himself and wants the good for him as towards himself”. Isn't this the content of the popular expression: “soul mates”?
When this similarity is not perfect, the love of friendship degenerates into the love of concupiscence, which is "the love of the useful and the delightful", as St. Thomas clearly defines it. Here comes the sinful experience of the knowledge of good and evil (cf. Gen 2,17; 3,11), which has taken away from man, man-woman, "full freedom" from every constraint of the body and sex (Gen 3,10), freedom above all as self-mastery (self-mastery), indispensable "to be able to remain in the relationship of the 'sincere gift of self' and to become such a gift for each other through all their humanity made of femininity and masculinity" (17 February 1980). And it is again the biblical story of creation that underlines this loss of "full freedom" from the constraint of the body and sex, that is, of the purity of the gift, when it points out that "the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they were naked ; they plaited fig leaves and made themselves girdles” (Gen 3,7; cf. 2,25); and furthermore, regarding the woman: “Your instinct will be towards your husband, but he will dominate you” (3,16; cf. 2,23). Original sin thus compromised the sacramental function of the body, its "nuptial meaning". Man will never fully rediscover himself in the total gift of himself and will, on the contrary, end up making the other, "bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh" (Gen 2,23), no longer the end of the own gift, but the object of one's desires. “Through concupiscence man tends to appropriate another human being, which is not his, but which belongs to God” (Letter to Families, n. 20).
For the Christian, the love of God will find its maximum expression above all in the mystery of the Incarnation, which is the "gift" of the only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, for the redemption of sinful humanity. Benedict XVI dealt with it in his Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, where the theme is widely developed.