Something special, dignified about humanity

Then Jesus came, He revealed God the Father to us, but we tend to forget the other “revealing” He did.
Jesus was/is the perfect man.  He revealed us to ourselves.  When humanity committed the Original Sin we became alienated from God, but we also became alienated from each other; we even became alienated from ourselves.  Jesus came to show us what or who we were meant to be, and He bestowed the grace on us so that we could be reconciled with Him, each other and ourselves.
In Matthew 19 the Pharisees are asking Jesus about marriage, divorce and remarriage.  They are trying to trap or trick Jesus (topic for a future reflection).  In response to their questions Jesus tells them that Moses allowed certain practices because of the hardness of his audience’s hearts, but Jesus goes on to tell his audience that in the beginning it was not so.  Jesus tells them, and tells us, that if we want to understand His teaching we have to go back to the beginning of our history.  He is telling us to go back to Creation and understand who we are and why we are. 
You see, we had forgotten who and why we are.  Once we have forgotten who and why we are then we begin to forget our value and from where it comes.  When we do that we tend to not see any real value in others or see their dignity.  I would argue that we as a modern culture have forgotten who we are.  
Look at how we treat each other.  Look at the violence and hostility in our culture.  We would not treat each other the way we do if we understood the value and dignity of ourselves and others.
For the next few offerings I would like to reflect on some of the lessons we can learn by, “going back to the beginning.”  We all know that we are obligated by our Baptism to share the Good News of Jesus.  We tend to focus on the fact that He saved us by dying and resurrecting, and that is true and good.  But the other dimension of the Good News is that there is something special and dignified about humanity.
— Pat Arensberg is the Director of the Office for Evangelization and Family Life. Email him at [email protected] 
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