Victory over the "prince of this world" 169 was won once for all at the Hour when Jesus freely gave himself up to death to give us his life. This is the judgment of this world, and the prince of this world is "cast out." 170 "He pursued the Woman" 171 but had no hold on her: the new Eve, "full of grace" of the Holy Spirit, is preserved from Sin and the corruption of death (the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Most Holy Mother of God, Mary, ever virgin). "Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring." 172 Therefore the Spirit and the Church pray: "Come, Lord Jesus," 173 since his coming will deliver us from the Evil One.

Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man's belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a Woman. The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.

Jesus came to restore Creation to the purity of its origins. In the Sermon on the Mount, he interprets God's Plan strictly: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that every one who looks at a Woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." 122 What God has joined together, let not man put asunder. 123 The tradition of the Church has understood the sixth commandment as encompasSing the whole of human sexuality.

Each of the two sexes is an Image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal Dignity though in a different way. the Union of man and Woman in Marriage is a way of imitating in the Flesh the Creator's generosity and fecundity: "Therefore a man leaves his Father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." 120 All human generations proceed from this union. 121

"In creating men 'male and female,' God gives man and Woman an equal personal Dignity." 118 "Man is a person, man and woman equally so, Since both were Created in the Image and likeness of the personal God." 119

Everyone, man and Woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of Marriage and the flourishing of family life. the harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out.

"God is Love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving Communion. Creating the human race in his own Image . . .. God inscribed in the humanity of man and Woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and commUnion." 114

In creating man and Woman, God instituted the human family and endowed it with its fundamental constitution. Its members are persons equal in Dignity. For the common good of its members and of society, the family necessarily has manifold responsibilities, rights, and duties.

A man and a Woman united in Marriage, together with their children, form a family. This institution is prior to any recognition by public authority, which has an obligation to recognize it. It should be considered the normal reference point by which the different forms of family relationship are to be evaluated.

The parties to a Marriage Covenant are a baptized man and Woman, free to contract marriage, who freely express their consent; "to be free" means: - not being under constraint; - not impeded by any natural or ecclesiastical law.

In his preaching Jesus unequivocally taught the original meaning of the Union of man and Woman as the Creator willed it from the beginning permission given by Moses to divorce one's wife was a concession to the hardness of hearts. 106 The matrimonial union of man and woman is indissoluble: God himself has determined it "what therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder." 107

Fornication is carnal Union between an unmarried man and an unmarried Woman. It is gravely contrary to the Dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children. Moreover, it is a grave scandal when there is corruption of the young.

Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal Love of man and Woman. In Marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual Communion. Marriage bonds between baptized persons are sanctified by the sacrament.

"Sexuality, by means of which man and Woman give Themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses, is not something simply biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human person as such. It is realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral part of the Love by which a man and woman commit themselves totally to one another until death." 142

The Gospel reveals to us how Mary prays and intercedes in faith. At Cana, 89 The mother of Jesus asks her son for the needs of a wedding feast; this is the sign of another feast - that of the wedding of the Lamb where he gives his body and blood at the request of the Church, his Bride. It is at the hour of the New Covenant, at the foot of the cross, 90 that Mary is heard as the Woman, the new Eve, the true "Mother of all the living."

Prayer to Jesus is answered by him already during his ministry, through signs that anticipate the power of his death and Resurrection: Jesus hears the prayer of faith, expressed in words (the leper, Jairus, the Canaanite Woman, the good thief) 84 or in silence (the bearers of the paralytic, the woman with a hemorrhage who touches his clothes, the tears and ointment of the Sinful woman). 85 The urgent request of the blind men, "Have mercy on us, Son of David" or "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" has-been renewed in the traditional prayer to Jesus known as the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!" 86 Healing infirmities or forgiving sins, Jesus always responds to a prayer offered in faith: "Your faith has made you well; go in peace."

Just as Jesus prays to the Father and gives thanks before receiving his gifts, so he teaches us filial boldness: "Whatever you ask in Prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will." 66 Such is the power of prayer and of faith that does not doubt: "all things are possible to him who believes." 67 Jesus is as saddened by the "lack of faith" of his own neighbors and the "little faith" of his own disciples 68 as he is struck with admiration at the great faith of the Roman centurion and the Canaanite Woman. 69

When the hour had come for him to fulfill the Father's Plan of Love, Jesus allows a glimpse of the boundless depth of his filial Prayer, not only before he freely delivered himself up (“Abba . . . not my will, but yours."), 53 but even in his last words on the Cross, where prayer and the gift of self are but one: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do", 54 "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise", 55 "Woman, behold your son" - "Behold your mother", 56 "I thirst."; 57 "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" 58 "It is finished"; 59 "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" 60 until the "loud cry" as he expires, giving up his spirit. 61

Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their Love. It encourages patience and moderation in loving relationships; it requires that the conditions for the definitive giving and commitment of man and Woman to one another be fulfilled. Modesty is decency. It inspires one's choice of clothing. It keeps silence or reserve where there is evident risk of unhealthy curiosity. It is discreet.

