MADE IN GOD'S IMAGE AND LIKENESS

Fr Jim Cogley

The first chapter of the Book of Genesis makes the mind-blowing, astonishing assertion that each of us, ‘is made in the image and likeness of God’. This is something we have heard so often that it no longer shocks, challenges or has any real impact on our lives. Yet if we were to buy into the implications of this statement it would be utterly transformative and would save us untold anguish and suffering and countless hours in therapy. If God is love, then it means that my core essence is love. If God is the great creator and I am His creation then to be creative is in my very nature, (even if at times it may feel blocked). If love is my origin, then love is my calling and love is my destiny. Also, if love is my origin, then my core is original blessing and not original sin. God seeing all that He has made as being very good means that my starting point is totally positive leaving no room for feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness or not being good enough.

At one point in his ministry Christ sent out seventy-two of his disciples in pairs to towns and villages where he was going to visit. It was their task to prepare the ground for him. They returned jubilant saying that ‘even the demons submitted to us when we used your name’. His reply was somewhat surprising when he said ‘rejoice not that the demons submit to you but rather that your names are written in heaven. In transliteration this means, ‘do not get caught up in what is spectacular or extraordinary, these are but external manifestations of a deeper and inner reality that your names are written in heaven – that you are sons of God. For those who live out of their divine essence external signs are no longer necessary while for those who only live at the external level no number of signs will suffice.

It is to doubt this foundational premise of who we really are that forms the basis of the fall from Grace and consequent expulsion from the Garden. We normally associate the Fall with eating the apple from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. A closer reading reveals something very interesting. Up to the Fall Adam and Eve were conferred with full dignity of being children of God. They were both human and divine. The temptation of the serpent is to doubt who they really were. ‘Did God really say…….. and if you eat of the tree you will become like gods? In other words, the great temptation was to question their divinity and think they had to do something to achieve it. Later while Christ was being tempted in the wilderness each temptation was the same beginning with the words ‘If you are the Son of God you will……..’. In each case Christ overcame the temptation by holding his ground and quoting the truth of Scripture in rebuff.

Church spires are something of a lie that reflect the theological thinking of their time. Certainly, they are a powerful visual reminder of the transcendent but for most believers they pointed to a God who was also transcendent – up there and needing to be reached by adherence to rules and external observations. The idea of God being Immanuel, being imminent and totally at home in the human condition has been utterly foreign to most Catholics, even to this day. It was in fact much easier to believe one was being a true Christian by holding reverence for Christ in the Church than having to recognize him in the neighbor across the road with whom I am not talking to, or when I am talking about someone it’s not so easy to say what I feel like saying when I know that he or she, like me is a tabernacle of Spirit.