The Glory of God on Your Face -UPDATED

The Glory of God on Your Face -UPDATED September 30, 2010

Nothing thrills a writer more than to read something and tsk wistfully about it, “boy, I wish I’d written that!”

Which is how I began my morning. Thrilled and wistful!

The great Pat Gohn has written something truly wise, wonderful and valuable in Something of the Glory of God Shines in Your Face. I’m calling it today’s must-read:

If we lined up all the major issues of Catholic social teaching and compared them to the Himalayas, the “dignity of the human person” would be Mount Everest… the most magnificent and tallest peak dwarfing the rest. All other social teachings fall under the shadow cast by the dignity of the human person. Not only that, but all other social actions gain their legitimacy from how well they affirm the dignity of the human person.

There are two major reasons why this is true.

But first, here’s little riddle from catechism class that will help us uncover the reason: What are the only man-made things in heaven? Take you time. Puzzle it out. We can wait…

Answer: The nail prints on the hands and feet of Jesus, and the scar in his side.

Why?

Jesus still has a human body. The omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent almighty Savior of the World still has a human body, albeit a glorified one.

The post-resurrection Gospel accounts verify its amazing properties: walking through walls, startling appearances and disappearances (Cf. Luke 24: 31, 36-43, John 20:19-20). Most famously Jesus appeared to Thomas and the apostles, permitting Thomas to probe the nail prints to assuage his doubt. (Cf. John 20:24-29.)

The Word become flesh (Cf. John 1:14). The Son of God incarnate is both God and man.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, par.469 and 470:

The Church thus confesses that Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother…

The Son of God. . . worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin.

Even now, that mystical Body is united with the Trinity. The body of Jesus was not some kind of disposable earthly transport vehicle. No. Jesus completely united himself to humanity in a permanent way.

Go read the rest. Pass it around. The title alone is something worth knowing.

The rest of it is pure gift.

Related:
Frank Weathers is writing about the human work in progress. They kind of go together!

UPDATE: Also, perhaps it is because of issues of Incarnation and Glory that these misbegotten “romantic comedies” flop at the box office.


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