Is our being made in the image and likeness of God something invisible, something confined, perhaps, to the soul? But if so, then it is not an image, for an image is, by its nature, something that can be seem. And, in fact, we can see the im age -not in the momentary flash of photography, but int he demeanor that reveals a life: in the goodness of a mother, in the uprightness of a husband, in the fidelity of a friend in our time of trouble, in the patience of one whi suffers, in the gentleness and maturity of one who prays. When we see the signs, we are seeing the image of God. Those who were able to observe the inexhaustible patience, the steadfastness, and the kindness with which Brother Konrad performed his duty as porter day after day, saw the image of God illumined in him. Even atheists who heard Maximillian Kolbe singing in the bunker where he was being starved to death and saw his glowing countenance were compelled against their will to recognize there something of the brilliance of the totally Other. The hungry and dying who were gathered from the streets of Calcutta by Mother Theres’s Missionaries of Charity and were embraced with a love hitherto unknown to them saw, in very fact, that there is a God. “Let us make mankind in our image, according to our likeness” (Gen 1:26)! And only when we ourselves begin to live thus we can begin to understand, can we comprehend at the same time both our beginning and our goal, our whence and our whither, which are inseparable one from the other. Let us create mankind that there may be an image and a likeness of us!
From: Unpublished homily given at the 88th Deutschen Katholikentag, 7/5/1984
