Published by Ave Maria University September/October 2025
The Person as Gift Within the Family
Stefanie Morris, Ph.D.
In his text Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, John Paul II reflects upon the truths God has written into our bodies using “the law of the gift” as an interpretive lens. This law is articulated in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes: Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, “that all may be one . . . as we are one” (Jn 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a
certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God’s sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself. (GS 24)
There is a process implied here, the unfolding of which requires consideration. We begin, it seems, as beings who have not found ourselves—or at least we have not fully
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done so. We are meant to do so through a sincere gift of self. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body focuses on the law of the gift as it applies to the relationship between a man and woman in the spousal union, as is most relevant to the aims of that text. The above passage from Gaudium et spes affirms what is expressed in the Theology of the Body: that all mankind “bears the divine image” of gift impressed into our nature “from the beginning.” I take this to mean that the law of the gift is universal and applies to each individual regardless of vocation at every point in our existence. And while “theology of the body” is a colloquial reference to John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, it is a project with more general applications. The body makes visible that which is otherwise invisible. To engage in theology of the body is to hear what the Creator speaks in the language of our very flesh.
Male and female bodies are complementary; the meaning of each is revealed only in the light of the other. Where Theology of the Body invites us to consider how our maleness and femaleness permit the mutual gift of self in marriage, we do well to dwell further on the fact that having sexed bodies implies having familied bodies. To be a species with sexed bodies is to be a species with mothers and fathers. From the moment of conception and in the very cells of our bodies, we bear an image of our mother and father, of our
ancestors; relationships to our siblings, our children, and extended family members are likewise recorded in our bodies. Unconstrained by any preexisting physical or metaphysical laws, the Creator chose to make us in this way. He could have created each of us from the dust of the earth, but He did not. He could have designed our bodies to be genetically untraceable to our familial origins, but He did not. What is He telling us?
Theology of the Body speaks of human nature as revealed in the biblical narratives of the creation of the first man and woman. Adam and Eve are created, seemingly, as persons of reproductive maturity, able to exercise both reason and free will. They are competent and more or less equal in their capacity for self-gift. Those of us who have come after them, on the other hand, have come into existence as single-celled zygotes formed from the genetic contributions of a biological mother and biological father. It is, therefore, necessary to consider also how the law of the gift applies to persons yet unable to make an active gift of self.
One does not sincerely receive a gift without accepting the accompanying implications and obligations.
While we tend to focus on the giving aspect of making a sincere gift of self, it is crucial to remember that a
gift is not complete until it is received in the manner in which it is intended. That is, one does not sincerely receive a gift without accepting the accompanying implications and obligations. Long before we gain the self-possession required to make a conscious, active gift of self, we are given, entrusted by the Creator, to our parents and families—the communion of persons that is echoed in our flesh. We are given to them to be loved, nourished, and formed. How much clearer could the Creator be of His intent for us to care for and contribute to the formation of our children than to knit us together in our mother’s womb (Ps 139:13)? Or to design us to begin life so utterly dependent, yet increasingly autonomous over time and in response to care? Christ Himself was conceived within His mother’s womb, carried in and nurtured by her body, and raised under His parents’ care and protection from the moment of conception.
In his essay On the Meaning of Spousal Love, John Paul II addresses the question of how an incommunicable person can “give himself” to another person. A person, after all, cannot be given as property whose ownership transfers from one party to another. Rather, we may be entrusted into the stewardship of another. We may also offer ourselves as stewards, dedicating ourselves to their good. With respect to the gift of children, we may think of
parents as stewards in the way that a gardener cultivates plants, which contain in their nature the capacity for growth. The wise gardener does not fight the nature of the plants under his stewardship but learns what the plant needs to be given in order to thrive. He receives the garden into being through his care, his self-gift. To receive a child as a gift and welcome them forth requires an unfolding openness and understanding of human development, both generally and in the individual child. After all, the law of the gift is the law of love; love, as Karol Wojtyla (the future John Paul II) observes in Love and Responsibility, “by its nature is not something one-sided, but something two-sided, something between persons, something social. Its full being is precisely interpersonal and not individual.”
Encoded into our very flesh is the truth of our nature as persons made for communion and made through communion.
When we read what is written into our physical bodies by God, who could have made us otherwise, we see both our genetic relatedness to others and our developmental nature. Encoded into our very flesh is the truth of our nature as persons made for communion and made through communion. Each individual is a gift from the Creator,
properly received in love, and given most directly to our families. Long before we can make an intentional gift of self on our own behalf, we can begin to see and know ourselves as good, as being worthy of being given and received, in their loving acceptance of us as a gift from the Creator. An adequate Catholic anthropology is one that takes care not to diminish the importance of our familial connections. While we are
certainly created to love and to be loved by those beyond our biological families, what is written in the flesh suggests a particular importance of selfgift within our families. These relationships cannot simply be replaced by others and ought to be tended to and supported with great care, humility, and persistence. For “what God has joined together,” as we say, echoing Jesus, “let no man tear asunder” (Mt 19:6).
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Stefanie Morris, Ph.D.
Dr. Stefanie Morris is an associate professor of psychology at Ave Maria University. She is the chair of the psychology department and the director of AMU’s Marriage and Family Studies minor. She teaches in the areas of human development, marriage
and family psychology, and qualitative research.
Dr. Morris received a Bachelor of Science in psychology from Southern Nazarene University, a Master of Psychology from the University of Dallas, and a Master of Science and doctorate in psychology from Oklahoma State University.
Dr. Morris and her husband, Nathan, have three children and are active in the Montessori program at Our Lady of Guadalupe Family Life Center in Ave Maria, Florida.
The Wisdom Papers is a series of relevant reflections on contemporary conversations from the faculty of Ave Maria University.
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Copyright © 2025 Ave Maria University. The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily the views of Ave Maria University. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted provided the following attribution is included: “Reprinted from The Wisdom Papers, a publication of Ave Maria University.” Cover Art: Anonymous, Holy Family, 17th Century, red chalk on cream laid paper with stylusincised lines, ruled framing outline in red chalk, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holy_Family_MET_DP802259.jpg.