LESSON 5 – INTIMACY AND GIFT

13th General Audience, January 2, 1980
 
1. An exterior perception of nakedness, but also interior dimension that shares in the vision of the Creator himself, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” Gen. 1:31. Nakedness means the original good of the divine vision. The pure value of man as male and female, the pure value of the body and its sex.Through the mystery of creation, the man and woman, see each other more fully, than through the sense of sight. Looking at each other with the peace of an interior gaze, creating the fullness of the intimacy of persons.
 
This interior gaze of tranquility, the personal intimacy is not threatened or troubled because their gaze communicates the fullness of humanity which in them is reciprocal and complementary, as male and female. They communicate the gift they are to each other, masculinity and femininity. Through this reciprocity of complementarity of male and female, they reach an understanding of the meaning of their own bodies.
 
The original meaning of nakedness corresponds to the simplicity and fullness of vision. In the communio personarum, communion of persons, the basis of their understanding of the meaning of the body, born from the heart. In Gen. 2:23-25 the man and the woman emerge at the very “beginning” with the consciousness of the meaning of their own bodies.

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