58. Man is capable of tasting God’s eternal good.

Man is capable of tasting God’s eternal good.

YOUCAT Catechism + Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 58

Ave Maria series

Man the Creature (continued)

58.  What does it mean to say that man was created “in God’s image”?

Unlike inanimate objects, plants, and animals, man is a person endowed with a spirit.  This characteristic unites him with God more than with his visible fellow creatures.  [355-357, 380]

St.  Joseph Catholic church in Menomonie, WI.  The celebrant of the Mass is seated between the two acolytes dressed in white.  The epistle for the Sunday Mass is being read by the reader at the podium. .....58

Man is not a something but rather a someone.  Just as we say about God that he is person, so too we say this about man.  Man can think beyond his immediate horizon and measure the whole breadth of being; he can even know himself with critical objectivity and work to improve himself; he can perceive others as persons, understand them in their dignity, and love them.  Of all the visible creatures, man alone is “able to know and love his creator” (Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et spes [GS] 12,3).  Man is destined to live with him in friendship (John 15:15).

Love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God.  1 John 4:7

“If the only prayer you said in your life was ‘I thank you’, that would be enough.”  Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260-1328, Dominican, mystic)

“Man is God’s image and likeness, in which God wants to be honored for his own sake.”  St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)

355-357, 380

Man

355 "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them."( Genesis 1:27.)²¹⁸ Man occupies a unique place in creation: (I) he is "in the image of God"; (II) in his own nature he unites the spiritual and material worlds; (III) he is created "male and female"; (IV) God established him in his friendship. –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

"IN THE IMAGE OF GOD"

356 Of all visible creatures only man is "able to know and love his creator".(Gaudium et Spes 12 § 3.)²¹⁹ He is "the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake",(Gaudium et Spes 24 § 3.)²²⁰ and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God's own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity: --CCC

What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good.(  St. Catherine of Siena, Dialogue 4,13 "On Divine Providence": LH, Sunday, week 19, OR.)²²¹  --CCC

357 Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. And he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead. --CCC

IN BRIEF

380 "Father,. . . you formed man in your own likeness and set him over the whole world to serve you, his creator, and to rule over all creatures" (Roman Missal, EP IV, 118). --CCC