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 Communion of Persons

The communion of persons or communio personarum is directly related to meaning of humanity and man as the image and likeness of God.  Within the communion of persons man is most in the image and likeness of God.  The New American Bible states Gen 2.24, "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body."  The text is more commonly translated as "one flesh." (rf'B' - Flesh)  Man and woman, through the conjugal act become a communion of persons.  God is a communion of persons (i.e. his image).  John Paul II states, "Communio expresses more, with greater precision, since it indicates precisely that "help" which is derived, in a sense, from the very fact of existing as a person "beside" a person. In the Bible narrative this fact becomes eo ipso--in itself--the existence of the person "for" the person, since man in his original solitude was, in a way, already in this relationship."  He continues further, "Furthermore, the communion of persons could be formed only on the basis of a "double solitude" of man and of woman, that is, as their meeting in their distinction from the world of living beings (animalia), which gave them both the possibility of being and existing in a special reciprocity."  He then states, " Man becomes the image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion." 

In our own Trinitarian theology, we (the western church) pretty much accepts the spiration theory for the Trinity.  The Father is so full of love that the love outpours of himself begetting the second person, the Son.  The Son reciprocates the love of the Father with the same intensity and the love between the two is so immense that a third proceeds, the Holy Spirit.  This is an eternal process, never a time without any.  One God --> three persons.  Similarly when a man and a woman overflow with love for one another and participate in the conjugal act, a third can become known, a child.  Image and Likeness!