“So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man,

and while he was asleep,

he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.

The LORD God then built up into a woman the rib

that he had taken from the man.

When he brought her to the man, the man said:

   ‘This one, at last, is bone of my bones

      and flesh of my flesh;

   this one shall be called ‘woman,’

      for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.’

That is why a man leaves his father and mother

and clings to his wife,

and the two of them become one flesh.”

“But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. 

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother

and be joined to his wife,

and the two shall become one flesh.

So they are no longer two but one flesh. 

Therefore what God has joined together,

no human being must separate.”

It is a great joy for me to preside at weddings and work with couples in preparation for their marriage. It is great to hear their stories, share some of the church’s theology of marriage, and prepare for the actual rite of marriage. I am grateful for our deacons, who also assist every couple, and for the Archdiocese of Louisville and the teams for Engaged Encounter that provide other resources and events to help them prepare. One important task every couple has is to choose the scripture readings for their wedding. They read through dozens of readings from the Old Testament, New Testament, and Gospels, as well as commentaries on the readings to select ones that are meaningful to them. They often discuss at some length with each other and pray together. I always ask why they decided on the particular readings and what process they used. Only one time did I have a groom say, “I just left it up to her.” At least he was being honest!

One of the common choices for couples is from the first reading today in Genesis. It is sometimes called the second story of creation because it follows the seven-day story we are all familiar with and deals more with human nature. The two stories are from two different sources that scholars call the Priestly Source and the Yahwist Source, respectively. The Priestly Source describes human creation as such, “God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Some, on a surface reading of the second story, recoil a bit at the thought that woman is derived from man signifying some kind of subordination. That is not the meaning of the text. In fact, St. John Paul II went to some lengths to correct this misunderstanding. Although beyond the scope of this reflection, he showed that Adam’s deep sleep was a form of return to a precreation state by God, where God formed differentiation from the beginning. In the timeline, after all the animals were found to be unsuitable partners, God essentially went back so that man and woman were created of the same substance. It reflects the same reality in different words of the Priestly source, “male and female he created them.” “Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” is a recognition not of derivation, but of coequality and essential sameness. Male and female are distinct, but equal and of the same essence, the image of God. These coequal partners enter the mutual covenant of marriage and become one through a total gift of the self to the other. It is a joy!