Ordinary Time, Odd Year, Week No.

5, Tuesday
Today, the sacred author marks the differences between the creatures that are made by God
and the human being made also by God as his image and likeness. The big question is: what
does this image and likeness of God consist of? Theologians of all the centuries have searched
for an answer to better immerse themselves in these abundant and healthy waters of the
word. The same Word gives us a first answer about what it means to be an image and likeness.
It does not say so of the soul or the body, nor does it say so of the intelligence, nor of the will.
The first difference we notice is; between this creature that is in the image and likeness of God
and the others, is that only this creature receives the Word. It is the only thing that God speak
as a "You". Only this creature, the human being, that is, us, is God's interlocutor. Only the
human being can welcome, he can receive the Word. While the creatures are made, but they
remain as without space to receive it. The human being is that marvelous creature, which,
made by God, has a space to receive God himself.
In the same reading, we can also find another feature of that image and likeness: only to this
creature to whom God can speak, he says: "Dominate over other creatures." Only this creature
receives a share in God's lordship over all things. It is clear in the story that God is the sole
owner and lord of everything and that everything belongs to him from the most intimate root
of his being. But, when God tells the human being: "Dominate over the creatures", he is
participating in his own dominion, he is giving him something that in some way is his and that
belongs completely to him because he is the creator.
The word Dominate (in Spanish and English) comes from the Latin word "dominus" which
means lord. It is as if God told the human being: "You are going to be the lord in all these
creatures." And thus, in his dominion over all creation, man has as a continuous reminder of
what God is over all creation.
Let's end by saying that man is not called to be a slave to somebody or to anything, well if he
can be a slave to something, that can only be love. May only love have power in my heart.
Only the love of the creator, only the love of the redeemer. When this happens, we have
holiness and when this happens we have Christ himself in the full realization of the human
being and when this happens we have at the same time the true vicar, the true administrator,
the same lord that the LORD wants.
Today we have to tell all humanity what it means to be Human. We must preach to men and
women: How precious they are in the eyes of God! Because many times, due to their own
choices, convictions, social status, people can come to despise themselves. They do not know
that they carry within themselves the treasure of representing the CREATOR of all things.