“It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18)

Individualism and egoism is anti-God! God is love, therefore, relational. To be alone is to die, to be with others is to be alive. God reaches out to each one of us and keeps each one of us alive through his breath. We are always in contact with God because his “Spirit” is in us – “the breath of life.” This Spirit/breath of God in us shows our inevitable union with God. In other words, we, like God, are relational creatures. Since God is a Spirit, he allows us to have a human dimension to love or communion and union – marriage. That a man and a woman will become one is to speak the language of creation – unity, the language of God.

If marriage is God’s love in  language, then, we need the permission or blessings of God to get into marriage – marriage in the Church.

The salient threat of the 21st century is individualism and selfishness: a lot of people think that they have the exclusive right to do what they want, when they want, and how they want it? Wait a minute: what about the Spirit of God in us, which keeps us alive? Do we realize that we belong to God and not ourselves? Do we not see that we live on borrowed breath?

May the Lord grant us the wisdom of children, so to realize our dependence on God, thereby respect the wisdom of God inserted into his creation.

Ayodele Ayeni, C.S.Sp.