Some today claim a "right to a trial Marriage" where there is an intention of getting married later. However firm the purpose of those who engage in premature sexual relations may be, "the fact is that such liaisons can scarcely ensure mutual Sincerity and fidelity in a relationship between a man and a Woman, nor, especially, can they protect it from inconstancy of desires or whim." 183 Carnal Union is morally legitimate only when a definitive community of life between a man and woman has been established. Human Love does not tolerate "trial marriages." It demands a total and definitive gift of persons to one another. 184

In a so-called free Union, a man and a Woman refuse to give juridical and public form to a liaison involving sexual intimacy.

Fidelity expresses constancy in keeping one's given word. God is faithful. the Sacrament of Matrimony enables man and Woman to enter into Christ's fidelity for his Church. Through conjugal chastity, they bear witness to this mystery before the world.

The spouses' Union achieves the twofold end of Marriage: the good of the spouses Themselves and the transmission of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated without altering the couple's spiritual life and compromiSing the goods of marriage and the future of the family. The conjugal Love of man and Woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of fidelity and fecundity.

Nevertheless, the order of Creation persists, though seriously disturbed. To heal the wounds of Sin, man and Woman need the help of the grace that God in his infinite mercy never refuses them. 99 Without his help man and woman cannot achieve the Union of their lives for which God Created them "in the beginning."

According to faith the disorder we notice so painfully does not stem from the nature of man and Woman, nor from the nature of their relations, but from Sin. As a break with God, the first sin had for its first consequence the rupture of the original Communion between man and woman. Their relations were distorted by mutual recriminations; 96 their mutual attraction, the Creator's own gift, changed into a relationship of domination and lust; 97 and the beautiful vocation of man and woman to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth was burdened by the pain of childbirth and the toil of work. 98

Every man experiences evil around him and within himself. This experience makes itself felt in the relationships between man and Woman. Their Union has always been threatened by discord, a spirit of domination, infidelity, jealousy, and conflicts that can escalate into hatred and separation. This disorder can manifest itself more or less acutely, and can be more or less overcome according to the circumstances of cultures, eras, and individuals, but it does seem to have a universal character.

The harmony in which they had found Themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul's spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the Union of man and Woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination. 282 Harmony with Creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man. 283 Because of man, creation is now subject "to its bondage to decay". 284 Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will "return to the ground", 285 for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history. 286

The sign of man's familiarity with God is that God places him in the garden. 255 There he lives "to till it and keep it". Work is not yet a burden, 256 but rather the collaboration of man and Woman with God in perfecting the visible Creation.

By the radiance of this grace all dimensions of man's life were confirmed. As long as he remained in the divine intimacy, man would not have to suffer or die. 252 The inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and Woman, 253 and finally the harmony between the first couple and all Creation, comprised the state called "original justice".

In God's Plan man and Woman have the vocation of "subduing" the earth 248 as stewards of God. This sovereignty is not to be an arbitrary and destructive domination. God calls man and woman, made in the Image of the Creator "who Loves everything that exists", 249 to share in his providence toward other creatures; hence their responsibility for the world God has entrusted to them.

Man and Woman were made "for each other" - not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he Created them to be a Communion of persons, in which each can be "helpmate" to the other, for they are equal as persons ("bone of my bones. . .") and complementary as masculine and feminine. In Marriage God unites them in such a way that, by forming "one Flesh", 245 they can transmit human life: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." 246 By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents co-operate in a unique way in the Creator's work. 247

God Created man and Woman together and willed each for the other. the Word of God gives us to understand this through various features of the sacred text. "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him." 242 None of the animals can be man's partner. 243 The woman God "fashions" from the man's rib and brings to him elicits on the man's part a cry of wonder, an exclamation of Love and Communion: "This at last is bone of my bones and Flesh of my flesh." 244 Man discovers woman as another "I", sharing the same humanity.

In no way is God in man's Image. He is neither man nor Woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective "perfections" of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a Father and husband. 241

Man and Woman have been Created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. "Being man" or "being woman" is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable Dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator. 240 Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity "in the Image of God". In their "being-man" and "being-woman", they reflect the Creator's wisdom and goodness.

By calling God "Father", the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God's parental tenderness can also be expressed by the Image of motherhood, 62 which emphasizes God's immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. the language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor Woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: 63 no one is father as God is Father.

After his fall, man was not abandoned by God. On the contrary, God calls him and in a mysterious way heralds the coming victory over evil and his restoration from his fall. 304 This passage in Genesis is called the Protoevangelium ("first gospel"): the first announcement of the Messiah and Redeemer, of a battle between the serpent and the Woman, and of the final victory of a descendant of hers.

