Acknowledging our Common Dignity as Human Beings

GOD CREATING MAN.
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In our initial article about Relationship with Others, we said that Christian love will be our way to extend our hands to them. For only through love that we can really become true witnesses of the Father, the Son and the holy Spirit, and through which we can truly and fully proclaim God to non-Christians. 

Today let us discuss about the importance of recognizing the common dignity that we all share as human beings having been made in His image and likeness and as children of the Father ultimately called to be one with Him in heaven. Nostra Aetate, Number 5, states that,

'No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between man and man or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned. 

'The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion. On the contrary, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, this sacred synod ardently implores the Christian faithful to "maintain good fellowship among the nations" [1 Peter 2:12], and, if possible, to live for their part in peace with all men, [Cf Romans 12:18] so that they may truly be sons of the Father who is in heaven.[Cf Matthew 5:45]'

Through the recognition of our common dignity as human beings, we are called to express in the most concrete manner the love of God which led Him to create everything, to send His only-begotten Son to redeem everyone from bondage to sin, and to send the Holy Spirit to guide the Church in its mission of continuing the saving act of the Lord Jesus Christ. As Christians, our most valued contribution to this world is the proclamation not only of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ but also the Gospel of human dignity which the Lord Jesus Christ has even sanctified by becoming man himself. Hence the ultimate foundation of human dignity is the Incarnation of the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the only-begotten Son of the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ. In Redemptor Hominis [number 8] it is stated that,

'"He who is the 'image of the invisible God [Col 1:15], is himself the perfect man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin. Human nature, by the very fact that it was assumed, not absorbed, in him, has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare. For by his incarnation, he, the son of God, 'in a certain way united himself with each man'. He worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved.'

Hence, without aiming to proselytize, we, Christians, proclaim the true dignity of the human being based on the fact that we are all created in the image and likeness of God, that we are all saved by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that we are all called to holiness and our bodies are now temples of the Holy Spirit. 

So based on the fact of human dignity we relate with non-Christians aiming to at least co-exist with them in peace and cooperation toward the building up of a truly civilized society. Though it is ultimately our aim that they may also become Christians and belong to the one Fold under one Shepherd as the Lord Jesus Christ wanted to happen [see John 10:16], we must never do it in such a way that instead of being attracted to the Lord, we may cause them to reject or disdain Him. 

We must never forget that He also said that the world will know that we are Christians if we love one another [see John 13: 34-35] and if we love even those who doesn't love us [see Matthew 5: 44-47]. So the best way for us to proclaim to the world the love of God is for us to love one another and to love even those who hate us.

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