Lent and the Image of God in us

During Lent, the term ‘self-denial’ is often used.  It can be misunderstood easily.  A better term would be self-constraint.  We do not deny ourselves or our humanity but there are aspects of our humanity which do need to be brought into line so that we do not take paths that lead away from what is good, and such paths can lead us into doing real evil.

Human beings – you and I – are made in the image of God.  This is a statement which is made in the accounts of God’s creation of human beings.  There it is said: “God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them” (Genesis 1.22).

These words – although appearing in the first chapters of the Bible – were written late in the biblical tradition and so are the result of much spiritual and theological reflection in the old testament.  These words speak of the deep and unbreakable relationship with God which is inherent in every human being.  The creator leaves his imprint on us and his Spirit never ceases to stir us from within.  We should never neglect this inner relationship which we have with the living God.  And this is especially so during Lent.

At times the phrase ‘in the image of God’ has been expanded to being made “in the image and likeness” of God.  The image of God never ceases to be within us but what we seek is to increase the ‘likeness’ of God within us.  And so during Lent we are seeking to do just that – to increase the likeness to God within us, that is to become more godlike.

And the way in which we do that is to attend to the words and the ways of Jesus Christ as we have them in the new testament books.  He is, St Paul tells us, the perfect image of the God we cannot see.  In the words and life of Jesus, we see what godlikeness is.  He is the perfect image of the God in whose image we are made.  In our likeness to him, we will find our true selves emerging. 

We cannot complete this task of being like Christ.  We keep repeating Lent each year because coming to be like Christ is a lifetime’s task and will only be complete when we are face to face with him.  Our conversion will be completed in our encounter with him as we pass from this life to the life of the future.  We will anticipate that ultimate gift in our celebration of Easter.

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin