The Integrated Journey | Men and Women Reveal Each Other's Beauty
/STEPHANIE FRIES
Men and women are created equal but different. Both share an equality of dignity, yet possess unique qualities apart from the other. Through the lens of the married vocation, men and women are invited on a journey to integrate their complementary masculine and feminine qualities in order to help each other grow in purity and perfection.
Previously published reflections on the feminine and masculine genius establish some of the qualities born into the hearts and souls of men and women. Expanding on these qualities by looking at their complementarity will help us understand how men and women are called to use their inherent gifts to love and serve the other.
PHOTOGRAPHY: RED FERN PHOTOGRAPHY
As we relate our own being to Adam and Eve, through the creation story in the Garden of Eden, we recall how Adam was created from the external world while Eve originated from man’s innermost being. These different origins yield different natures for men and women; man is attuned to the external and woman is attuned to the internal.
This reality takes shape in many different dynamics of the human person and human relationship. By taking a closer look at how men and women are invited on a journey of integration pursuing holiness together, we focus on a specific function of this mystery of complementarity:
Through his origin in and attention toward the external, man shows woman the beauty he sees of her body. Through her origin in and attention toward the internal, woman shows man the beauty she sees of his heart.
Men and women often differ in their attractions and affections. (And, consequently, men and women often differ in their greatest temptations to sin.) These differences are not meant to stand against each other in conflict; rather, these differences are the design of God for man and woman to unite and grow through authentic love.
Through the sacrament of marriage, men and women are invited to enter into vulnerability and intimacy to see the depth of their spouse and to be seen by their spouse. The more we are seen, known, and loved—the more we are called beautiful in our spiritual and physical nakedness—the greater our capacity to love and be loved.
In his presentations of the Theology of the Body, Saint John Paul II speaks in depth about attraction, love, lust, beauty, wonder and mystery. He echoes the romantic poetry of the Song of Songs as he recognizes and affirms that the human person is attracted to beauty. In support of the complementary role of man and woman as they reveal beauty through their complementary union, Saint John Paul II writes,
Even more, we may more clearly understand how men and women are called to help each other grow in love by acknowledging patterns of brokenness, fear and sin in our world.
Where women struggle with self-image or eating disorders, men have the God-given strength to see woman’s authentic beauty, love her in her weakness, and help her grow in virtue. Where men may act in violence out of a fear of being too emotional or too sensitive, women have the God-given strength to see man’s authentic beauty, love him in his weakness, and help him grow in virtue.
We find the answers for growth, healing, and love through Jesus, the new Adam, and Mary, the new Eve. They model perfect unity of body and soul, the masculine and feminine, man and woman. They show us the perfect integration we are destined to in heaven.
