­God did a wonderful job in creating things. He did it with a Big Bang, out of which came the universe and galaxies, and … well, whatever else.

So, God is a great artist.

Let’s look.

For all eternity the three persons in God have loved each other so much that they are one. When God wanted to create a living being that could share in this inmost characteristic, he knew it would be called “deep love.”

But unfortunately, in the sequence of creation, God made a mistake.

The First Reading tells us that he created the male first.

Everyone knows that a man, left on his own, will likely be helpless. He needs company, needs partnership, correction, and sometimes just a lot of forgiveness. For almost all men, this means being with, or at least open to, the creature called woman.

But there were no creatures called women in existence. Since God is a relationship of three persons to the point of forming one being, maybe God thought that adding another creature would make the same thing possible for created beings.

First experiments: he took scoops of earth and made …

various wild animals and various birds of the air,
and he brought them to the man
to see what he would call them;
whatever the man called each of them
would be its name. (First Reading)

But none of the wild animals proved to be the suitable partner for the man.

So next, God made a move that was actually quite smart. Instead of trying to form a partner out of the earth for the man, as he had with the animals, he spread a deep sleep over the man and removed a rib from him.

He fashioned this into a woman.

This new gambit worked.

There was a great intimacy between the man and the woman. She was, as the man put it clumsily, “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh!” The two were made out of the same stuff—how much closer can you get?

Marriage came next. As the First Reading puts it, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh.”

As centuries went by, millennia really, there came a popular saying among husbands.

Women! You can’t live with them
and you can’t live without them!

I cannot repeat here what women say, but it often starts out with, “MEN! … ” and a list of particulars follows.

Sadly, divorce made its entrance. It had been around for centuries by the time the Pharisees came to Jesus with the following argument: “Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce and dismiss [his wife]” (Gospel).

Jesus reminded them sternly of why God had made both man and woman, not just the one, not just the other. He wanted them to share an intimate relationship that would be like the Trinity. He stated it this way:

  “What God has joined together, no human must separate.”

So, if today you find yourself divorced, or alone, or left without your beloved because of death, or if your mate and you do not get along, what can you do?

Do everything you can.

Like the rest of us, you are trying to mirror in your life the loving unity of the Trinity. Pray and do it as you are able.