February 13.  Angela and Andy shared,   “Rabbi Sacks, an important Jewish leader, gave a reflection at a conference in Rome on the complementarity of man and woman and on love. The closing image he presented from Jewish tradition is appropriate for Valentine’s Day and love and commitment.   He spoke of the Fall in Genesis  and how it was then that man and woman came to recognize their true need for and dependence on one another.   Although they had sinned and God was punishing them his love and care for them remained and God made garments for them as he sent them out of the garden.  Rabbi Sacks ends his reflection with the following quotation: ‘And so it has been ever since, that when a man and woman turn to one another in a bond of faithfulness God robes them in garments of light and we come as close as we will ever get to God himself, bringing new life into being, turning the prose of biology into the poetry of the human spirit, redeeming the darkness of the world by the radiance of love.’”    

And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.  From Genesis 3:9-24.   In the nuptial blessing at a wedding the priest uses the words, “O God, by whom woman is joined to man and the companionship they had in the beginning is endowed with the one blessing not forfeited by original sin nor washed away by the flood, look now with favour on these your servants joined together in Marriage who ask to be strengthened by your blessing.  Pope Francis: Christian marriage is a sign of how much Christ loved his Church in the covenant sealed on the cross, yet it also makes that love present in the communion of the spouses. By becoming one flesh, they embody the espousal of our human nature by the Son of God.   That is why, “in the joys of their love and family life, he gives them here on earth a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb.  AL73