It is said that we are made in the image and likeness of God.

Sometimes this doesn’t seem very likely.

Look at the “images and likenesses” that can settle into our hearts. Think about marriage, that institution which cradles the future of—not just of its delicate offspring—but also of the whole society, and which has become just a temporary arrangement, “just for the time being,” followed by divorce.

And wouldn’t you agree that sexual mores in the Western world are in the process of firmly and finally divorcing themselves from consideration of commitment, responsibility and care?

Aren’t we tempted to addict ourselves to convenience, entertainment, internet, drinks, drugs, pleasures, pornography, and so on?

And how about the increasing number of very well known people—even priests and even bishops—who have wrecked the lives of children, some well-knowns still reaping pleasure from youths while still professing to be dedicated to the one who said “there is no greater love than to give up your life for your friend”?

I know, I know, the good has to be factored in as well. But with so much powerful evil stirred into the mix, what can be left of the image of God in human beings?

The poet e e cummings wrote a particularly strong poem that includes the following lines:

King Christ, this world is all a-leak,
and life preservers there are none,
and waves that only he can walk
who dares to call himself a man.*

By “man,” cummings means “human being,” of course, and the one he refers to in this poem did in fact become a man, one named Jesus. He let his “boat” be rocked and wrecked and finally sunk. Then he arose and walked and continues to walk the waves of our rough, drowning world.

He is a man in the image and likeness of God.

Within himself, in the place where it matters most, Jesus has complete openness to love. He lets it come in and he lets it go out to others.

Do you and I dare to unite with the image of such a human being? Deep within our own selves, in imitation of Jesus, are we capable of making room for such love? Can love-incarnate come to life in us if we gradually allow it to?

Yes.

Love-incarnate wants to unite with us in the deep image and likeness of God. You and I have been created in it. This is the “image and likeness” we are made for.

If we addict ourselves instead, if we “exalt” ourselves, as Jesus puts it in the Gospel, we will wrap our souls in layer after layer of fraud. We will try to become our possessions, we will try to become what other people think of us, what culture manipulates us to be.

Our tiny boats of life actually are ship-worthy after all. If only we do not think they are ocean liners, able to grab whatever we want, we will “conduct our affairs with humility” (First Reading); we will allow God to love us and live in us.

And then we will be able to make a difference in the world. We will become the image and likeness of God’s tolerance shining forth.