Genesis parallels many other ancient accounts of creation, but is unique in being the most explicit and cogent, and therefore the most accurate. While virtually all cultures have an account of the Great Flood, one could actually build an Ark replica from the specifications God gave for Noah’s Ark. So Genesis is a great place to learn about marriage, and how it relates to the Catholic priesthood.

God created Adam from the stuff of the Earth. Then God gave Adam a specific authority as steward of life on Earth. God created the Woman from Adam, flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. She was later named “Eve” but use the title “Woman” here: Christ always called Mary “Woman” for a reason.

The explicit Genesis language used suggests that not only was the Woman cloned from Adam’s genetic material, she was gene-tweaked, refined. Woman is not just helpmate, but more accurately, using a word elsewhere used only of God, she is called a lifesaver, as one who gives drink to a man dying of thirst. So did the Virgin Mary bring us the Water of Life, though she herself wasn’t this Savior. And Blessed Mary was literally married. God follows His own rules.

It is in Genesis II that God instituted marriage. This is before the Sin of Adam recounted later. A man is to leave his home and parents and approach the bride to consummate that union of two becoming one. This a brilliant parallel to the genetic union creating children. And this intimacy itself foreshadows the spousal union with divinity which Christ promises all believers. Christ will leave His Heavenly home and return for His Bride, the Church. The Blessed Virgin Mary already shares spousal unity with divinity as the Spouse of the Holy Spirit.

Marriage is the only sacrament not actually confected by the priest. A priest blesses a marriage. It is the couple who confect the union. Here is an insight into the priestly office, and why it is male-only. When God gave power and authority to Adam, it was before the Woman was created. After the Sin of Adam, Adam’s betrayal of his divine mandate, the male-only priesthood was necessary to atone for Adam’s affront to God.

Woman later received her own separate power and authority, and through her, her children: that of crushing Lucifer’s head. Christ acted under both Adamic authority as atoning Priest; and as Seed of the Woman crushing Lucifer’s head. “Seed” is a collective term in Genesis beautifully denoting the Mystical Body of Christ.

The oldest attributed writing on Earth is the work of the EN, the “woman of grace,” En-Heduanna, daughter of the early Semite king, Sargon the Great. She records the ancient sacred wedding rite which is far older, as reflected in art and even architecture. The groom is to leave his home and family and approach the Woman in her tabernacle-storehouse.

Two “sacred strangers” are to witness the marriage. The same format is seen with the approach of the “sacred strangers” announcing the blessed child God grants to Sarah and Abraham, with Sarah apart in her dwelling, which is her tabernacle. The annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary was fulfilling this marriage rite, so old it is ornamented with symbols of Noah and his wife.

The Virgin Mary was approached by the divine Spouse, the Holy Spirit, in a ritual witnessed by two “sacred strangers” consisting of the Father, and the Archangel Gabriel. The AVE greeting is the same as the ancient sacred wedding rite, with the word “hail” denoting that of a holy tabernacle, a pledge of safety and sanctity. She is called “Full of Grace,” the fulfillment of the role of the EN, the “Woman of Grace” of old.

The Blessed Virgin is informed the divine Spouse has arrived as per the Genesis format. “The Lord is with thee.” She is exalted with all women as “Woman”, the only title by which Jesus Christ called His mother. “Blessed art thou amongst women.”

Her Lucifer-crushing Seed is honored by emphasizing God’s power and authority given through the ultimate Woman & Seed relationship. “Blessed is the Fruit of thy womb.” John’s Apocalypse confirms Genesis, with the Seed of the Woman enduring persecution and achieving triumph with Christ, the Child of the Woman clothed with the Sun.

The Blessed Virgin Mary was literally married in that most ancient union achieved with her FIAT in a pre-Sin of Adam rite not demanding priestly confection, that office that grew out of the later Original Sin. It is through the Woman, our immaculate, spiritual mother, that we join with her Son, our Brother, in assailing and vanquishing Lucifer. “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.'”