Q. What does being made in the image of a gift have to do with the Christian life or even the virtuous life?
A. An iPod that actually plays music is a more real iPod than one that doesn't; if indeed we are made in God’s image - in the image of a gift - then the human who gives himself is a more real human than one who doesn't give himself.
A gift that is not given in exchange for anything is more really a gift than one that is. Also, a gift that cannot be reclaimed, is more really a gift than one that can. Similarly, a person who gives himself without expecting anything in exchange and without possibility of reclaiming himself is a more real human.
But this realness is not something that comes passively - we have to work at it. One American writes, "The human self is not a given, an object, an essence, whose essential nature is unchangeable and guaranteed like everything else in the cosmos. Triangles can never be non-triangular and rocks are always guaranteed to be rocky and grass is always grassy, and dogs are always doggy, and cats are always catty. But humans can be inhuman. We alone can fail to achieve our nature. Our nature is a task given to us to achieve. Not a fact given to us simply to receive."
And an Italian adds, "Just as virtue can raise a person above human nature, vice can lower those whom it has seduced from the condition of men beneath human nature. For this reason, anyone whom you find transformed by vice cannot really be counted a man."
Man must give himself. But you cannot give what you don’t have. Thus, to give ourselves, we must first own, repossess ourselves. This is the whole adventure of human life summarised: re-possessing ourselves. The two realities that make repossession a life-long, uphill and seemingly impossible, task are sin and vice. The two realities that make it a life-long, gratifying and very possible task are grace and virtue.
We get grace through prayer and the sacraments. We get virtue through good families and good friendships.
16thAugust 2015