People oversimplify Original Sin in various ways. Some reduce it to the mere eating of a piece of fruit rather than the act of disobedience, mistrust, and ingratitude it really was.
Others miss the subtle but important difference in the descriptions of Adam’s sin compared to Eve’s. Of Eve’s sin, Eve herself is a witness. She said, The serpent tricked me and so I ate it (Gen 3:13). But of Adam’s sin God said, Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it …’ (Gen 3:17). Eve’s sin lay in her allowing Satan to deceive her. Adam’s sin lay in his willingness to allow his wife to tempt him.
A final misconstruing of Original Sin is to label it “the Sin of Adam and Eve.” But Scripture calls it “The Sin of Adam.” For while both our first parents sinned, Original Sin comes to us from Adam who, as head of the first family and primogenitor of us all, conveyed it to us.
I have written more on these topics here:
Original Sin: More than Eating a Piece of Fruit
Why Is Original Sin Called the Sin of Adam and Not the Sin of Adam and Eve?
How is Adam’s Sin Described Differently from Eve’s?
As is typical for my Saturday blog, today’s post is a lighthearted one in which I find something of the Scriptures in a video. Now some object to my taking biblical stories (especially one as dark as the story of Original Sin) and making light of them. But my prudential judgment on such things is that they are acceptable and that sometimes we can best process sad and serious things through humor and playful reimagining.
In the video below we see a playful “what if” scenario. In effect it poses these questions: What if Adam, when presented the forbidden fruit by his wife, found it less enticing than what God offered? What if there had been something to remind him of God’s greater offer?
Of course there was something greater and it was all around him! It was called paradise. Now the writers of this commercial want us to think that if only Adam had had Doritos at hand he would clearly have preferred them to the forbidden fruit. In other words, they present their product a metaphor for paradise. Nice try, and very creative I might add! But God offers even more than Doritos.
In the end, though, the insight is important. Like Adam, we are tempted to forget the blessings of God and become mesmerized by some lesser pleasure (represented by the forbidden fruit). The key is to remember the greater gift of God and His Kingdom, not choosing anything that might interfere with that. Remember the gifts of God!
Enjoy the video and remember that far greater visions await you if you are faithful!
(And by the way, thank you, Frito-Lay, for the affirmation of human life displayed in your recent Doritos commercial (that aired during the Super Bowl)! I am not focusing on that commercial here today because many others have already commented on it quite well.)
Cross-posted at the Catholic Standard: A Funny but Helpful Look at Original Sin in a Doritos Commercial
” Becuase you listened to you wife ..’ ,
yet , we hear only the serpent saying the
tempting words ..
is God referring to the evil seductive relationship that had developed , with the enemy , similar to the evils of our times ..including caving in to the false promise to ‘ become gods ‘ , like himself, ‘ free ‘ of being in the God ordained relationship .
The reports of the success of the deliverance ministry that help persons to verbally renounce these spirits ( Heart of The Father – Lozanos ) to be thus set free from the presence of these seductive spirits – hope The Church and the world find great success through same .
The graces imparted through the Rosary , in which the salutation of Angel Gabriel ( thus the voice of the Holy Spirit ) is repeatedly invoked and
heard , to strenghten our guardian angels from listening to the voices of the enemy spirits , to be instead filled with the grace of gratitude for God filling us with His holiness , merited in The Incarnation – Passion – easy to see how essential it is , in our times when such voices are at flood water levels .
The ‘voices ‘ / words heard at the holy occasion of the Holy Mass too,to be fruitful, if listened to with hearts that have not become hardened from listening to the ‘voice of the wife ‘ as opposed to the voice of The Church – Spouse of the Holy Spirit .
May His grace and power break the hardness , to ask for and receive in trusting gratitude , the holiness He desires to extend us , to set us free , from the power of the ‘seducing wife ‘ – the fury of the enemy at those words of The Father can be imagined – here ,he had come , to take control , in his pride , over the life of Adam and God has just called him
the ‘ wife ‘, as much as he was also trying to divide them up and have Adam as his subject , set against Eve !
And that is in addition to the words of the Holy Spirit , in the earlier section , of lowering him to the lowest among the beasts – ‘he was the most cunning of the beasts ‘!
Glory be to The Father , Son and the Holy Spirit for ever !