MAN IN THE LIKENESS OF GOD


MONDAY, SECOND WEEK OF LENT   

Dan 9:4-10; Ps 79:8-9,11,13; Lk 6:36-38

Learning to Act Like God

Recall that the project the Trinity of Persons in God set out to accomplish in creating man is to make man in the image of God and to be like God. As we have come to know, the first part of the project did not pose any difficulty for God, whose infinite power can accomplish all things. But the aspect of making man to be like God involves the free will of man, which the infinite goodness of God has endowed man with. In His divine integrity, God respects the free will of man; He can only guide man through the inner light of his rational nature to act like God. We are already familiar with the story of Adam and Eve and how the serpent deceived them from the path of rationality, leading to their likeness to God. He made them desire to be like God without God’s help and grace. The story is not just a story, but the experience of each human person; for in each of us lives Adam and Eve, our first parents. The desire to be like God without God is a common denominator of all our sins. So, Saint Paul explains that just as each of us bears the image of the first man (Adam and Eve), each of us who believes the Gospel also bears the image of the second man, Jesus Christ (and Mary).

The path leading from our fallen state to the renewal of our nature is what God the Father declared publicly to us during the transfiguration of the Son of Man. Entering the path of renewal requires our sincere conversion, acknowledgement of our sinfulness, and confession of our sins. We must accept our need for God’s word as the light that truly enlightens and activates our rational nature, which makes us images of God. We make the well-articulated confession of Prophet Daniel our own. “O Lord, God great and to be feared, you keep the covenant and have kindness for those who love you and keep your commandments: we have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly, we have betrayed your commandments and your ordinances and turned away from them. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, our ancestors, and to all the people of the land. Integrity, Lord, is yours; ours the look of shame we wear today, we, the people of Judah, the citizens of Jerusalem, the whole of Israel, near and far away, in every country to which you have dispersed us because of the treason we have committed against you.” Daniel’s confession is holistic and comprehensive, able to stand for the whole Christian people of all nations. We have all desired to be like God without God, and his grace made abundant for us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The path of repentance and renewal entails listening to the Beloved Son of God and doing what he commands us to do, that we may be like God. In His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, God has put away our sins and the sins of our Fathers as the psalmist pleaded on our behalf. “Do not hold the guilt of our fathers against us. Let your compassion hasten to meet us; we are left in the depths of distress.” Though our sins show that we bear the likeness of Adam and Eve, listening and obeying the voice of the Son of Man will bring us to bear the likeness of Jesus and Mary. These are his words to us: “Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate. Do not judge, and you will not be judged yourselves; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned yourselves; grant pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give, and there will be gifts for you: a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap.” He did not just teach us by words; he demonstrated his teaching by offering himself on the cross to save us from the effects of our sins. He gave us himself in imitation of God, who gives Himself, that he might live in us. The only rational response to such a divine gift is the total gift of ourselves to Him; “because the measure you measure out is the amount you will be given back.” We should not forget the goal of our transformation in Jesus Christ, which is to be like God, in imitation of Jesus and Mary.

Let us pray: O God, who have taught us to chasten our bodies for the healing of our souls, enable us, we pray, to abstain from all sins, and strengthen our hearts to carry out your loving commands. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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