Children of Adam and Eve

FROM A READING FOR JUNE 10, 10TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
‘We look not at what can be seen, but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal...’ — 2 Cor 4:18

(Editor’s note: This column is also based on the Scripture readings Ps 110 and 2 Cor 4:13-5:1.)

In the first reading (Gen 3:9-15), we learn of the story of our first parents, Adam and Eve, and their fall from their state of original innocence. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, the Church’s doctrine of original sin is “the reverse side” of the Good News.

The ultimate truth is the Good News of our faith: Salvation comes in and through Christ Jesus, our Lord. The catechism states: “The Church, which has the mind of Christ, knows well that we cannot tamper with the revelation of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ.”

Let’s clarify what we mean by sin before we look at the Good News of the Gospel to learn a remedy for sin. We have to start with original sin, which we learn about in the first reading. What exactly is original sin? We read in the catechism that original sin is, ultimately, lack of trust in the Creator and abuse of the great gift of free will given to us from God our Father.

In this sin of choosing to disobey the one thing that the Creator had asked our first parents to do — not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil — Adam and Eve forget their place in the universe. They forget that God is Creator and they are creatures. They who were called to be “like God” decide they want to be “without God, before God and not in accordance with God.”

They who were created in the image and likeness of God begin to reflect a distorted likeness, almost as in a funhouse mirror. Everything is put into disarray; all relationships are thrown asunder.

In human relationships, the human being is divided in himself and in his thoughts. He knows in the deepest part of his soul that he is created to know, serve and love God in this life and to be with Him in the next.

But, if he’s honest, he knows he really wants to serve himself first. His focus is on the things of this world, not on his true home, heaven. The human being’s relationship with the world is now disordered.

As the catechism reminds us, “Visible creation has become alien and hostile to man,” and relationships with fellow humans have become difficult. Even the most primordial relationship, that of man and woman, is “subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination.”

We see the bad fruits of sin: a threefold alienation of the human being from God, others and self. We see the true wages of sin: death.

Eve, the partner of the first among the living, Adam — she who was drawn out of the side of her partner and equal — was the woman who brought death into the world. It takes Mary, who, by being the Immaculate Conception, is conceived and born without the stain of original sin, to bring into this world the new Adam, the new man: Christ Jesus.

We need not ask the questions that the Lord asks in Sunday’s Gospel (Mk 3:20-35), “Who is my mother,” because we know who our mother is: Mary, His Blessed Mother, whom He shares with John the beloved and with us from the cross.

Prayer through the Blessed Virgin, especially when meditating on the mysteries of her Son’s life in the Rosary, can help us grow in virtue, so we can avoid sin. Mary, our mother — the new Eve, the sinless one — can help us who are born as children of Adam and Eve to recall exactly who we are: beloved sons and daughters of God, reborn in the spirit, made for immortality, not immorality!