Why is it so often such a struggle for us to do what is right? We start each day with the very best of intentions, and then somewhere along the line we mess up.
For those of you old enough to have been raised on the Baltimore Catechism, you will recall the first question, “Who made me”. The answer was “God made me”. I chose to believe that as “a matter of faith”. If I believed in God, then it was an easy leap to believe He made me. Not only did He make me but also, He made me in “His image and likeness. That part took a bit more work on my part. The catechism of the Catholic Church says this about being made in the image and likeness of God:
Jesus himself is the answer. It means to be holy and loving, to give oneself for the sake of others even to the point of death, so we might share eternally in God's life, our souls united again with our risen bodies. (Catechism, 459, 460).
As I got older, my understanding of the story of creation in Genesis grew from a literal to a figurative and symbolic story. I no longer believed, for instance, that creation took seven days, as we experience seven days. The kind sisters at school helped me to reconcile science and faith and how beautifully they fit together when viewed through the lens of faith.
It is clear when reading Genesis that Adam and Eve were special from all the other creatures. Being made in God’s image, it was possible for them to be drawn toward truth and love, and all the other great attributes we apply to God. They also had what no other creature had and that was a soul. The tricky part was the free will.
When Adam chose to believe the tempter’s lie, “You will be like gods”, he earned for us a weakness in our abilities to always choose what is right and good. Are we completely corrupt, as some believe? Absolutely not! The majority of our hearts and minds are ordered for good, for the glory of God. But, we did inherit a weakness of spirit that tells us that we can be “as gods”, and worse, make it sound perfectly rational.
So, what are we to do, gentle reader? Awareness is the answer. We spend more time being aware of the dangers the world poses for our goods than we do to the dangers to our souls. We lock our houses, put alarms on our cars, and wear white at night. We need to remind ourselves every morning that we will be tested to choose good over evil. Every time we choose virtue, we will be strengthened and will be in conformity with the “image and likeness of God”.
Have a wonderful and temptation free day.
6 comments:
Wonderful post! We were talking about Adam and Eve last night at RCIA!
My RCIA presentation is a bit different than today's post.
In RCIA and also with the kidlets, Adam becomes "that weenie who blamed his helpmate". Eve is "the typical vain women who caved when she was offered the old world version of botox".
Lessons learned? Women tend to be vain and have incredible power over men. And men should start each day by apologizing to their helpmates. If they don't know what it is they did wrong - don't worry, she will!
You know, I wish I could look at the Adam and Eve account from a Chardinian perspective. I think Chardin, in one of his publications, tried to reconcile evolution and original sin. I'm not sure which book he harmonized those two seemingly contradictory propositions, but that Chardin was an extraordinary man for having taken on such a formidable challenge.
As children we are taught that the answer to WHY God made us is so that we may know him better in this world before entering the next. Clearly, such a sophomoric response doesn’t satisfy as an answer to individuals who have a more mature understanding of things. I think Father Jude Eli had the best response: “It is in God’s nature to create.” God does not need a reason to create. He simply does so be cause it’s an intrinsic part of who He is.
Now, Adrienne, who were Adam and Eve historically? Well, some Catholic theologians believe that the first “Adam” and the first “Eve” were the first living creatures (human beings) to have been aware of themselves, and not some solitary ancestral couple who bare complete and absolute blame for the subsequent sinfulness of the generations that followed them.
I’m only scraping the tip of the iceberg on this stuff.
Tom
keep it up ... good stuff
i've not been on a lot - super busy at work
Tom - interesting point! I will throw a little fuel on the fire with this quote, "...avowed atheist scientists from Oxford University in England have identified seven ancestral matriarchal groups from which all Europeans appear to have descended. Every European according to the study, can trace his evolutionary history back to the seven ancestral mother groups, also referred to as the Seven Daughters of Eve. This corroborates the discovery of biochemists...at UCB who've shown that every man and woman on earth, past, present, and future, can be traced genetically to one human woman."
angela, is what you said a good thing or a bad thing?
tom, I really debated with myself about telling you this but, since we are friends now, well, I just have let it out. IMHO 'ol Pierre was either taking too many drugs or not enough.
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