In The Beautiful Garden

Another few moments in a busy day.  I want to continue my reflections on the Book of Genesis which we are reading at daily Mass for the next couple of weeks.  I think it is important that we read this book and understand its message because it reveals the basic truths about who we are as human beings, truths that are under attack and denied today.  The Venerable Pope John Paul II drew on these passages as he began to write his Theology of the Body, and so we can see in that the importance of these inspired words for us as we face the culture of death and the attempt of secularism to undermine the family.

Today we see an interesting account of creation which reverses the order of the creation week.  One thing we need to understand as we read the accounts of creation in Genesis: they are not scientific accounts - they are theological - they teach us the meaning and purpose of creation not the manner in which it occurred.  As the Church has said and continues to say - it is up to science to explore how the world came into being, but it is the Church, through Scripture and Sacred Tradition which teaches us why it came into being and who started the process. 

In this second account, only a few verses (Gen 2:4-9), we see man created first as the waters fall on to the land - God forms man from dust and then breathes the breath of life into him and he becomes a living soul.  That is interesting.  Can that be seen as a hint of evolution?  Just a question.  The waters fall onto the land, man comes into being and then, at some point, God gives him a living soul.  Interesting. 

Then, Genesis continues, a garden is planted in Eden in the east, and vegetation springs into life.  The message is obvious - it is created for man.   While men and women are part of creation, it is brought into being for them.  At my homily at Mass this morning I said that this is God's providence - he provides for us, give us a home and loves us, not with mere feelings but with life and the means to live it and flourish, and we are prepared for a great destiny.  In terms of our origins this is good news.  

However, there are limits.   Though man is the at the pinnacle of creation, he is still a creature, and though certain things may seem to be within his reach, there is a boundary which he must not pass. In the garden there are two trees - the Tree of Life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, man must not eat of the second tree -he can eat of all the rest, including it seems of the Tree of Life which confers eternal life, but not the other.  This is interesting.  The Tree of Life will confer eternal life, and God has no problem with men and women eating of that - we are destined for eternal life.   The other is a no no because it will make men and women think they are god.

We love to push beyond the limits.  It might be said that God was looking for trouble planting the forbidden tree in the garden, and say he was, perhaps, a little foolish in drawing man's attention to it.  But yet it had to be that way, for this represents our freedom as human beings, a freedom which is necessary if we are to know love.  God created us to love and love is a choice - no freedom, no choice, no love.  It was a big risk and it did not turn out well at the start, but the remedy, as we know, was already planned.