There are days when I do get overwhelmed by the ideological onslaught of worldly “truths” against our families (“love is love”; “a woman is whoever identifies as a woman”, “anyone can be any gender”, etc.). Now, this attack on the family isn’t new. Afterall, it could be said to have begun in Genesis, which behooves the meditation, what is it about the family, as a pattern both beautiful and true, established by God, that has made it the target of the enemy for millennia?
A pattern from the beginning …
I’ve always felt that fractals are the best, most visually dramatic, illustrations of St. Thomas Aquinas’ statement (SCG 3.100), “Hence all nature may be called an artistic product of divine workmanship”. A fractal is a series of patterns repeating over and over at many different scales, where the parts resemble the whole. We can observe them within the human body (cells, lungs) and in nature (trees, rivers, glaciers and galaxies). A fractal begins with a basic pattern (a single triangle, a single hexagon, etc.). The edges or joints of this basic pattern are then replaced by the pattern itself. So now, the larger pattern resembles the basic pattern. The process is repeated, ad infinitum, incorporating the basic pattern within it in each iteration.
In Genesis 1-2, God’s spoken word creates and commands. The creative act (“let there be …”) embodies the Truth of the Word, within creation, in the very “dust of the ground”. In an act of selfless love, God created man “out of the dust … and blew into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen 2:7). Man, created in His image and likeness, forms the basic pattern of the fractal. The injunctive act then establishes both the potential of His creation (“be fruitful and multiply … fill the earth and subdue it”) and the divine law governing it (“You are free to eat … except …”). In other words, the injunctive act reveals the form of the fractal pattern in all its glory (man is to fill the earth and subdue it). But, how? God creates woman “out of man” (Genesis 2:23), using “one of his ribs” (Gen 2:21), while he is “asleep”, and “brings her to him” (Genesis 2:22) to “become one body” (Genesis 2:24), one family, held together in the Creator. Families then beget families in a buildout of the fractal pattern in the same process of selfless and sacrificial giving. Communities of families are held together in the Creator.
… a pattern to fulfill.
The first disruption of the family happens when man violates the principles of the pattern, in a selfish act of disobedience, seeking a false godliness. The fall exits man from Eden. The fractal pattern of the entire human family is distorted, tainted by original sin. Now it makes perfect sense that another loving act of self-sacrificial giving on the part of the Artist Himself is required to restore the pattern. To once again bring the bride (the human family) to the groom (Christ) to become one.
The second act of new creation, did not involve just a rib, but the self-sacrificial giving of Christ’s life itself. Christ’s new-old injunctive “love one another, as I have loved you” (John 13:34) is a reminder of the principle reinforcing the fractal pattern. God’s spoken word enters into creation in the form of flesh to restore and reinforce the fractal pattern, that is his family, his bride. This fractal pattern was wrought by the word of God from the beginning to fulfill His injunctive (fill and subdue the earth). This is why no ideological onslaught is ever going to destroy the family. On the contrary, “the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against” (Matthew 16:18) the onslaught of the beauty and truth of Christ and His family. Amen.
Creative visual. As usual, Zack – you have a unique way of blessing us with your approach. Let me know when you’re back in the US so we can have a nice ZOOM meeting