The Fall.The harmony which our first parents experienced with each other, with nature and with God did not last long.Yielding to the temptation of the serpent, our first parents decided to "turn away from God, their Creator, in disobedience and pride, thus, rejecting God's friendship." The results of their disobedience were immediate.They noticed their nakedness.So when they heard God moving out in the garden, they ran and hid themselves.Today, when we sin, we also experience fear and shame at being found out.They experienced alienation from God and fellow human being.Adam blamed God for causing him to sin.He implied that if God hadn't put the woman with him, he would have not sinned.They were alienated from nature.Our first parents' relationship with the earth and all of creation became disordered, too.Creation was God's gift to them but their sin made the task of working with earth and the rest of creation a bitter struggle.Death made its entrance into human history.Every time we sin, we die to holiness.After our first parents' sin, the world became plagued with sin.The account of Cain's murder of his brother, the story of the great flood, the series of infidelities which the Chosen People manifested against god and the Covenant all show that the source of moral evil is man himself.When sin reared its ugly head in human history, its effect became universal in scope.Our Hope.Our first parents, Adam and Eve, were not only created good but were also given the privilege of establishing friendship with God.In fact, God placed them in paradise as a sign of their familiarity with God.They were constituted in an original state of holiness and justice.This grace of original holiness was to share in divine life.But this original state of man, the harmony he experienced with himself, with creation and with God were all lost because of sin, the original sin.In the midst of sin, the Lord remains full of loving mercy.The "curses" which followed our first parents' sin must not be seen as a series of punishments meted out by God.Rather, they simply are meant to show the disorder that sin brings.So as we come into this world, we are born together with this original sin.The message of the Genesis account of the Fall is a message of hope in the midst of chaos and sin.God loves us so much that he gave us hope to reunite with him, to be cleansed and clothed in his garments once again.And so the Sacrament of Baptism gave its way so that in the midst of the disorderliness of sin, order will prevail, and eventually the harmony of man with God, with other humans, and with the earth can be reestablished.
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