A beautiful, basic tenet of our faith, articulated in the creation account of Genesis, is that every human being is created in the image and likeness of God, the imago Dei.
The Scriptures narrate the words of God Himself: Let us make man in our image and likeness.
This conviction is the bedrock of the Church’s defense of human dignity, proclamation of inherent rights, and responsibilities of each person and a motivation for all of our concern for the poor, the young, the elderly, and the suffering.
The human person is never a means to an end, but always the subject of God’s love and the Church’s care.
The meaning of ‘made in God’s image’
What does it mean specifically to say that we are all made in God’s image? This belief has fundamental implications.
Love is the ground and very meaning of our existence if we are imaged in God’s likeness.
God is love, as St. John reminds us, and His very nature is to give Himself away in a movement of total gift of self.
We see this in creation wrought by the Father, redemption accomplished by the Son, and the life of the Church, animated by the Holy Spirit.
Love is the answer to everything and the motivation for all that we do.
We cannot live without love, needing to both receive and give unconditional compassion and service to others.
If we do not make a gift of ourselves to others, we become narrow, constricted, lifeless, sad, and selfish.
We are made for relationship because God in His very Trinitarian essence is relationship.
God is radically free and shares with us this precious gift.
We cannot be forced to love, not even God.
Because the Lord wanted to enter into a full, holy covenant with His people, He allows us the startling possibility of making our own choices.
This freedom led to the Original Sin in the Garden of Eden, but it also explains every human moral act throughout human history, both the most holy and sacrificial, as well as the most evil and selfish actions. Freedom created the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and it created Auschwitz.
We have the ability to make moral choices; the fact that God knew we would abuse our freedom terribly, yet He still gave it to us is absolutely astonishing!
The good news of God’s grace lies in His forbearance.
The Lord never gives up on us, even in our sinfulness, and even works to turn our selfish actions into something good eventually, if we embrace repentance.
Living in the image of God
To live in the image of God is to share in His creativity.
The Lord created everything out of nothing; we cannot do that, but we can harness, shape, and move the elements of the world around us towards the pursuit of the common good and authentic human flourishing.
The wonder of co-creating a new human being with God’s grace, is the joy that every parent is privileged to experience.
Our intelligence, talents, wisdom, and abilities are remarkable gifts given to us by God to create a genuine human culture which advances the Kingdom of God and helps each person along the path of salvation.
This creative power, however, remains intrinsically linked to freedom, so we must fuse our creativity with love and goodness, or else we will wreak great destruction.
Contrast the advances in medicine with the scourge of abortion or the wonders of social media technology with the menace of nuclear war.
Most profoundly, we carry the image of God within our soul.
We are imperishable spirits, destined to live forever, either with God or without Him, depending on how we live this earthly pilgrimage.
In Christ, we become adopted children of the Father.
Who Jesus is by nature is the gift He offers us through the victory of His Passion, death, and Resurrection.
Ponder the remarkable truth that you are a child of God, created by the Father, purchased with the Precious Blood of the Son, and anointed in the power of the Holy Spirit, destined to live forever with God in the glory of Heaven.
Our astounding destiny enhances our inherent dignity and lends urgency to the Church’s mission to proclaim the Gospel to every creature, make disciples of all nations and baptize in the name of the Trinity.
Seeing God in everyone
The great secret of the saints is their mystical ability to literally see Christ in every person they met.
To grow in holiness is to increase our awareness of the image of God in other people and perhaps most significantly, even in ourselves.
Justice, peace, and love can only flourish when we all come to know ourselves as children of God.
If we see our own dignity, with greater ease can we also recognize that same spiritual spark of the soul in others, especially in those we find difficult to love, the suffering, the poor, and the marginalized?
A culture of life, a civilization of love, a truly human community, in which every person is welcomed, loved, nourished, and respected is only possible if we all truly live the meaning of our existence, created in the image and likeness of God.