Communion of Persons – Members Content

“…man, as male-female is a person, created in the ‘image and likeness of God,’…this image is realised in the communion of persons.”
TOB, n 69:4. pg 399.

We are called to be ‘gift’, to make a gift of ourselves to another. The nature of this gift is more than just a bodily, physical sharing; the gift of self includes our spiritual, emotional selves. In Scripture, the ‘body’ means both the physical body and the spiritual soul. So when the two become ‘one flesh’, they form a union of both body and soul.

“Man becomes an image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion”.
TOB, n 9:3. pg 163.

The Communion of Persons refers to the union accomplished through the mutual and sincere gift of self made by two people in a love relationship. We can make a unilateral self-gift in many different relationships; with our parents, our children, our friends. These are loving, generous relationships but they are fundamentally different to the relationship of mutual self-donation that is marriage.

A communion of persons can only be accomplished when the gift of self is reciprocal; when we both give and receive of the other, wholly and completely. This exchange of personhood – this mutual self-donation – involves the sharing of our emotional and spiritual life. It is an emotional ‘nakedness’ where we vulnerably reveal ourselves but feel no shame. When we are loved and accepted for who we are, our ‘nakedness’ does not shame us. Rather, we behold each other in reverence and awe as we recognise the mystery of God revealed in the other.

“Seeing each other, reciprocally, through the very mystery of creation as it were, the man and the woman see each other still more fully and clearly than through the sense of sight itself, that is, through the eyes of the body. They see and know each other, in fact, with all the peace of the interior gaze, which creates precisely the fullness of the intimacy of persons.”
TOB, n 13:1 pg 177-178

Self-donation and Acceptance

When our naked personhood is communicated at a deep emotional level and accepted unconditionally we experience the great thrill of loving and being loved. To have the other embrace us fully and accept us just as we are, helps us to accept ourselves and in turn give ourselves as gift to the other. When we listen actively, our whole person is engaged, “tasting” what it is like to be the other. It is an experience that draws us out of ourselves into love, brings us ever closer in communion with each other, and teaches us how to love the other more effectively by helping us to know them more deeply.

“Inner innocence … in the exchange of the gift consists in reciprocal ‘acceptance’ of the other …  It is a question, therefore, of ‘welcoming’ the other human being and of ‘accepting’ him or her precisely because in this mutual relationship…the man and the woman become a gift, each one for the other”. – TOB, n 17:3. pg 195