Ave Maria Meditations
In the beginning, in Genesis, we are told that God made man in His image, “in the image and likeness of God”, and that He made us male and female. For most of us, it is clear to us that our spiritual souls are in the image of God but we forget that so also are our bodies. In creating man, male and female in His likeness, the image of God is also in our sexuality. For God said, “Let us make man in our image. Let us make them male and female.”
God is Trinity, and it has been revealed to us that in God, there is paternity. There is one who begets and there is, Jesus Christ, the One who is begotten. And the love of the One who begets, for the One who is begotten, is the third Person of the holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit. When the Word took flesh; when God, in the person of Jesus Christ, took on our human nature from the blessed virgin Mary, He gave to that human nature His own existence. Christ and His Person brought together the union of the human and the divine. This union in His Person we call the Hypostatic Union.
God came into our midst, not simply to proclaim who He is; not simply to communicate truth to us; but the ultimate purpose why Jesus came, was that He wanted to enter into a mystical union of life and of love with God’s people. Through all the Scriptures this mystical union is expressed in marital terminology, namely, God being called the Groom and Israel being the bride. In the new covenant, this union of life and love of Christ with the people of God, we called the Mystical Body of Christ. The marital couple makes present in a very special way the Church, namely the union of Christ with the bride.
Msgr. Philip Reilly
