Forgiveness & Reconciliation: Parishioner Reflections on the Jubilee

To recognize in another person that they are the image and likeness of God...

"So God created man in his image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them... God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." (Gen. 1: 27,31)

This passage from the Book of Genesis is the foundation of the church’s social mission: the life and dignity of the human person. We are made in the image and likeness of God. We each have a God-given dignity that cannot be surrendered or taken from us. It is not earned by what we do, own or what our status is in life. Our life and dignity is given to us by God, as a gift, and it is God who always recognizes this gift in us even when others do not.

No matter where we find ourselves on the spectrum of American Catholic identity -- "progressive" or "traditional"-- we are all created with God-given dignity in the same image and likeness of God. To recognize in another person that they are the image and likeness of God can be quite humbling!

Only when we see the dignity of every person as Jesus did, will we take time to know that person better, to inquire more deeply into what experiences have shaped them and how they, too, can learn to understand us without making judgments first.

Prayer:
Dear Father, as we enter this new moment in history, help us to understand the true meaning of "in the image of God he created them."

Kristi Schulenberg

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