Penny Catechism: In Whose Image and Likeness Did God Make You

 In Whose Image and Likeness Did God Make You?    God made me in His own Image and Likeness

As a child of 5 years this question and answer made no impression on me.   Nor indeed as I grew up, it was still just as vague.    Am I the image of God?   Does God have a body like I have?   I suppose many others must have struggled like myself, for in all my 83 years I have never heard any comment on the matter from layman, priest, bishop or Pope, although having now asked I am sure there are plenty of people who will refer me to some work by some scholar or saint.   But as I struggled with the matter only days ago the Book of Genesis came into my mind.

God said "Let there be light, and there was light.   And God saw that the light was GOOD"

Then in all the passages up to the seventh day, whatever He was Creating, God saw that it was GOOD.   What God was doing was appreciating what He had created.    He saw beauty in the stars and in the sky at night, he saw beauty in the flowers and trees, in the waves that beat the shore, in the trees that lined the hills, in the beauty of the life he had created in the seas and on land.   He saw it was all GOOD.    But there was nothing in His creation that shared his vision and saw everything as GOOD

Then God said "Let us create man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves"   So mankind was created to see the beauty of his creation and to tend and care for it.     Being made in the image of God man could see the world as God saw it, it was GOOD.   But also God created Man with love and able to love as God loves.   To love the world around  which God had made.   My wife frequently goes out at night when the stars are shining to give thanksgiving to God for the beauty she sees in the sky.  The moon and the stars - so beautiful.    She sees beauty because she is made in the image of God.   That was why God made her.   She also is very keen on Gardening and has the intelligence that God gave her as a person, to cultivate the earth, to grow flowers, plant vegetables, and in a way 'create' as God creates    Being made in the image of God is wonderful, for we learn, as we reap and sow, to love the God who made this possible.













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