The Christian tradition sees in this passage an announcement of the "New Adam" who, because he "became obedient unto death, even death on a cross", makes amends superabundantly for the disobedience, of Adam. 305 Furthermore many Fathers and Doctors of the Church have seen the Woman announced in the "Proto-evangelium" as Mary, the mother of Christ, the "new Eve". Mary benefited first of all and uniquely from Christ's victory over Sin: she was preserved from all stain of original sin and by a special grace of God committed no sin of any kind during her whole earthly life. 306

'But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a Woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.' 1 This is 'the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God': 2 God has visited his people. He has fulfilled the promise he made to Abraham and his descendants. He acted far beyond all expectation - he has sent his own 'beLoved Son'. 3

Holy Scripture affirms that man and Woman were Created for one another: "It is not good that the man should be alone." 92 The woman, "Flesh of his flesh," i.e., his counterpart, his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a "helpmate"; she thus represents God from whom comes our help. 93 "Therefore a man leaves his Father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." 94 The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable Union of their two lives by recalling what the Plan of the Creator had been "in the beginning": "So they are no longer two, but one flesh." 95

God who Created man out of Love also calls him to love the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. For man is created in the Image and likeness of God who is himself love. 90 Since God created him man and Woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man. It is good, very good, in the Creator's eyes. and this love which God blesses is intended to be fruitful and to be realized in the common work of watching over Creation: "and God blessed them, and God said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.'" 91

"The intimate community of life and Love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws.... God himself is the author of Marriage." 87 The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and Woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. Although the Dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity, 88 some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial Union exists in all cultures. "The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life." 89

Sacred Scripture begins with the Creation of man and Woman in the Image and likeness of God and concludes with a vision of "the wedding-feast of the Lamb." 85 Scripture speaks throughout of Marriage and its "mystery," its institution and the meaning God has given it, its origin and its end, its various realizations throughout the history of salvation, the difficulties ariSing from sin and its renewal "in the Lord" in the New Covenant of Christ and the Church. 86

"The matrimonial Covenant, by which a man and a Woman establish between Themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the proCreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the Dignity of a sacrament." 84

"Recapitulated in Christ," these are the ones who take part in the service of the praise of God and the fulfillment of his Plan: the heavenly powers, all Creation (the four living beings), the servants of the Old and New Covenants (the twenty-four elders), the new People of God (the one hundred and forty-four thousand), 4 especially the martyrs "slain for the word of God," and the all-holy Mother of God (the Woman), the Bride of the Lamb, 5 and finally "a great multitude which no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes, and peoples and tongues." 6

From the very beginning God blessed all living beings, especially man and Woman. the Covenant with Noah and with all living things renewed this blesSing of fruitfulness despite man's sin which had brought a curse on the ground. But with Abraham, the divine blessing entered into human history which was moving toward death, to redirect it toward life, toward its source. By the faith of "the Father of all believers," who embraced the blessing, the history of salvation is inaugurated.

"As with other forms of consecrated life," the order of virgins establishes the Woman living in the world (or the nun) in Prayer, penance, service of her brethren, and apostolic activity, according to the state of life and spiritual gifts given to her. 464 Consecrated virgins can form Themselves into associations to observe their commitment more faithfully. 465

Jesus does not reveal the Holy Spirit fully, until he himself has been glorified through his Death and Resurrection. Nevertheless, little by little he alludes to him even in his teaching of the multitudes, as when he reveals that his own Flesh will be food for the life of the world. 110 He also alludes to the Spirit in speaking to Nicodemus, 111 to the Samaritan Woman, 112 and to those who take part in the feast of Tabernacles. 113 To his disciples he speaks openly of the Spirit in connection with Prayer 114 and with the witness they will have to bear. 115

At the end of this mission of the Spirit, Mary became the Woman, the new Eve ("mother of the living"), the mother of the "whole Christ." 108 As such, she was present with the Twelve, who "with one accord devoted Themselves to Prayer," 109 at the dawn of the "end time" which the Spirit was to inaugurate on the morning of Pentecost with the manifestation of the Church.

"God sent forth his Son", but to prepare a body for him, 125 he wanted the free co-operation of a creature. For this, from all eternity God chose for the mother of his Son a daughter of Israel, a young Jewish Woman of Nazareth in Galilee, "a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary": 126

Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed is contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason. Even in human relations it is not contrary to our Dignity to believe what other persons tell us about Themselves and their intentions, or to trust their promises (for example, when a man and a Woman marry) to share a Communion of life with one another. If this is so, still less is it contrary to our dignity to "yield by faith the full submission of... intellect and will to God who reveals", 26 and to share in an interior commUnion with him.