Then God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the
air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that
crawl on the ground.”
God created man in his image;
in the divine image he created him;
male and female he created them.
…God looked at everything he
had made, and he found it very good (Gn 1:26-31).
The
dignity of the human person is there, in our Creation Story. Man and woman were
created to be like God and to be with God; to have rule over all the Earth. This
divine worth is shared among all humans, of every race, tongue, and age. As
Blessed John Paul II said in his 1995 address
to the United Nations, “Each and every human person has been created in the
‘image and likeness’ of the One who is the origin of all that is.”
The
inherent dignity of every human person
is especially important to remember in America today, as we celebrate Martin
Luther King, Jr. Day. In the face of
deep-seated hatred and racism, Martin Luther King, Jr. changed this nation with
a dream: that America would one day be “a country where every man will
respect the dignity and worth of the human personality.”
He peacefully stood with his
brothers, preaching the divine worth and equality of every human person, no
matter what color or race. He was murdered for this vision, but
his witness lives on and continues to change hearts throughout
the world.
Martin
Luther King, Jr.’s dream of equality is something we must continue to fight
for. Tomorrow, January 22, marks the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case that
legalized abortion in America. Millions of unborn children have been murdered
in their mothers’ wombs over the last 40 years. Each day, babies continue
to lose their lives to the culture of death.
